Imagine a school of nearly 23,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade with thousands of teachers. There are no licensing requirements for any of the teachers who work at this school, and families who send their children are given state funding to attend. There are no curricular requirements, and they can spend the money on virtually anything they want. There is an expectation that all students are learning core subjects and skills in reading, writing and math, but there is no way to determine if this is actually happening for each student, and there are no requirements to assess any educational outcomes.

The governor recently stated, “It is difficult to accept — here’s a check, go do what you want” in reference to increasing the base student allocation (BSA) for public education in a recent press conference. And based on those comments it would be hard to imagine this is the very system he seeks to expand — Alaska’s homeschool programs — that account for nearly 20% of the student population in the state.

While some homeschool families are diligently educating their children resulting in positive outcomes, others don’t engage at all in the professional work of teaching a student basic skills, but this isn’t immediately obvious as homeschool students have the lowest test participation rates in the state and no assessment requirement of any kind. Anecdotally, as an elementary school principal, I see the majority of students that enroll in neighborhood schools after homeschool need significant remediation due to a lack of state-provided structure. In this way, the state gets a poor return on their investment as they are paying for the same service two times.

Imagine a third grader entering their community school for the first time. The excitement of the classroom, the social interactions with peers, the joys of classroom activities and community building circles. And then the student quickly realizes there is something off. You see, this particular student did not know all their letters while all their peers are reading. Luckily, we have a data and accountability system to identify, monitor and support a student when they are so far below their peers. And this story is not unique. It happens every single year. We are so glad when families realize on their own that their children are falling behind and choose to seek out more support, but many parents do not even know how far behind their children are because there is no measuring stick required.

Every year we commit massive resources to these students, and in most cases, we are able to make significant gains in closing the learning gap over the course of a couple years. The vast majority make tremendous growth — a testament to the high-quality instruction they receive! But not without a cost. The cost comes in many ways. First, when they come to the neighborhood school, we are held accountable in our AK STAR testing data for the time they were not making progress in the homeschool setting. Second, the amount of time required in a one-on-one or small group setting with an Interventionist teacher is significant to catch a student up. Third, it holds everyone back in a general education classroom causing further inefficiencies negatively impacting all student outcomes.

Not only are homeschools held to a lower standard when it comes to training (there is none), they also are exempt from nearly all the things the state requires neighborhood schools to do. The READS act is optional and anyone who has compared individualized education programs from homeschools to neighborhood schools knows that disabled homeschooled students receive a fraction of the help.

Senator Hughes in the Senate majority press conference on Feb. 13 touted Tennessee’s homeschool program as an example of a direction to go where they provide a bigger government giveaway of $7,000 with $0 going to school district correspondence programs. But Tennessee’s system isn’t remotely similar to Alaska’s. Tennessee statutes provide many more restrictions and substantially higher accountability than the senator has proposed. In Tennessee, homeschool parents are required to have at least a high school diploma, students are required to take standardized tests administered by a professional testing service, parents must maintain and report attendance records to the local school district, students must have a minimum of four hours of instruction per day, and if they are not making progress, they are required to enroll in a school to name just a few.

In the current regulatory structure in Alaska, homeschools are in a race to the bottom. The program that enrolls the most students wins, and the “winner” in this case has the lowest student success. Make no mistake, homeschool programs are cash cows for districts. Parents will choose to enroll their children in the program that has the least requirements and accountability, and as a result, Alaskans are getting a very poor return on their investment while doing a disservice to thousands of children.

One cost-effective way to improve educational outcomes is simple: Maintain the same expectations for both homeschool and neighborhood schools including standardized tests, and incentivize homeschool programs to increase their standards instead of decrease them. This way we ensure Alaskans are getting the best return on their investment. And yes, I agree wholeheartedly with the governor on two things — stop writing a blank check to 20% of our education system that has no measurable educational outcomes and make some desperately needed policy changes to eliminate the inefficiencies the current homeschool structure creates for the entire system.

Eric Waltenbaugh is the principal of West Homer Elementary School. The opinions expressed in this article are his own, not necessarily reflective of the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District.