The state of Alaska’s Department of Education and Early Development (DEED) counts enrollment for funding purposes during a week-long count period shortly after school starts. Last year, 2006, the enrollment in statewide correspondence schools (SWC) was 6853 students. That’s 6853 students enrolled outside of their home district who have no political representation in the district in which they are enrolled.

Source: Alaska DEED Statewide Correspondence Students by Home Community Spreadsheet, October 2006 Count Period

Of course, Anchorage, our largest city, has the highest number of its residents enrolled outside its district boundaries at 2377. That’s a lot of money that goes to other school districts. A lot of money that is not used to educate the student. Average amount kept by a SWC for its local district is $1037/student so that’s about $2.4 million dollars Anchorage parents forfeit in materials and services by enrolling their kids in an out-of-district SWC.

When an Anchorage family enrolls their kids in Galena’s IDEA program are they told that they will not receive the full benefits of the legislature’s Base Student Allocation (BSA)? Are they shown that $1266 will be taken from their child’s BSA? The fact of the matter is 30% of the BSA is skimmed from each IDEA student and kept for the Galena City Schools. It is never spent on the kids enrolled in IDEA. Instead, they are told that SWC students are being treated unfairly by having their purchasing choices limited by the state and they should petition the State Board to have restrictions lifted. Incredible!

For years we’ve speculated how much the SWC’s skim from their students doing back-of-the-envelope calculations. It’s a far greater amount than we guessed. Now that they have been required to report their revenues and expenses it’s plain to see that these schools operate as cash cows for their districts and not for the altruistic reason that they ‘care.’ How can this happen? How can so many families know so little about the school in which their kids are enrolled? It’s because the schools are not subject to local control and thus not in any way accountable to their enrolled constituency.

If those Anchorage students were enrolled in one of the homeschool charters, Family Partnership or Frontier, they would receive 100% of their net SBA in services and allotment, not 70%. They would have the opportunity to participate in the school’s governance as well as the district’s governance. They would have greater freedom in spending their allocation. All because of local control.

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