Dear Dr. Deena Bishop, Alaska commissioner of education, I write not with applause, but with profound disappointment and urgency.
Your recent celebration of an executive order to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education and shift power to state and local entities is not only alarming, it is dangerous. Your participation in and endorsement of this agenda, which seeks to strip away federal protections and oversight, sends a clear and unsettling message: The well-being of marginalized students is no longer your concern.
What makes this even more troubling is the glaring hypocrisy. As former superintendent of the Anchorage School District, you stood firmly behind equity. You created the Department of Equity and Inclusion and publicly supported initiatives aimed at dismantling systemic racism, closing opportunity gaps, and protecting the rights of our most vulnerable students. Now, as Alaska’s education commissioner, you have not only abandoned those principles but you are actively using your position to promote policies that will directly harm the very children you once pledged to uplift. That is not leadership. It is betrayal.
Let’s be clear: the U.S. Department of Education exists to serve as a safeguard ensuring that no matter where a child lives, they have access to a fair and equitable education. For countless families — especially Black, Indigenous, rural and disabled communities — federal oversight is not bureaucratic overreach. It is the only line of defense against the systemic neglect that many state systems, including the one Gov. Dunleavy currently leads, have perpetuated for generations.
History has shown us what happens when the federal government abdicates its role in education. Reagan-era decentralization gutted funding, weakened civil rights protections and allowed inequities to flourish unchecked. To repeat that mistake in 2025 while cloaking it in the language of “local control” is not just shortsighted. It is a deliberate choice to turn your back on the very students you once claimed to champion.
The truth is, Alaska’s education system is already in crisis. We have some of the lowest reading and math scores in the nation, a persistent educator shortage, and some of the widest achievement gaps for Indigenous, Black and low-income students. This push to eliminate federal guardrails will not solve these problems. It will make them worse. It will leave our most vulnerable children further behind, with even fewer protections and even less hope for a just, equitable and adequate education as the Alaska state Constitution calls for and demands.
As an Alaskan, an educator and the Alaska Education Chair of the NAACP Alaska, Oregon and Washington State Area Conference, I will not sit quietly while our state is held up as a model for dismantling public education. You do not speak for all of us. And you certainly do not represent the values of those who believe education is a human right not a political tool.
Roz’lyn Grady-Wyche is the Alaska Education Chair of the NAACP Alaska, Oregon and Washington State Area Conference.
