UA Research Summary No. 11

Alaska Natives make up 9% of students at the University of Alaska Anchorage, and the number attending classes on the Anchorage campus is up more than 40% since 2000—from 950 to nearly 1,400. But despite that fast growth, few Alaska Native students go on to graduate. Less than 5% of the students earning bachelor’s degrees at UAA in 2007 were Alaska Native. And as Figure 1 shows, only about one in 10 of the Native students who were freshmen in 2000 had earned bachelor’s degrees six years later, in 2006. Alaska Native students begin leaving at high rates in their second year at UAA. Among those who started in 2005, less than 60% of the Native freshmen but 70% of all freshmen went on to the next year. Still, that was an improvement over 2000, when only about half the Alaska Native freshmen continued on to their second year (Figure 1). The low graduation rates among Native students—not only at UAA but throughout the University of Alaska—are worrisome. Alaska Natives are under-represented in teaching, health care, business, and many other professions—and that won’t change until more Alaska Native students get the educational credentials they need. But what about those Alaska Native students who do succeed in earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees and doctorates? What keeps them going, when so many others don’t make it to graduation?University of Alaska Foundatio

Alternative Certification: A Research Brief

Alternative teacher certification (ATC) encompasses a broad range of programs that prepare teachers in non-traditional, accelerated ways (Suell and Piotrowski 2007). The number of teachers prepared through alternative routes has increased considerably in the past decade. As of 2011, 16% of public school teachers nationwide had entered the profession through some kind of alternative program, and in the last five years, 40% of new hires have come through ATC programs (Feistritzer 2011). In this brief I offer a short overview of research on the outcomes of alternative certification programs compared with traditional certification, summarize findings about what makes for effective alternative certification programs, and describe ATC programs in Alaska. Generally, ATC programs are aimed at people who are interested in becoming teachers and have at least a bachelor’s degree, as well as extensive life experience. But how these programs are defined and what they include varies considerably (Humphrey and Wechsler 2007). In this brief, alternative certification is defined as a program in which teacher candidates work as the instructor of record while completing their teacher certification. These programs are considered to be both a means of alleviating teacher shortages and a way of improving the quality of the teaching workforce. In addition to shortening the preparation time and being more flexible for working participants, ATC programs also typically incorporate mentoring (Mikulecky, Shkodriani et al. 2004; Scribner and Heinen 2009). The programs range from initiatives run by school districts and state departments of education to university-operated efforts run alongside traditional teacher preparation programs (Yao and Williams 2010)

Pathways to College Preparatory Advanced Academic Offerings in the Anchorage School District

Prepared for: CITC’s Anchorage Realizing Indigenous Student ExcellenceThere are many ways a child in the Anchorage School District (ASD) can access advanced course offerings. To a parent these pathways may seem complex. ASD offers options for gifted and highly gifted students at the elementary and middle school level, and accelerated, and enriched learning opportunities such as honors and advanced placement courses at the secondary level. These opportunities, though linked, are not the same, nor do they necessarily follow from one to another in a straight path. Moreover, pathways to and through these opportunities can be quite different. Offerings are different at the elementary, middle and high school levels, with differing qualifications and eligibility. And, some of the programs are only offered in a few particular schools. This variety provides lots of flexibility. It also creates a complex path of choices and decisions. In all of these pathways and choices, active advocacy by a parent is necessary to ensure that their child receive the best and most appropriate opportunities. In this report we describe the many advanced and accelerated learning opportunities available in Anchorage elementary, middle and high schools, and the ways students can access these opportunities. We provide visuals including figures, tables and text to highlight the pathways to and through advanced offerings from Kindergarten to 12th grade. This document is based upon publicly available information. We have combined information from the ASD gifted program website the ASD High School Handbook, the ASD High School Program of Studies guide, and minutes of the ASD Board meetings. We also spoke with staff in the gifted program at ASD. Individual school-level issues that are outside of ASD policy and procedures have not been included. This report focused on the services, programs and schools within the Anchorage School District that service as pathways to college preparation and advance academic course offerings. As we describe in more detail in this report, there are very different offerings and paths at the elementary, middle and high school. In general, there are gifted and highly gifted programs at the elementary and middle school level, and a highly gifted program at the high school level. At all school levels, the highly gifted programs are offered at a limited number of schools. In high school, all students (including those in the highly gifted program) have the opportunity to take honors and advanced placement classes. Math is not included in the middle and high school gifted program. Math instead is a curriculum progression. Advanced math opportunities usually start in 6th grade, when students can choose placement into math courses that are a higher than the usual level. Opting for advanced math in 6th grade puts a student on track to reach Algebra I in 8th grade and calculus in 12th. At the elementary school level ASD operates gifted programs in all schools and a highly gifted program in one. There are also alternative and optional schools, which offer accelerated and enriched learning environments. If a student is in the highly gifted or gifted program in elementary school, he or she usually transitions to gifted and highly gifted middle school programs. In middle school these programs 3 include gifted language arts and science classes. Students who were not a part of the gifted program in elementary school can access the middle school gifted program, by testing in. Many optional and alternative programs provide enriched and accelerated classes to all students in them. For high school students there is a greater variety of advanced offerings. Starting in 9th grade there are honors and Advanced Placement (AP) courses, Credit-by-Choice options, and optional programs within the high schools and alternative schools. Students in the middle school gifted and highly gifted program have the opportunity to transition into the high school Highly Gifted Program.Introduction / Glossary of Terms / Elementary Level / Middle School Level / High School Level / Highlights / Future Research Question

Turnover Among Alaska Teachers: Is It Changing?

Turnover among Alaska’s teachers was roughly the same in 2007 as it had been in 1999, with about 14% leaving their school districts (Figure 1). Turnover also remained twice as high in rural as in urban districts—about 22%, compared with 10%. That lack of broad change comes after years of efforts by Alaska’s state government, universities, and school districts to reduce teacher turnover, especially in rural areas

Thirty Years Later: The Long-Term Effect of Boarding Schools on Alaska Natives and Their Communities

In 2004 and 2005 we gathered information on how boarding school and boarding home experiences affected individual Alaska Natives, their families, and communities. From the early 1900s to the 1970s Alaska Natives were taken from rural communities that lacked either primary or secondary schools and sent to boarding schools run by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), by private churches or, later, by Alaska’s state government. Some were also sent to boarding homes to attend school in urban places. We interviewed 61 Alaska Native adults who attended boarding schools or participated in the urban boarding home program from the late 1940s through the early 1980s, as well as one child of boarding-school graduates. Their experiences, some of which are shared in this report, reveal a glimpse of both the positive and negative effects of past boarding schools. Many of those we interviewed spoke with ambivalence about their boarding school experience, finding both good and bad elements. Some of the good experiences included going to schools that had high expectations of the students; educators and other school personnel who developed personal relationships with students; individualized support for students who were struggling; and discipline and structure that was supportive, not punitive. For many of those we interviewed, boarding school offered an opportunity to learn about the world beyond village boundaries and to develop lasting friendships. But these good experiences came at a cost. The cost for some was abuse; interviewees reported physical and sexual abuse at the Wrangell Institute. At that school, children were forbidden to speak their native languages and were even beaten for speaking them. The goal of many educators at the time of mandatory boarding schools was to assimilate people of different cultures and ethnicities into the dominant culture. This cost many students not only the loss of their language, but also their culture and identity. These practices had lasting effects on individual students, their families, and communities. Those we interviewed told of finding it difficult to return home and be accepted. They felt that by being sent to boarding school they had missed out on learning important traditional skills and had a harder time raising their own children. For communities, the loss of children to boarding schools created a tremendous void, one that interviewees said was filled by alcohol and a breakdown in society. Drugs, alcohol, and suicide are some of the effects interviewees spoke of as coming from boarding home experiences and the loss of cultural identity and family. In 1976, the State of Alaska agreed to build schools in rural communities having eight (later ten) or more school-age children. When these schools were built, it was no longer necessary to send Native children to boarding schools. However, there is now an ongoing policy debate over the cost and quality of these local schools and whether Native children might be better off attending schools outside their communities. We hope that policymakers consider Alaska Natives’ past experiences with boarding schools reported here and learn from them. A journal article based on this research can be found in the Journal of American Indian Education Vol. 47, No. 3 (2008), pp. 5-30 (26 pages)Ford FoundationExecutive Summary / Introduction and Background ; Study Methodology / Findings / Longer Term Effects of Boarding Schools on Individuals, Families, and Communities / Discussion/ Conclusion: What Next? / Bibliograph

An Exploration of Experiences and Outcomes of Alaska Native Graduates of Mt. Edgecumbe High School

In Alaska’s schools, indigenous1 students are the most at risk of any ethnic group of failing to thrive; they drop out more frequently, are less likely to graduate, and generally have lower educational attainment than non-Native students(Martin and Hill, 2009). Indeed, the situation appears to be worsening. The dropout rate of Alaska Native students living in all areas of Alaska besides Anchorage has risen from 0.7 percent in 1996 to 3.3 percent in 2001 (Goldsmith et al. 2004). Dropout rates among all Native students in Alaska increased from 5 percent to almost 10 percent between 1998 and 2001, while the dropout rate among non-Native students increased from about 3 percent to 5 percent (ibid). In addition, low test scores are preventing many students from graduating from high school—almost half of Alaska Native students are not passing the reading section of the High-School Graduation Qualifying Exam. The educational system in Alaska is failing to provide Alaska Native students the skills necessary either for postsecondary academic work or success in the job market, if that is what they desire. However, one secondary school, Mt. Edgecumbe High School, a boarding school located in Southeast Alaska that serves predominately rural and Alaska Native students, has produced students that consistently outperform their peers, both indigenous and non- Native. The reputation of the school has been strong for decades, based on both historic and recent accomplishments of its alumni. However, the experiences of recent alumni at the school and their professional and educational attainment after high school had not been looked at systematically for a number of years. This paper is the result of a study conducted by the authors on recent graduates of Mt. Edgecumbe High School (MEHS), at the suggestion of school administrators. Our case study attempts to capture the educational, social, and cultural experiences of the students while they attended the boarding school, and the impacts the school has had on their lives. With this research we hope to inform the decisions o f policymakers and educators, indigenous and non-Native alike, regarding rural secondary schooling options in Alaska for indigenous children across the state.Rasmuson Foundation

Resources and Resilience: An Assets Based Examination of Native Student Success

Alaska Native alumni of the University of Alaska Anchorage, graduating between 1975 and 2005, were interviewed to explore the key events, relationships, and activities from pre-K through higher education that influenced their decision to attend college and complete a baccalaureate degree

It’s more than just dollars: Problematizing salary as the sole mechanism for recruiting and retaining teachers in rural Alaska

Staffing rural Alaska schools with a stable workforce of qualified teachers has been perennially challenging, and the failure to do so harms student achievement. In the spring of 2014, the Alaska Department of Administration contracted with the Center for Alaska Education Policy Research to produce a uniform salary schedule and community cost differentials with the objective of attracting and retaining highly-qualified teachers to Alaskan communities. In this paper, we summarize the findings of that study, including opportunities for significant teacher salary increases. However, we discuss the role of salary in teachers’ decisions to stay or leave rural communities, noting that other working conditions are stronger predictors of teacher attrition. We argue that salaries alone will not ensure a stable and qualified teacher workforce, instead positing that efforts to improve Alaska’s rural schools and teacher retention outcomes will require both adequate compensation and attention to the working conditions.Ye

Will they stay, or will they go? Teacher perceptions of working conditions in rural Alaska

Teacher turnover in rural Alaska schools has been a significant problem for decades. Why do we care? National research indicates a strong correlation between high turnover and poor student outcomes (Ronfeldt, Loeb and Wyckoff, 2012), and we see this in Alaska. Out of the 25 rural districts with high teacher turnover rates, ten graduated fewer than 60% of their students between 2008 and 2012, and 5 graduated fewer than half their students

Alaska Civic Learning Assessment Project: Final Report and Policy Brief

In late 2002, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) and Carnegie Corporation of New York, in consultation with the Corporation for National and Community Service, convened a series of meetings involving some of the nation’s most distinguished and respected scholars and practitioners in the area of civic education. The purpose was to determine, based on solid data and evidence, the components of effective and feasible civic learning programs. Representing a diversity of political views, a variety of disciplines, and various approaches, these individuals shared a common vision of a richer, more comprehensive approach to civic education in the United States, notwithstanding some disagreement about aspects of how civic education should be conducted. Their final report, entitled The Civic Mission of Schools, is a compelling statement of the national landscape regarding civic learning and the critical role that schools play in fostering citizenship education. Below is an excerpt from the report’s Executive Summary: For more than 250 years, Americans have shared a vision of a democracy in which all citizens understand, appreciate, and engage actively in civic and political life. In recent decades, however, increasing numbers of Americans have disengaged from civic and political institutions such as voluntary associations, religious congregations, community-based organizations, and political and electoral activities such as voting and being informed about public issues. Young people reflect these trends: they are less likely to vote and are less interested in political discussion and public issues than either their older counterparts or young people of past decades. As a result, many young Americans may not be prepared to participate fully in our democracy now and when they become adults. Recognizing that individuals do not automatically become free and responsible citizens but must be educated for citizenship, scholars; teachers; civic leaders; local, state, and federal policymakers; and federal judges, have with the encouragement of the president of the United States, called for new strategies that can capitalize on young people’s idealism and their commitment to service and voluntarism while addressing their disengagement from political and civic institutions. One of the most promising approaches to increase young people’s informed engagement is school-based civic education. The CIRCLE report identified the following major reasons why schools are ACLAP Final Report & Policy Brief Page 2 important venues for civic education: • It is crucial for the future health of our democracy that all young people, including those who are usually marginalized, be knowledgeable, engaged in their communities and in politics, and committed to the public good. • Encouraging the development of civic skills and attitudes among young people has been an important goal of education and was the primary impetus for originally establishing public schools. • Schools are the only institutions with the capacity and mandate to reach virtually every young person in the country. Of all institutions, schools are the most systematically and directly responsible for imparting citizen norms. • Schools are best equipped to address the cognitive aspects of good citizenship—civic and political knowledge and related skills such as critical thinking and deliberation. • Schools are communities in which young people learn to interact, argue, and work together with others, an important foundation for future citizenship. As a result of the CIRCLE report, the national Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools (CCMS) was launched in 2004, funded by the Carnegie Corp and the Knight Foundation (www.civicmissionofschools.org). The CCMS campaign is working with coalition members and advocates across the political spectrum to dramatically elevate civic learning as an educational priority. The ultimate goal of the campaign is to ensure that schools in the U.S. provide each and every student with a citizenship education that allows them to acquire the skills, knowledge and attitudes that will prepare them to be competent and responsible citizens throughout their lives. Such citizens are those who: • are informed and thoughtful about the history and processes of American democracy and public and community issues and have the ability to obtain information, think critically, and participate in dialogue with others who hold different perspectives; • participate in their communities through organizations working to address cultural, social, political, and religious interests and beliefs; • act politically using the skills, knowledge and commitment needed to accomplish public purposes such as group problem solving, public speaking, petitioning and protesting, and voting; and ACLAP Final Report & Policy Brief Page 3 • have moral and civic virtues such as concern for the rights and welfare of others, social responsibility, tolerance and respect, and belief in their ability to make a difference. As part of the CCMS campaign, competitive grants were awarded to 18 states for projects to advance civic learning. In September 2004, the Alaska Teaching Justice Network (ATJN), a statewide coalition of public, educational, legal, and judicial organizations and individuals dedicated to advancing law-related education in Alaska, secured a small grant from the campaign to conduct the Alaska Civic Learning Assessment (ACLA) Project. The goal of the ACLA Project is to better understand the current state of K-12 civic learning in Alaska and to assess the civic knowledge and experiences of Alaska's youth. The project has focused on both civics topics common across the United States and those unique to Alaska, with the goal of informing efforts to improve civic education in the state. After a brief overview of national research on civic education, this report presents findings from the ACLA Project research on the current status of civic education in Alaska, the civic knowledge of youth and adults, and the attitudes about civic education held by educators, youth and elders.Alaska Teaching Justice NetworkIntroduction / The Alaska Civic Learning Assessment Project / Findings / Recommendations / Conclusion / Appendice