There is no chance that the House Education Republican Wrecking Crew will have its way requiring written parental approval for children to learn or try anything new in the public schools.

But just because the wrecking crew—Jamie Allard, Mike Prax, Tom McKay and Justin Ruffridge—have fallen flat with rules that will never become law, their handiwork should not pass without public review.

The three non-Republican minority members of the committee—Andi Story, Rebecca Himschoot, and CJ McCormick—tried, but were unable to repair the damage. The Senate will take care of that.

James Brooks of the Alaska Beacon has good coverage, as does Iris Samuels of the Anchorage Daily News and Mark Sabbatini of the Juneau Empire.

At a time when young Alaskans need high quality schools more than ever, we are burdened with Republican experts who don’t trust teachers, don’t trust school administrators, don’t trust school boards, don’t trust parents and don’t trust students.

The GOP experts trust themselves to have all the answers because they went to school as children and they are in a mood to spread manufactured outrage. They trust they can succeed with noise about “parental rights,” not with substance about preparing kids for the future or respecting families.

The wrecking crew has taken a bad bill from fellow expert Gov. Mike Dunleavy and performed a miracle, making it more impractical and less workable.

Under their plan, parental permission slips would be needed almost every time a teacher has an idea to do something different on any field from algebra to zoology. This is Soviet-style thinking from Alaska’s pooh-bahs.

It seems they want the public schools to fail and discourage good people from entering the teaching profession, so they can stand back and say, “Look, the schools are failing and we need to cut pay for teachers.”

Prax outdid himself by attacking the idea that we should have mandatory school attendance in the United States.

“That was the original mistake,” Prax moaned.

“We should have asked ourselves: What crime did parents commit by allowing their children to turn 7, that they have to be sent to school?”

We should ask ourselves what crime did we commit by having to hear Prax preach about education?

I have written before about an event several years ago when I said that reducing the Permanent Fund dividend to support education was a good tradeoff. This enraged the normally mild-mannered Prax, who said I had no right to hold that opinion.

After the presentation at the Noel Wien Library, Prax jabbed his index finger in the air at me and began screaming. He called me a “God-damned thief,” among other things.

When I said that stating an opinion about public policy is not theft, he did not want to hear it. He said if I wanted more money to go to the university, it should come out of my pocket and that I should not force him to pay for it through government theft.

About the wrecking crew idea of flooding families and schools with permission slips, it would be an administrative nightmare. And it would put thousands of kids at a disadvantage because they forgot to get permission slips, they lost permission slips or their parents refused to deal with permission slips. All of this would damage public education.

This rule will never pass the Legislature, but the amended wrecking crew bill is a dangerous distraction from the real issue—the state’s continued failure to provide adequate funding to attract the best teachers and administrators, which is what most Alaska parents really want.

Your contributions help support independent analysis and political commentary by Alaska reporter and author Dermot Cole. Thank you for reading and for your support. Either click here to use PayPal or send checks to: Dermot Cole, Box 10673, Fairbanks, AK 99710-0673.

dermotmcole@gmail.com