LETTER: Separate is not equal and Alaska should know better

Published 1:30 pm Sunday, May 3, 2026

As a leader within the NAACP, I do not take lightly the responsibility to speak when history echoes in our present. Right now in Alaska, we are hearing those echoes.

Across our state, conversations around “school choice” and the shifting of resources away from public education are being framed as progress. But for many of our most vulnerable communities especially Alaska Native villages and our urban neighborhoods these policies are not expanding opportunity. They are reinforcing isolation. And that should concern all of us because we have seen this before.

Before Plessy v. Ferguson, legalized segregation under the false promise of “separate but equal,” Black children in this country were systematically placed in underfunded, under-resourced schools, schools that were separate by design and unequal in reality.

That history is not distant. It is instructive. Today, many Alaska Native village schools and schools in our urban communities face chronic underfunding, school closures, limited access to advanced coursework, and high teacher turnover. In rural Alaska, geographic isolation restricts opportunity. But in urban areas, inequity shows up differently through overcrowded classrooms, under-resourced neighborhood schools, and opportunity gaps that fall along lines of race, income, and zip code.

Different geography. Same pattern of inequity. Students in urban districts like Anchorage may technically have more schools around them but access does not equal opportunity. Not every family can navigate enrollment systems, provide transportation, or take advantage of alternative options. And when resources are pulled from neighborhood public schools, those schools often serving Black, Brown, Indigenous and working-class students are left with even less. Let’s be clear, this is not about blaming communities. This is about systems. When we shift funding away from public education in the name of “choice,” we must ask: choice for whom?

Because families in rural Alaska often do not have multiple schooling options, there is no network of private schools nearby.

There is no transportation infrastructure to support daily movement between districts. There is one school. And in urban communities, while there may be more options on paper, the reality is that access is uneven, information is inconsistent, and barriers economic, logistical, and systemic limit who can truly benefit.

So when neighborhood schools are underfunded, when they struggle to recruit and retain educators, when they lack the same opportunities as more resourced schools, we are not creating choice. We are creating inequity. The pattern is recognizable: systems that allow some communities to thrive while others are left with less and told it is enough. The NAACP has always stood on the principle that education is a civil right. Not a privilege. Not a commodity. A right. And rights must be protected.

Public education is one of the few institutions designed to serve all children regardless of zip code, income, race, or background. It is where we invest collectively in the next generation. It is where we build not just individual success, but shared responsibility. When we weaken that system, we do not create innovation. We create gaps. And those gaps fall hardest on communities that have already been asked to do more with less.

This is why the fight for public education in Alaska is not just a policy issue. It is a civil rights issue. We must invest in our public schools especially those in rural, Alaska Native, and urban communities that have been historically underserved.

We must ensure equitable funding, culturally responsive education, and access to the same opportunities afforded elsewhere (private homeschools and/or private schools). And we must reject any narrative that suggests that separation by geography, by resources, or by policy can ever be equal.

Because history has already taught us the truth.

Separate is not equal. It never was. And it never will be. Roz’lyn Grady-Wyche is the Alaska state education chair for NAACP Tri-State Area Conference.