Alignment of Alaska’s Educational Programs from Pre-School through Graduate Study: A First Look

Too many Alaska students leave formal education unprepared for their next steps in life. Too many drop out of high school; too few high-school graduates go on to post-secondary education; and too few of those who do enroll in post-secondary education graduate in a timely manner. Employers report that a substantial number of young people who enter the work world directly after graduating from high school (or after dropping out) lack the reading, writing, and math skills necessary for many of today’s jobs, even at entry level. Ideally, the various components of the education system would be structured so that as children or young people complete each step, they would be adequately prepared for the next. In practice, this is often not the case. Students arrive at kindergarten and again at college, vocational training, or work unprepared for the challenges they face and without the skills their teachers, professors, or employers expect. Alaska is not alone in these problems, and many states are focusing on alignment as a possible response. Policymakers and others are studying how students progress through the entire education system—from pre-school through college, graduate study, or career training. As defined above, alignment would coordinate the work of institutions providing different levels of education. Educators in K-12 and early childhood programs would agree on what children should know and be able to do when entering kindergarten (or first grade)—and on how those skills and abilities would be taught and assessed. Likewise, employers, institutions of higher education, and K-12 schools would work together to reach similar agreements on what young people need to know to enter the workforce or college. Alignment efforts bring together policymakers and practitioners from all levels of education to identify what needs to be done to achieve this coordination and to oversee the work. The first section of this report looks at alignment of early childhood programs and K-12 education. Why is it important to begin alignment at the level of early childhood education? Research has demonstrated the strong effect of quality early childhood education on later educational outcomes. Among the best-known research is the High/Scope Perry Preschool study, which followed 120 children from the time they attended that preschool in the 1960s, at ages 3 or 4, until they were age 40.1 Schweinhart, et al. (1993) looked at program participants through age 27 and estimated that the program had produced savings to taxpayers of over $7 for each dollar spent. Program participants were less likely to need special education services throughout their school careers, less likely to commit crimes, and less likely to receive welfare—and they alsoearned more and paid higher taxes than non-participants. Other studies have found that children who participate in quality early childhood education programs are less likely to be retained in grade, placed in special education, or drop out of high school (Schweinhart 1994). In Alaska, public early childhood education is limited to federally mandated special education and federally funded (with state supplemental funding) Head Start programs. These programs together enroll about 16% of 3-year-olds and 22% of 4-year-olds in the state. Many more students in urban areas are enrolled in some form of private pre-school. Head start programs exist in more than 75 Alaska communities and are run by 16 different grantees, which have varying degrees of coordination with their local K-12 districts and with each other. The second focus of this report is readiness of Alaska high-school graduates for post-secondary education or work. Alaska’s colleges and universities find that many of their entering students— even those with good grades in high school—aren’t ready for college-level work. Again, national research affirms that Alaska’s problems are not unique. Callan, Finney, Kirst, Usdan, and Venezia (2006) report “The more difficult challenge for students is becoming prepared academically for college coursework. Once students enter college, about half of them learn that they are not prepared for college-level courses. Forty percent of students at four-year institutions and 63 percent at two-year colleges take remedial education. Additionally, high-school students face an incredibly complex system of placement tests and college admissions requirements.” A national survey of 431 employers about workforce readiness found that “When asked to assess new workforce entrants, employers report that many of the new entrants lack skills essential to job success… Over 40 percent (42.4 percent) of employer respondents rate new entrants with a high school diploma as ‘deficient’ in their overall preparation for the entry-level jobs they typically fill. Almost the same percentage (45.6 percent) rate the overall preparation of high school graduate entrants as ‘adequate,’ but almost no one (less than ½ of 1 percent—0.2 percent) rates their overall preparation as ‘excellent.’ ” 2 Anecdotal information from Alaska employers indicates that many young people entering the workforce in Alaska aren’t prepared for work, either. This report brings together available data on the scope of these problems in Alaska and discusses what other states have tried and what we can tell so far about what has worked. We identify areas that need more research and where there may not even be data to conduct research. Finally, we suggest steps the state can undertake now, while conducting research, to fill in the gaps.Avant-Garde Learning Foundation. Shell Exploration and Production Alaska

Innovations and Collaboration to Influence Policy and Practice: Global Deans Speak

For the second consecutive year, education deans and other institutional leaders from around the globe gathered on the campus of East China Normal University (ECNU) for the Global Education Deans Forum (GEDF), October 24–25, 2019. Participants came from 10 countries/regions across 5 continents for 2 days of conversations, which included Australia (2), Canada (2), Chinese mainland (8), Hong Kong SAR (2), Ireland (1), Korea (1), Singapore (1), South Africa (1), Spain (2), the United Kingdom (3), and the United States (11). Based on suggestions from 2018 GEDF participants, the focus for conversations was: Increasing the influence of university research on educational policy and practice. Last year’s participants also requested that deans have time to describe promising innovations from their institutions

Getting it Together in Chevak A Case Study of a Youth Organization in a Rural Alaskan Village

The Chevak Village Youth Solution (CVYA) was developed in a rural Eskimo village (population 520) both to educate youth and to integrate them into functional roles in the community. CVYA is an entirely indigenous youth organization, created and managed by the youth and young adults of the village. It has evolved, in part, as a response to the problems of youth in the village. Until the Hootch Decree in 1976, adolescents left villages during their teenage years to attend boarding schools either in Alaska or in the lower 48. With the creation of village high schools, communities had to understand and relate to a group of adolescents who had previously gone through adolescence largely at a distance. In addition, the upheavals which have beset Eskimo communities have particularly affected youth who seem to be lost in both the old which is passing and the new one just into being. Functions of CYVA activities are social and/or recreational, economic; community service and educational; CYVA also encourages participation in organizing and facilitating activities. Involvement in CYVA builds on traditional Eskimo ways to facilitate skill transmission, express character ideas, and provide role models. Six tables summarize the narrative information. (BRR

Effective Schooling in Rural Alaska: Information for the Rural Effective Schools Project

Because rural Alaska educators were skeptical of the applicability to their teaching situations of various educational research results, researchers randomly surveyed rural Alaskan teachers to provide background information for the Rural Effective Schools Project and for educators who want to help rural schools increase their effectiveness. Three hundred four teachers (96% of those surveyed) responded by mail to questions about the use and effectiveness of teaching practices recommended nationally and for American Indian children, their preferred instructional methods, and their personal job satisfaction. In general, rural Alaskan teachers did not report frequent use of nationally recommended practices; rather , they used practices advocated in American Indian research literature such as hands-on and self-paced instruction. Only about half the teachers regularly assigned homework. Most expected their students to complete high school, but not to attend or complete college. Only about 40% felt their students' academic ability met or could be expected to meet national averages. For many teachers, academic progress represented a problem. Though satisfied with many aspects of their jobs, rural teachers reported frustrating relationships with district centers and little opportunity for professional growth. These findings have significant implications for the Rural Effective Schools Project. (SB)Alaska State Dept. of Education, Juneau; National Inst. of Education (ED) , Washington DC.Ye

Longitudinal Study of First-Year Students Rose Urban Rural Exchange Program

The Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Alaska Anchorage annually evaluates components of the Rose Urban Rural Exchange Program, to determine how well the program is achieving its purpose. The program's goal is to build understanding and a statewide sense of community-by bringing urban students to rural Alaska and rural students to urban Alaska, to help them learn about each other's cultures....In 2004, the Institute of Social and Economic (ISER) proposed, for the first time, to evaluate not only how the program did in the current year, but also to evaluate the program's lasting effects by collecting survey and interview data from students who had participated in the first year of the program, 2001....This report describes the background and research design. We will discuss the issue of lasting program efficacy in a later report. This report has four chapters. Following this brief introductory chapter, Chapter 2 describes the scope of the longitudinal evaluation. Chapter 3 provides information about the evaluation design, including development of the data collection instruments. Chapter 4 presents our preliminary findings about some of the data we have collected to this point. The appendixes include the interview protocol, pre- and post-visit questionnaires, and the urban and rural tests of knowledge.Alaska Humanities Foru

Special Olympics and Alaska's Special Education Students

The 2001 Special Olympics World Winter Games were held in Anchorage in March 2001, bringing close to 2,000 athletes with mental disabilities and more than 740 coaches from 70 countries to Alaska. As part of the planning for the 2001 winter games, the Game Organizing Committee established the Special Olympics School Enrichment Program. With funding from the U.S. Department of Education, the School Enrichment Program contracted with the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER), at the University of Alaska Anchorage, to learn more about Alaska’s special education students. Knowing how many special education students there are in Alaska, where they live, and what their disabilities are could be quite useful to Special Olympics Alaska in its efforts to recruit more school-age athletes into local area and school programs. Also, more information about Alaska’s special education students can also help Special Olympics Alaska move toward another of its goals: bringing children with and without disabilities together in classrooms, on the playing fields, and in other activities.SPECIAL OLYMPICS WORLD WINTER GAMES 2001 SCHOOL ENRICHMENT PROGRA

Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief The Educational and Occupational Aspirations, Plans, and Preferences of Eskimo Students on the Lower Yukon

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The Scientist-In-Residence Program: Final Evaluation

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Stalking the Schoolwork Module: Teaching Prospective Teachers to Write Historical Narratives

Few educational slogans have had more play over the last decade than “writing to learn”. The idea is intuitively appealing: that in striving to summarize, organize, synthesize, develop, and communicate ideas and information, we must, in the process, clarify and extend our own understandings. Many have championed the “writing to learn” cause. In the study described below, the first author, Vinten-Johansen, engaged his undergraduates, all of whom planned to teach, in a structured process of writing historical narratives. His purpose was to help them learn not only to make historical arguments in writing—a capacity that has applications far beyond academic history—but also to analyze the narratives of others as contestable products. In what follows, we examine the opportunities that Vinten-Johansen created to help students learn to write, the successive drafts of original narratives they produced, and their discussions of historical methods and reasoning. Our purpose is to explore whether a highly structured experience in writing historical narratives does help students learn this form of writing and the character of historical knowledge

Governing Schools in Culturally Different Communities: Effects of Decentralization in Rural Alaska

Decentralized in 1976, rural Alaska's schools today experience varying levels of lay control. What factors condition lay participation in and influence on school governance? This study examines two factors: the type of governance issue; and the type of community. The hypotheses tested are: professional dominance is greatest on issues considered to be internal to the expertise of professionals; and lay influence will be greatest in small, remote and ethnically homogenous communities. Data used to test these hypotheses are taken from a 1981 survey of rural principals (N = 304) and a 1982 survey of rural teachers (N = 304). Informants provided perceptual data on who participates in and has predominant influence on eleven school governance processes. Interviews conducted with local and district school board members, and both local and central office educational professionals (N = 300) provided qualitative data on the dynamics of school governance processes. Chi-square analysis was used to identify significant differences in levels of participation and influence. The perceptual nature of the data limits the generalizability of the findings. The author found that educational professionals in rural Alaska, like those in the rest of the country, tend to dominate all areas of school governance. Substantial qualitative evidence shows, however, that professionals frame their recommendations to conform to community values and expectations. Other findings were: professionals appear to dominate all issues both those considered to be internal to the expertise of professionals and those considered external, although lay influence was greater on the latter; neither community size nor mean educational level appears to exert an independent effect on lay influence while a high degree of ethnic homogeneity seems to be related to higher levels of lay influence on some school governance processes; and local influence, both lay and professional, appears to be greatest in small, remote, predominantly Native villages. A major implication of these findings is that rural Alaska Natives should beware of efforts to consolidate village schools. Merely having the professionals who teach their children in the community increases the likelihood that local values, needs, and expectations will influence the governance of their children's school