OPINION: If we work together, we can turn Alaska’s schools around

As mothers and as faith leaders within the inclusive Unitarian Universalist tradition, we believe in the power of public education to cultivate the future citizens of our multicultural American democracy. Public schools are a core democratic institution because they are open to all children, offering young people from all backgrounds the opportunity to learn the skills, knowledge and habits that will serve them and the broader society in the future. Because public schools introduce students to new ideas, experiences, and cultures, they learn to interact with people and ideas who are different from them — a necessary skill in a complex, interconnected world — and they come to understand themselves better as they see themselves reflected in what they’re learning.

This is why it’s so important not only to fund public education robustly, but to keep public schools as safe spaces where the full range of human experiences and ideas can be explored in developmentally appropriate ways. And this is why we strongly support SB 52 and SB 65 — bills pending in the Alaska Legislature that would raise and even inflation-proof the BSA — and appreciate the legislators and community members who are working to pass them. Equally strongly, we oppose HB 105, SB 96, and any other legislative attempt to silence school discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity and to make schools less safe for LGBTQ students.

We believe that our vision for public education is shared by a majority of Americans and Alaskans, but we are acutely aware that it is not universally shared. There are strands of conservative ideology in the U.S. that want education to impart a strict version of Christian values instead of teaching for citizenship in a multicultural world. People who hold these views often don’t want children exposed to broad ideas about race, gender and sexuality, and would prefer that taxpayer funds be used to pay for private and religious schools. In their most extreme form, these ideologies hold that the public schools should be replaced by a network of Christian schools, and that a strict version of Christian beliefs and values should govern all aspects of American life: government, media, business, education and more. This viewpoint has come to be called “Christian nationalism,” and it is driving several of the recent trends in American politics: the push to privatize schools; the loss of abortion rights at the national level; and the backlash against LGBTQ rights.

Each of these trends, along with the ideology behind them, runs counter to the idea of the U.S. as a democracy where many cultures, beliefs and worldviews can coexist. By seeking to impose strict Christian values on all Americans, this ideology would trample our First Amendment right to practice any religion or no religion at all, and would breach the separation of church and state. Mainstream Christians generally don’t share these views, and can be found pushing back through organizations like Christians Against Christian Nationalism.

As leaders and members of a big-tent faith tradition, we are fully committed to our nation’s foundational principles of religious freedom and church-state separation. As mothers, we believe in the importance of public education as a democratizing force. We have seen the promise of public education coming to life in our own children, as they learn to think creatively, engage in the world around them with curiosity, and be involved citizens. The public schools are not perfect — no human institution is — but they are places where our children learn about the multifaceted world we live in and practice being a part of it.

In Alaska, our public schools have been flat-funded for years, and the result has been school closures, larger class sizes, fewer program options, less support for struggling students, and deteriorating educational outcomes. We can turn that around by giving our public schools the financial support they need to continue nurturing future citizens and providing a safe space for all students. Please join us in urging our legislative representatives to raise and inflation-proof the BSA, and to reject any legislation that would marginalize LGBTQ youth in our public schools.

Rebecca Bernard is an Anchorage lawyer and candidate for Unitarian Universalist ministry. Rev. Leslie Ahuvah Fails is Settled Minister of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Fairbanks. Rev. Lise Adams Sherry is Settled Minister of the Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. All are moms whose children attend, will attend or graduated from public schools.

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