Alaska Supreme Court Upholds Correspondence Study Program Laws

Alaska laws that allot public funds to each student in the state’s correspondence study program are constitutional despite allowing payments for nonsectarian materials, the state’s highest court said.

The March 28 opinion by Justice Dario Borghesan reversed a lower court, ruling that the program is constitutional because it has a legitimate sweep.

An Alaska Superior Court had ruled that the correspondence program laws facially violated a state constitutional provision that prohibits the use of “public funds for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.”

The correspondence program differs from home schooling in that participants are affiliated ...