Dunleavy abandons 'petition' pretense in state-funded ad campaign attacking teachers

The Dunleavy administration has dropped the false claim in a state-funded political ad campaign that it is gathering signatures on “petitions” for parental rights and education reform.

The petition pretense was dropped after I wrote about it here on June 3. The governor’s office published ads seeking signatures for two petitions. I asked the governor’s office for the petitions and was first told to click on one of the ads. When I asked for the text of the petitions, I received no reply.

There are no petitions, just a state effort at data mining to bolster a political campaign by Dunleavy. He is using the ads to build a mailing list and attack opponents of his failed bills to pay bonuses to teachers and allow his supporters on the state school board to create new charter schools. Dunleavy wants to reduce the power of local school boards, whose members are not appointed by him.

Whle the new ads do not claim that petitions exist, they ask for names and addresses of those who want “reform” and “choice.”

To Dunleavy, reform means creating more charter schools and choice means directing public funds to private schools, which is unconstitutional. Dunleavy wants to change the Alaska Constitution to legalize giving public funds to private schools, but doesn’t admit that in his ad campaign.

The ads use different come-ons including “Who was your favorite teacher?’ and “Your parental rights are at stake” and “Why do education associations oppose school choice?” in an effort to draw leads for the state data-mining operation.

The ads quote Dunleavy attacking unionized teachers and school districts. Dunleavy will claim he is not attacking teachers, but only the unions that represent teachers and others in education, as if the union members are helpless saps controlled by cigar-smoking white men in back rooms who want to take away the rights of parents.

The governor’s office has yet to explain why it falsely claimed to be gathering signatures for education petitions.

Dunleavy did this in a similiar 2019 data-mining exercise that led to an ethics complaint.

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