[Senate Hearing 112-815]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 112-815
ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION:
BEST--BUILDING EDUCATIONAL SUCCESS TOGETHER
=======================================================================
FIELD HEARING
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION,
LABOR, AND PENSIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
ON
EXAMINING BUILDING EDUCATIONAL SUCCESS, FOCUSING ON EDUCATIONAL
INITIATIVES FOR ALASKA NATIVE CHILDREN
__________
OCTOBER 19, 2012 (ANCHORAGE, AK)
__________
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COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS
TOM HARKIN, Iowa, Chairman
BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming
JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee
PATTY MURRAY, Washington RICHARD BURR, North Carolina
BERNARD SANDERS (I), Vermont JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania RAND PAUL, Kentucky
KAY R. HAGAN, North Carolina ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
AL FRANKEN, Minnesota PAT ROBERTS, Kansas
MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island MARK KIRK, IIllinois
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
Pamela J. Smith, Staff Director, Chief Counsel
Lauren McFerran, Deputy Staff Director
Frank Macchiarola, Republican Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
__________
STATEMENTS
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2012
Page
Committee Members
Murkowski, Hon. Lisa, a U.S. Senator from the State of Alaska,
opening statement.............................................. 1
Witnesses
Simon, Christopher, Rural Education Coordinator, Alaska
Department of Education and Early Development, Juneau, AK...... 3
Prepared statement........................................... 4
Cowan, Peggy, Superintendent, North Slope Borough School
District, Barrow, AK........................................... 9
Prepared statement........................................... 10
Worl, Rosita Ph.D., President, Sealaska Heritage Institute,
Juneau, AK..................................................... 13
Prepared statement........................................... 14
Brown, Doreen E., Supervisor, Title VII Indian Education
Department, Anchorage School District, Anchorage, AK........... 20
Prepared statement........................................... 24
Rose, Carl, Executive Director, Association of Alaska School
Boards, Juneau, AK............................................. 28
Prepared statement........................................... 32
Roach, Sonta Hamilton, Teacher, Innoko River School, Shageluk, AK 34
Prepared statement........................................... 36
O'Neill, Gloria, President and CEO, Cook Inlet Tribal Council,
prepared statement............................................. 51
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.:
Nicole George, Juneau, AK.................................... 54
Letters by Julie Kitka, Alaska Federation of Natives, to:
Senator Inouye........................................... 55
Senators Murkowski, Begich, and Representative Young..... 55
(iii)
BEST--BUILDING EDUCATIONAL SUCCESS TOGETHER
----------
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2012
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions,
Anchorage, AK.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 4:04 p.m., in
Room 6, Dena'ina Center, Hon. Lisa Murkowski presiding.
Present: Senator Murkowski.
Opening Statement of Senator Murkowski
Senator Murkowski. We are calling to order the Field
Hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Committee. Thank you for joining us here this afternoon to talk
about BEST--Building Educational Success Together, focused on
educational initiatives with our Alaska Native children, where
we are doing well, the good things, the challenges, the
opportunities.
I apologize, first off, for the late start. But we were
held up upstairs with the ongoing dialogue, and when you're
sitting at the front panel, it's really tough to get out. I
could have left Congressman Young on the hook there, but we
finished it up. So I apologize for the late start. But,
hopefully, we will be able to have plenty of time for a good
dialogue down here on an issue that I think we would all agree
is extraordinarily important.
I want to thank AFN for their leadership in hosting this
discussion, for really placing a focus on education, and for
their work in bringing us together today. I especially want to
thank Rosita Worl, as a board member, as well as Gloria
O'Neill. Gloria was upstairs with me on the other panel--but in
addition to what you've done today to help, just your focus and
advocacy at the Federal level on education and student success.
We are very fortunate to have a good panel, a strong panel
of individuals that are here to share their experiences, their
perspectives, as well as their recommendations. And because the
voice of our youth is absolutely key, absolutely critical, I've
given each of our witnesses the option to select a student who
can share an essay about their experiences in Alaska's schools,
their recommendations for change, if any. And we've got folks
that are listening to this field hearing today on the Web, so I
appreciate their attention to this as well.
As I mentioned, the title of the hearing is Building
Educational Success Together. Certainly, the history of Alaska
Native peoples show us that collaboration is absolutely key to
any level of success. I think there's an awful lot that we can
learn from each other. Much that is positive can be adopted,
duplicated, built on.
The purpose of the hearing today is threefold, first, to
learn about some of the successful programs and partnerships
that are occurring all over the State so we can expand and just
build on or duplicate them. The second purpose is to talk about
how we can improve and expand the collaborations, how we're
making that happen. And then the third is in keeping with the
theme here at the convention, ``Barriers to Success'', we need
to identify those barriers that the Federal Government has put
in front of success so that we can break through them. What are
the impediments holding us back? What are the impediments
holding our kids back?
I think we recognize that we all have to be working
together to benefit our kids. Children need to feel like
they're connected within a classroom. I've been working to deal
with our Federal laws that, quite honestly, sometimes don't
allow for that connection, if you will, dealing with Federal
laws to allow our elders to teach Native language, culture, and
history in our schools, working to improve on the Alaska Native
Education Equity Program. Gloria was able to focus in on that
in the dialogue upstairs. And, again, I've indicated that I
think we've got a lot of room to grow in this area. How we're
building, how we're working on that to improve it is going to
be key.
I've also been working to give Native language immersion
programs greater flexibility. I've been working to help the
U.S. Department of Education understand Alaska and the needs of
our Alaska Native students better. I'm also working with NCAI,
which is the National Conference of American Indians, and the
National Indian Education Association on some specific
proposals that they have been building to more meaningfully
involve tribes and our Native organizations in many aspects of
what we know as No Child Left Behind. But there's so much more
that we have to do.
We know the statistics. We'll probably hear some of those
repeated here this afternoon. We're dealing with low academic
proficiency in areas, high achievement gaps, low graduation
rates. And while we clearly have to identify the problems in
order to fix them, I think we are eager--I am certainly eager
to focus on how we can build on what the success stories are
out there, the positive stories that we know.
According to data from the State Department of Education,
there are school districts in all regions of the State where
we're seeing rising graduation rates and achievement gaps are
closing. And this brings me to just one final point before we
move to our participants here, and that is a concept that I
know many in the room and outside the room have thought about.
That is the difference between student achievement and student
success.
I think what we're really striving for here, what we're
hoping for, is this broader term, which is student success.
That includes academic achievement, but it's so much broader
than just the academics. It includes the knowledge to have
preparedness, to be prepared for the future, contribute to the
community and the State. It includes being a responsible,
caring person, who has a self-discipline and focus to reach
goals.
It means having a positive connection to the community and
to the schools, and it also means being able to be a
contributing member of society and a positive role model to
others. So I'd like to think that we can focus on the well-
rounded kind of student success today, rather than defining it
in this narrow form of academic achievement.
To start off, I will call on each of our witnesses here
today to just give a short summary. They've all presented us
with written testimony. I believe that that testimony is
available for those who would like to see them. I would ask you
to try to keep your comments to 2 to 5 minutes, but we've got
room on the tape to go longer if we need to. After that, we'll
open it up to a roundtable discussion among the witnesses. And
I have asked them to be prepared to respond to a couple of key
questions.
So with that, why don't we begin with you, Chris, on the
end. And let me just make sure that everyone knows who we have
up here in the panel. I apologize. I would love to have more,
but our format in the Senate, as an official hearing of the
HELP Committee, a field hearing, we are limited to the number
of witnesses. And we do have an opportunity to leave the record
open for other input and would welcome you for that.
But those that are before you this afternoon are Chris
Simon. He is the rural education coordinator with the Alaska
Department of Education and Early Development. Next to Chris is
Peggy Cowan. Peggy is the superintendent of the North Slope
Borough School District. And next to her is Rosita Worl, who is
president of the Sealaska Heritage Institute. To my left here
is Doreen Brown, who is the supervisor of Title VII Education
in the Anchorage School District. Next to her is Carl Rose, who
is executive director, Association of Alaska School Boards. And
then, finally, we have Sonta Hamilton Roach, who is a teacher
at Innoko River School out in Shageluk, which is in the
Iditarod School District.
So welcome to each of you.
And with that, Chris, why don't you kick off with your
comments, and we'll just go straight on down the line. Thank
you and welcome.
STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER SIMON, RURAL EDUCATION COORDINATOR,
ALASKA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT, JUNEAU,
AK
Mr. Simon. Thank you, Senator.
My name is Chris Simon, and I'm the rural education
coordinator for the Alaska Department of Education and Early
Development. I spent my entire career working in rural Alaska,
and it is something I hold close to my heart. My experience
includes working 2 years as an itinerant school counselor, 4
years as a teacher, 5 years as a school principal, and 6 years
as a superintendent of schools.
I am here today to speak specifically to the statewide
issue of Alaska Native students' successes and challenges and
the role the Federal Government can play in building upon the
successes. The challenges to Alaska Native success are well-
known and longstanding. Alaska's rural districts face a high
turnover of teachers and principals. In some cases, small rural
schools cannot offer the range of courses that urban schools
do. Alaska's villages experience family violence, substance
abuse, and suicide.
Yet there are many Native student successes.
Extracurricular activities create a high sense of community
pride. In some Alaska schools, rural and urban, 75 percent or
more of the Native students score proficient on State
assessments in language arts or math. The Nome School District
operates a Science Academy. The Alaska Native Science and
Engineering Program supports students from high school through
college graduation.
The University of Alaska enrolls a thousand more Native
students today than 5 years ago. In the first year of the
merit-based Alaska Performance Scholarship, 8.3 percent of
Native high school graduates qualified for the scholarship, and
36 percent of the qualifiers used the scholarship.
The Alaska Native Cultural Charter School was named a Title
I Distinguished School. Mount Edgecumbe High School, a
predominantly Native-run boarding school, has a 96 percent 4-
year graduation rate. Alaska Student Governments instigated a
State suicide prevention program that mandates teacher
training.
The Federal Government could contribute to Native student
success by providing Alaska the greatest possible flexibility
in using Federal funds. In Alaska's Elementary and Secondary
Education Act waiver application, the State would assist
schools primarily on the academic achievement and growth of
students, attendance, and graduation. As needed, the State
system of support would provide schools with teacher mentors,
administrator coaches, content coaches, professional
development, and an online self-improvement tool.
Alaska is a strong, local-controlled State. The State
government has increased its commitment to districts with
funding to build rural schools, work cooperatively with the 40
lowest achieving schools, fund career and technical education
improvements, provide scholarships for college and technical
schools, and fund distance courses by highly qualified Alaska
teachers. Alaska and its districts should be free to focus on
curriculum, assessment, instruction, support of learning
environment, professional development, and leadership. Those
are the paths to student success.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Simon follows:]
Prepared Statement of Chris Simon
summary
My name is Chris Simon and I am the Rural Education Coordinator for
the Alaska Department of Education & Early Development. I spent my
entire career working in rural Alaska and it is something I hold close
to my heart. My experience includes working 2 years as an itinerant
school counselor, 4 years as a teacher, 5 years as a school principal,
and 6 years as a superintendent of schools. I am here today to speak
specifically to the statewide issues of Alaska Native student successes
and challenges and the role the Federal Government can play in building
upon the successes.
The challenges to Alaska Native success are well-known and long-
standing. Alaska's rural districts face a high turnover of teachers and
principals. In some cases, small rural schools cannot offer the range
of courses that urban schools do. Alaska's villages experience family
violence, substance abuse, and suicide.
Yet there are many Native student successes. Schools' extra-
curricular activities create a high sense of community pride. In some
Alaska schools, rural and urban, 75 percent or more of the Native
students score proficient on State assessments in language arts or
math. The Nome School District operates a science academy. The Alaska
Native Science and Engineering Program supports students from high
school through college graduation. The University of Alaska enrolls a
thousand more Native students today than 5 years ago. In the first year
of the merit-based Alaska Performance Scholarship, 8.3 percent of
Native high school graduates qualified for the scholarship, and 36
percent of the qualifiers used the scholarship.
The Alaska Native Cultural Charter School was named a Title I
Distinguished School. Mt. Edgecumbe High School, a predominantly Native
State-run boarding school, has a 96 percent 4-year graduation rate.
Alaska's student governments instigated a State suicide-prevention
program that mandates teacher training.
The Federal Government could contribute to Native student success
by providing Alaska the greatest possible flexibility in using Federal
funds. In Alaska's Elementary and Secondary Education Act waiver
application, the State would assess schools primarily on the academic
achievement and growth of students; attendance; and graduation. As
needed, the State System of Support would provide schools with teacher
mentors, administrator coaches, content coaches, professional
development, and an online self-improvement tool.
Alaska is a strongly local-control State. The State government has
increased its commitment to districts with funding to build rural
schools; work cooperatively with the 40 lowest-achieving schools; fund
career and technical education improvements; provide scholarships for
college and technical schools; and fund distance courses by highly
qualified Alaska teachers.
Alaska and its districts should be free to focus on curriculum,
assessment, instruction, supportive learning environment, professional
development, and leadership. Those are the paths to student success.
______
My name is Chris Simon and I am the Rural Education Coordinator for
the Alaska Department of Education & Early Development. I spent my
entire career working in rural Alaska and it is something I hold close
to my heart. My experience includes working 2 years as an itinerant
school counselor, 4 years as a teacher, 5 years as a school principal,
and 6 years as a superintendent of schools.
I am here today to speak specifically to the statewide issues of
Alaska Native student successes and challenges and the role the Federal
Government can play in building upon the successes.
The challenges to Alaska Native success are well-known and long-
standing. Alaska's rural districts face a high turnover of teachers and
principals. Many new teachers are not familiar with Native culture or
rural lifestyles. In some cases, small rural schools cannot offer the
range of courses that urban schools do. Alaska's villages experience
family violence, substance abuse, and suicide. Native families do not
always know how to navigate the system of formal education, advocate
for their children, or plan for postsecondary education and training.
Yet there are many Native student successes. Schools' extra-
curricular activities create a high sense of community pride. In some
Alaska schools, rural and urban, 75 percent or more of the Native
students score proficient on State assessments in language arts or
math.
Here are a few examples from last school year's results: In Tanana
Middle School, 90 percent of Native students were proficient in
language arts. In the James C. Isabell School in the Bering Strait
School District, 78 percent of Native students were proficient in
language arts and 75 percent in math. In the Sand Point School in the
Aleutians East Borough, 88 percent of Native students were proficient
in language arts and 70 percent in math. In the Goldenview Middle
School in Anchorage, 74 percent of Native students were proficient in
language arts and 79 percent in math.
School districts have developed programs and schools to address
students' needs. The Nome School District operates a science academy.
Galena runs a boarding school with academic and career courses.
Advocates in Fairbanks established the Native-oriented Effie Kokrine
Charter School. School districts offer 32 distance programs, serving
home-school students, alternative students, and brick-and-mortar
students who need additional courses.
At the Northwest Alaska Career and Technical Center in Nome, a
partnership of the Bering Strait and Nome school districts, students
outside of Nome live on campus. In intensive sessions throughout the
school year, students receive independent living skills as well as the
skills they need to acquire jobs or to go on to further training and
education. Students have the opportunity to receive dual credit with
the University of Alaska. The program motivates students to finish high
school, formulate career goals, and develop the skills they need for
the world of work.
The School to Apprenticeship Program of the Department of Labor and
Workforce Development works cooperatively with employers, unions and
school districts. Students choose a career pathway that provides direct
entry into a formal apprenticeship program. Apprenticeships provide a
reason for students to stay in school, take relevant courses and
graduate. Apprentices can earn credits through the University of Alaska
System toward a degree.
The Alaska Native Cultural Charter School was named a Title I
Distinguished School. Mt. Edgecumbe High School, a predominantly Native
State-run boarding school, had a 96 percent 4-year graduation rate last
school year. Alaska's student governments instigated a State suicide-
prevention program that mandates teacher training.
The Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program supports students
from high school through college graduation. The University of Alaska
enrolls a thousand more Native students today than 5 years ago. In the
first year of the merit-based Alaska Performance Scholarship, 8.3
percent of Native high school graduates were eligible for the
scholarship, and 36.1 percent of the eligible Native students used
their scholarship.
The Federal Government could contribute to Native student success
by providing Alaska the greatest possible flexibility in using Federal
funds. In Alaska's Elementary and Secondary Education Act waiver
application, the State would assess schools primarily on the academic
achievement and growth of students; attendance; and graduation. As
needed, the State System of Support would provide schools with teacher
mentors, administrator coaches, content coaches, professional
development, and an online self-improvement tool.
Alaska is a strongly local-control State. The State government has
increased its commitment to districts with funding to build rural
schools; working cooperatively with the 40 lowest-achieving schools;
funding career and technical education improvements; funding pilot pre-
kindergarten programs; providing scholarships for college and technical
schools; and funding distance courses by highly qualified Alaska
teachers.
Alaska and its districts should be free to focus on curriculum,
assessment, instruction, supportive learning environment, professional
development, and leadership. Those are the paths to student success.
Alaska and its school districts have demonstrated they can work
together:
resolved litigation over funding of rural school construction
Alaska resolved the long-standing Kasayulie litigation and
committed to fund the five highest-priority rural school construction
projects over the coming years. Alaska has kept that pledge this year
by funding school construction in Emmonak and Koliganek for $61
million. See http://www.alaskadispatch.com/sites/default/files/
Kasayulie%20settlement.pdf.
resolved litigation over academic adequacy in rural schools
The settlement of the Moore lawsuit is funded at $18 million over 3
years. It creates a mechanism by which the State and rural school
districts cooperate closely and combine their funds to improve student
achievement, implement early education, retain teachers, and help
students pass the graduation exam.
The settlement maintains the Alaska principle of local control
while meeting the State's constitutional responsibility to provide
assistance to, and oversight of, struggling schools. It is a step
forward in the quality of Alaska's schools. See http://
education.alaska.gov/news/releases/2012/moore_settlement_signed.pdf.
established merit-based scholarship for technical and college programs
Another step forward has been the Alaska Performance Scholarship.
Students who complete a rigorous high school curriculum and achieve
qualifying grade point averages and test scores are eligible for
scholarships worth up to $4,755 a year for college or technical
education.
In its first year, the scholarship provided nearly $3 million to
870 Alaskans from the high school Class of 2011. The State recently
established a sustainable fund for this merit-based scholarship and for
needs-based postsecondary grants.
The second high school graduating class has now received its Alaska
Performance Scholarships. The Class of 2012 faced more rigorous course
requirements than did the Class of 2011, but a greater percentage of
the 2012 graduates earned the highest levels of scholarship. That tells
us that students and schools are rising to accept the scholarship's
invitation to excellence. See www.aps.alaska.gov.
established distance courses for high school students
To help schools offer the required courses for the Alaska
Performance Scholarship, especially in rural Alaska, the State and
school districts operate Alaska's Learning Network, in which high
school courses are taught by distance by highly qualified Alaska
teachers. This fall, the learning network is offering 42 courses. See
http://aklearn.net/. The program also has created Alaska's Digital
Sandbox, an online repository of free resources developed by Alaska
teachers for K-12 teachers. See http://www.alaskadigitalsandbox.org.
Distance education is highly dependent on reliable access to
broadband service, yet many rural Alaska communities have only the most
basic broadband access. Recent initiatives by the Federal Communication
Commission to reform the universal Services Fund appear to lessen
Federal support for improvements to broadband access in rural Alaska.
The State of Alaska continues to monitor these reforms and will
highlight threats to distance education as they arise.
continued mentoring of teachers and coaching of principals
The State is continuing programs that serve rural Alaska with
trained mentors for several hundred new teachers a year and coaches for
dozens of new principals.
The Alaska Statewide Mentoring Project, funded by Alaska Department
of Education & Early Development and the University of Alaska, has
flourished for 8 school years. It matches veteran teachers who are
trained mentors with teachers in the first 2 years of their career. The
goals are to increase teacher retention and improve student
achievement. The project encourages beginning teachers to be reflective
and responsive to the diverse cultural backgrounds and academic needs
of all of their students.
Mentors observe and coach the new teacher, serve as trusted
listeners and sounding boards, assist with planning, help with
classroom management strategies, teach demonstration lessons, provide
supplemental resources that support the district's curriculum, and
facilitate communication with the school and its community. See http://
alaskamentorproject.org//.
The Alaska Administrator Coaching Program's purpose is to
positively influence student achievement and increase principal
retention. It has existed for 7 school years, serving approximately 80
principals a year.
Coaches work with new principals for 2 years, which includes three
professional development institutes a year, covering topics such as
instructional literacy, teacher observation, supervision and evaluation
of staff, organizational literacy, teacher collaboration, assessment
literacy, school improvement planning, and classroom assessment
practices. See http://aacp.pbworks.com/.
emphasized culturally responsive teachers
The State Board of Education & Early Development now requires
beginning teachers to be prepared as culturally responsive teachers,
and requires all teachers to know Alaska's standards for culturally
responsive schools. The State, working with Native educators, recently
completed the first guide to implementing Alaska's cultural standards
for educators. See http://education.alaska.gov/standards/pdf/
cultural_standards.pdf.
raised standards for language arts and mathematics
In an effort to spur greater student achievement, after 2 years of
collaboration across the State, Alaska has adopted its own new
standards in English and mathematics. They are the State's first
standards to extend from kindergarten through grade 12, and they are
the first to address the need for students to be ready for careers and
further education after high school. See http://education.alaska.gov/
tls/assessment/GLEHome.html.
sought a waiver from aspects of no child left behind
Alaska has applied to the Federal Government to be released from
the most unproductive and unpopular aspects of the No Child Left Behind
Act. In its place, if the State receives a waiver, we will implement a
school accountability system by Alaskans and for Alaskans. Our proposed
system emphasizes local responsibility and levels of State assistance,
depending on the needs of schools. The Federal Government has set some
conditions for States' waivers, but a waiver would be a step forward
from No Child Left Behind. See http://education.alaska.gov/nclb/
esea.html.
strengthened the state system of support for schools
The Alaska Department of Education & Early Development created, and
is continually strengthening, a system to support struggling schools
and districts to improve instructional practices and increase student
achievement.
With funding from the legislature and a legislative mandate to help
turn around schools and districts that need improvement, the department
created the State System of Support (SSOS), housed in the
commissioner's office.
The State System of Support helps districts build their capacity to
improve student achievement through the domains of curriculum,
assessment, instruction, supportive learning environment, professional
development, and leadership.
Alaska STEPP is a web-based system that guides districts'
improvement teams through a continuous cycle of assessment, planning,
implementation, and progress tracking. The tool focuses on an honest
assessment of a district's strengths and challenges, and on actions to
sustain strengths and address challenges. STEPP stands for ``steps
toward educational progress and partnership.'' See http://
www.eed.state.ak.us/nclb/SchoolImprovement.html.
proposed regulations to improve teacher quality
Educators from school districts, the university and the department
have developed regulations to improve teacher quality in Alaska, to
include: a stronger link between the needs of districts and teacher
preparation programs; improving standards for teachers and methods of
evaluating teachers; more paths to certification; tying certificate
renewals to student achievement; and improving our mentoring program
for new teachers. Some of these regulations are now out for public
comment. See http://education.alaska.gov/regs/comment/4_AAC_04.pdf.
developed and fund the alaska career and technical education plan
The Alaska Department of Education & Early Development, the
University of Alaska, the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce
Development, and industry have written an action plan to revitalize
career and technical education, open the shops in Alaska's high
schools, and integrate career and technical education into the regular
high schools. EED and DOL&WD are working with the Alaska Workforce
Investment Board to coordinate the development of career education and
to support a gas line training program.
In its first year of implementation, the State awarded 14 grants to
implement portions of the plan. Examples include training in welding in
the Bering Strait School District, implementing Personal Learning
Career Plans for all 9th-graders in the Ketchikan Gateway Borough
School District, and increasing rural high school students' access to
health education through distance delivery from the University of
Alaska. See http://labor.state.ak.us/awib/cte.htm.
developed a literacy blueprint from birth to graduation
The Alaska Department of Education & Early Development worked with
educators to create the Alaska Statewide Literacy Blueprint from Birth
to Graduation. The blueprint addresses the content and delivery of
instruction, interventions, assessments, leadership, family and
community engagement, and professional development. The department
produced and distributed ``I Am Ready'' brochures for parents of young
children. See http://education.alaska.gov/blueprint/.
Additionally, the State established the Alaska Early Childhood
Coordinating Council. See http://www.hss.state.ak.us/ocs/AECCC/
default.htm.
developed a voluntary health and safety framework
The Alaska Department of Education & Early Development collaborated
with the Alaska PTA and Alaska experts on health, domestic violence,
safety, nutrition, and physical education to write the Alaska School
Health and Safety Framework. The document promotes a voluntary system
of coordinated school health programs.
Additionally, the State created the multi-agency Alaska State
Suicide Prevention Plan, which mandates prevention training for high
school teachers. See http://education.alaska.gov/tls/suicide/.
In conclusion, Alaska's State agencies and school districts
recognize there is much work to be done to improve the success of
Native students. These efforts must be owned by families and
communities. The closer the decisionmaking process and implementation
are to them, the greater the chances of success. The Federal
Government's most useful role is to support the State and districts in
their initiatives and vision.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Chris.
Peggy.
STATEMENT OF PEGGY COWAN, SUPERINTENDENT, NORTH SLOPE BOROUGH
SCHOOL DISTRICT, BARROW, AK
Ms. Cowan. Senator Murkowski, thank you for inviting me to
this hearing, and I am honored to represent the North Slope
Borough School District.
I am Peggy Cowan, Superintendent of Schools. Ours is a
district of 8 villages and 11 schools across the Arctic Slope.
The district is the largest geographical school district. There
are only 11 States that are larger than the 89,000 square miles
of our district. In a way, we reflect the great State of Alaska
that we are part of with vast distances and few people. Our
student population is 1,850, primarily Inupiaq.
I am here today to share with you our long-term systemic
change effort to transform the learning of our students through
changing the curriculum to acknowledge the geographical and
cultural context within which they live. To understand our
current curriculum work, you need to understand the context.
The first mayor of the North Slope Borough, Eben Hopson,
stated 40 years ago,
``Among our entire international Inupiat community,
we of the North Slope have achieved true self-
government with the formation of the North Slope
Borough. We have the greatest opportunity to direct our
own destiny. Possibly the greatest significance of home
rule is that it enables us to regain control of the
education of our children.''
This vision of home rule and control of education is the
foundation of the current work in developing a culturally
relevant curriculum. The home rule is actualized today through
the local board of education. There are three elements of our
curriculum work: first, the locally developed Inupiaq Learning
Framework, which is behind me; then the Alaska State Standards
and Content Areas; and, finally, Understanding by Design.
The curriculum process that the district is following is
called Understanding by Design, a research-based best practice
in curriculum and instructional design, whose aim is student
understanding, the ability to make meaning of and transfer
important learning. Understanding by Design is a mission-driven
curriculum process. The teachers and staff of the district are
accountable to the same national requirements of adequate
yearly progress and the State requirements of standards-based
assessments, but are also accountable to the local board of
education for the mission, which is: Learning in our schools is
rooted in the values, history, and language of the Inupiat.
Students develop the academic and cultural skills and
knowledge to be: critical and creative thinkers, able to adapt
in a changing environment and world; active responsible
contributing members of their communities; and confident,
healthy young adults able to envision, plan, and take control
of their destinies. The curriculum work actualizes that
mission. The knowledge and skills of the Inupiat knowledge
systems are articulated through the Inupiaq Learning Framework,
the foundation of the curriculum.
The Inupiaq Learning Framework is the product of multiple
year process of asking the communities across the slope two
questions: No. 1, what knowledge needs to be acquired to truly
live as a healthy Inupiaq? And, No. 2, what does a well-
educated, well-grounded, 18-year-old Inupiaq look like? Our
director of Inupiaq education visited every community in the
North Slope and brought the feedback of these questions to a
group of community members from across the slope. The
articulation of what the communities envisioned is the Inupiaq
Learning Framework represented by our blanket of life.
The Inupiaq Learning Framework is divided into four realms
of the Inupiaq world, the environmental realm, the community
realm, historical realm, and individual realm. Within each of
the realms are core themes. For example, within the historical
realm are the core themes of stories, North Slope history, and
modern history.
The State's content standards determine what to teach in
the academic areas, and the district developed performance
expectations for the Inupiaq Learning Framework core themes
articulate the understandings for the local culture and
history. Both the entire curriculum and classroom instructions
are developed collaboratively by school district staff
combining these two elements into the units that are rigorous,
academically and culturally relevant.
Examples of these elements are substituting in lessons
stories of local elders for lessons in language arts textbooks,
middle school science labs on density where students measure
the difference when putting whale meat or whale fat in a beaker
of water, an algebra I lesson of using a formula for a body
going up and down on a blanket toss, or an algebra II lesson
using the arch trajectory of a harpoon.
The district is starting year 3 of a 5-year plan to
transform the curriculum. Many staff have contributed, but the
two lead individuals have been Lisa Parady, assistant
superintendent, who has led it from the start, and Jana
Harcharek, who has given voice and shape to the Inupiat
Learning Framework. I am grateful to them and the district. The
district must stay the course and continue the process to
provide our students with a foundation that fits both the
Inupiaq and western worlds.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Cowan follows:]
Prepared Statement of Peggy Cowan
summary
background
To understand our curriculum work, you need to understand our
context. The first Mayor of the North Slope Borough, Eben Hopson,
stated 40 years ago,
``Among our entire international Inupiat community, we of the
North Slope are the only Inupiaq who have achieved true self-
government with the formation of the North Slope Borough. We
have the greatest opportunity to direct our own destiny. . . .
Possibly the greatest significance of home rule is that it
enables us to regain control of the education of our
children.''
This vision of home rule and control of education is the foundation
of the current work in developing a culturally relevant curriculum. The
home rule is actualized today through the North Slope Borough School
District Board of Education.
curriculum alignment integration and mapping in the nsbsd
There are three elements of our curriculum work, the locally
developed Inupiaq Learning Framework, the Alaska State Standards in
Content Areas and Understanding by Design. The curriculum process that
the district is following is called Understanding by Design (UbD), a
research-based best practice in curriculum and instructional design. In
UbD the educational aim is student understanding--the ability to make
meaning of and transfer important learning. Understanding by Design is
a mission-driven curriculum process. The teachers and staff of the
district are accountable to the same national requirements of Adequate
Yearly Progress and the State requirements of Standards-Based
Assessments, but are accountable to the NSBSD Board of Education for
the mission, which is, ``Learning in our schools is rooted in the
values, history and language of the Inupiat. Students develop the
academic and cultural skills and knowledge to be:
Critical and creative thinkers able to adapt in a changing
environment and world;
Active, responsible, contributing members of their
communities; and
Confident, healthy young adults, able to envision, plan
and take control of their destiny.''
The curriculum work actualizes that mission. The knowledge and
skills of the Inupiaq knowledge systems are articulated through the
Inupiaq Learning Framework, the foundation of the curriculum. The
Inupiaq Learning Framework is the product of a multiple year process of
asking the community two questions:
``What knowledge needs to be acquired to truly live as a healthy
Inupiaq?
What does a well-educated, well-grounded 18-year-old Inupiaq look
like?''
Jana Harcharek, director of Inupiaq Education visited every
community in the North Slope Borough and brought the community feedback
on these questions to a group of community members. The articulation of
what the communities envisioned is the Inupiaq Learning Framework
represented by Mapkuqput Inuuniagnigmi--Our Blanket of Life. The
Inupiaq Learning Framework is divided into four realms of the Inupiaq
world, the Environmental Realm, Community Realm, Historical Realm and
Individual Realm. Within each of the realms are Core Themes. For
example, within the Historical Realm are Core Themes of Unipkaat,
Quliaqtuat, Uqalukutuat (which are legend/old stories, one's life
experience and true story), North Slope History and Modern History.
The State's content area standards determine what to teach in the
academic areas and district developed performance expectations for each
of the Inupiaq Learning Framework Core Themes articulate the
understandings for the local culture and history. Both the entire
curriculum and classroom instruction are developed collaboratively by
school district staff combining these two elements into units that are
rigorous academically and culturally relevant. Examples of these
lessons are substituting stories of local Elders for lessons in
language arts textbooks; middle school science labs on density where
students measure the difference when putting whale meat or whale fat in
a beaker of water; an algebra I lesson using a formula for a body going
up and down on a blanket toss; or an algebra II lesson using the arched
trajectory of a harpoon.
The district is starting year 3 of a 5-year plan to transform the
curriculum. The district must stay the course and continue the process
to provide our students with a foundation that fits both the Inupiaq
and Western worlds.
Thank you. Quyanak.
______
introduction
Thank you for inviting me to this hearing. I am honored to be here
today and to represent the North Slope Borough School District (NSBSD).
I am Peggy Cowan superintendent of schools. The North Slope Borough
School District is a district of 8 villages and 11 schools across the
arctic slope of Alaska. The district is the largest geographical school
district. There are only 11 States that are larger than the 89,000
square miles of our district. In a way we reflect the great State that
we are part of, with vast distances and few people, our student
population is 1,850 preschool through twelfth grade, primarily Inupiaq.
I am here today to share with you our long-term, systemic change
effort to transform the learning of the students through changing the
curriculum to acknowledge the geographical and cultural context within
which they live.
background
To understand our curriculum work, you need to understand our
context. Our district exists because the Borough was founded 40 years
ago so that the people of the arctic slope of Alaska could direct their
own destiny. The first Mayor of the North Slope Borough, Eben Hopson,
stated at that time,
``Among our entire international Inupiat community, we of the
North Slope are the only Inupiaq who have achieved true self-
government with the formation of the North Slope Borough. We
have the greatest opportunity to direct our own destiny as we
have for the past millennia. Possibly the greatest significance
of home rule is that it enables us to regain control of the
education of our children.''
This vision of home rule and control of education is the foundation
of the current work in developing a culturally relevant curriculum. The
home rule is actualized today through the North Slope Borough School
District Board of Education. The curriculum revision is part of the
Board developed and adopted strategic plan for the district and enables
the district to meet the mission.
curriculum alignment integration and mapping in the nsbsd
There are three elements of our curriculum work, the locally
developed Inupiaq Learning Framework, the Alaska State Standards in
Content Areas and the Understanding by Design Curriculum Framework. The
curriculum process that the district is following is called
Understanding by Design (UbD), a research-based best practice in
curriculum and instructional design. In UbD the educational aim is
student understanding--the ability to make meaning of and transfer
important learning. Understanding by Design is a mission-driven
curriculum process. The teachers and staff of the district are
accountable to the same national requirements of Adequate Yearly
Progress and the State requirements of Standards-Based Assessments, but
are accountable to the NSBSD Board of Education for the mission, which
is,
``Learning in our schools is rooted in the values, history and
language of the Inupiat. Students develop the academic and cultural
skills and knowledge to be:
Critical and creative thinkers able to adapt in a changing
environment and world;
Active, responsible, contributing members of their
communities; and
Confident, healthy young adults, able to envision, plan
and take control of their destiny.''
The curriculum work actualizes that mission and the Board's
strategic plan first goal, ``All students will reach their intellectual
potential and achieve academic success through integrating Inupiaq
knowledge systems into core content areas.''
The knowledge and skills of the Inupiaq knowledge systems are
articulated through the Inupiaq Learning Framework, the foundation of
the curriculum. The Inupiaq Learning Framework is the product of a
multiple year process of asking the community two questions:
``What knowledge needs to be acquired to truly live as a healthy
Inupiaq?
What does a well-educated, well-grounded 18-year-old Inupiaq look
like? ''
Jana Harcharek, director of Inupiaq Education visited every
community in the North Slope Borough and brought the community feedback
on these questions to a group of community members from across the
slope called Ilinniagnikun Apquisiuqtit, ``People who break trail for
learning.'' The articulation of what the communities envisioned is the
Inupiaq Learning Framework represented by Mapkuqput Inuuniagnigmi--Our
Blanket of Life. The blanket represents our learning framework, it is
bond together by spirituality and language. The Inupiaq Learning
Framework is divided into four realms of the Inupiaq world, the
Environmental Realm, Community Realm, Historical Realm and Individual
Realm. Within each of the realms are Core Themes. For example, within
the Historical Realm are Core Themes of Unipkaat, Quliaqtuat,
Uqalukutuat (which are legend/old stories, one's life experience and
true story), North Slope History and Modern History.
The State's content area standards determine what to teach in the
academic areas and district developed performance expectations for each
of the Inupiaq Learning Framework Core Themes articulate the
understandings for the local culture and history. Both the entire
curriculum and classroom instruction are developed collaboratively by
school district staff combining these two elements into units that are
rigorous academically and culturally relevant. Examples of these
lessons are substituting stories of local Elders for lessons in
language arts textbooks; middle school science labs on density where
students measure the difference when putting whale meat or whale fat in
a beaker of water; an algebra I lesson using a formula for a body going
up and down on a blanket toss; or an algebra II lesson using the arched
trajectory of a harpoon.
Just as the root of the work is in the community's vision for
education, we return to the communities for feedback. Each content area
curriculum committee will bring their work to a Steering Committee of
local people to review and provide feedback to let the staff know if we
are meeting their vision.
The district is starting year 3 of a 5-year plan to transform the
curriculum. Many NSBSD staff have contributed to this effort, but three
individuals have led the process. Lisa Parady, assistant
superintendent, conceived the curriculum process and has led it from
the start, Jana Harcharek has given voice and shape to the ILF. Jay
McTighe has used his groundbreaking Understanding by Design process to
train our team. As Superintendent, it has been especially gratifying to
support the whole, to have the entire structure bear the fruit of
systemic change, that lasts and truly begins to align and integrate the
Inupiaq culture and western academics. The district must stay the
course and continue the process to provide our students with a
foundation that fits both the Inupiaq and Western worlds.
Thank you. Quyanak.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Peggy.
Rosita.
STATEMENT OF ROSITA WORL, Ph.D., PRESIDENT, SEALASKA HERITAGE
INSTITUTE, JUNEAU, AK
Dr. Worl. Senator Murkowski, thank you for holding this
hearing on a subject of vital concern to the Native community.
May I also express the gratitude of the Native community--and I
think that I can do that as a board member of the Alaska
Federation of Natives--our deepest gratitude to you for your
staunch advocacy and support for Alaska Native education.
In honor of my ancestors and in respect to this committee,
I am privileged to tell you who I am. I am also hopeful that we
might use it as a lesson as to why it is so important to have
Alaska Natives involved in education. My Tlingit names are
Yeideilats'ok and Kaahani. I am of the Thunderbird Clan and the
Eagle moiety. I am from the House Lowered From the Sun, and I
am a child of a Sockeye Clan.
This is my Tlingit identity, and I will tell you that it
took years and years for me to be able to resolve my Tlingit
identity with who I am in this modern society. That is a
conflict that many of our children continue to experience.
I shared this traditional identity with you to offer you a
glimpse into our world, our relationship to the land and to the
environment, and also the complexity of our culture. It is just
a simple measure to illustrate the complexity and the vast
differences between our societies. The essence of our being in
our Native world view is rarely taught in school. We do not see
our Native self in our schools. We do not even see Native
people in the curriculum, in the photos that our children see.
And I think just that alone demonstrates why we need to work to
change that, to ensure that we can be engaged in education.
At the Sealaska Heritage Institute, our thesis has been to
integrate language and culture into all of our programs. And in
all of the programs that we administer through education--and
we run a number of education programs--we have found that our
children do better academically when language and culture are
integrated in the schools.
In 2000, the Sealaska Heritage Institute partnered with the
Juneau School District, and the result of that was systemic
change. We funded the program through an ANEP program for the
first year. The school district took it up, and then this year,
they funded that program. So this is a classic example of
systemic change where the Juneau School District saw the
benefit of having language and culture in the program and
continued to fund that.
In the 10 years since we started that program, what we have
found--and we did a longitudinal study. We found that our
children did better academically. And the number that I'd like
to report just for the record now is--and it is contained in
our report--is that in contrast to the 50 percent graduation
rate we have of Alaska Native students from schools, we had in
this program over 70 percent of our students who came through
the class. In all those classes where they were taught Tlingit
language and culture, they had a more than 70 percent
graduation rate.
The important thing for us here is that Alaska Natives need
to be involved in education. And the Federal funding that we
have been receiving from the ANEP program and, hopefully, from
others that we are pursuing will allow Alaska Native
organizations to be at the table. We want to have a meaningful
role in education, and we think that having the funds go
directly to the Native organizations and then developing the
partnerships with the university and the school districts
really gives us the leverage to have a meaningful role in our
education.
In the Sealaska Heritage Institute, we have signed MOEs
with the university and with the Juneau School District. For
the very first time, we are sitting at the table as new
teachers are being interviewed. I don't know how the union
feels about that, but we are there. And I think what we are
able to show is to really bring our knowledge to the table and
what we think is good for not only Native students but other
students. So I think these educational programs really allow us
to be at the table.
But the point that I want to stress is that it must be the
Native organization that has the lead in receiving these funds.
We think that it's a true measure of self-determination, and we
want to be engaged in the education of our children.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Worl follows:]
Prepared Statement of Rosita Kaahani Worl, Ph.D.
summary
The purpose of the hearing will be to learn what efforts by Alaska
Native organizations to improve the educational outcomes of Alaska
Native children and youth are working, what challenges remain, and the
role of the Federal Government in helping to build on success.
efforts by native organizations
Focusing on Native educational achievement.
Integrating language and cultural restoration in school as
a means to improve academic achievement of Native students.
Monitoring progress of Alaska Native education and Federal
funding for Native education and language.
Promoting systemic change in educational systems to
address Native educational needs.
Specific Actions:
Teacher training and employment in school districts.
Curriculum Development.
Professional Development.
Partnerships with school districts and Alaska's university
system.
Summer Academies and programs.
Federal and State funding for Native education.
Case Study of Native Education in Juneau
challenges
Positive Native identities.
Cross cultural training and understanding.
Increasing number of Native teachers and administrators
and their employment in schools.
Recognition by schools, government and public that
integration of indigenous culture and language into schools promotes
academic achievement.
Funding to support Alaska Native organizational
participation in educational efforts.
the role of federal government
Advocacy, support and funding for Native educational and
language programs.
Support research efforts to understand barriers to Native
academic success.
Fund Alaska Native organization to become full partners in
educational efforts.
______
Gunulcheesh, Aanshaawatk'i, Deisheetaan, Yeil, Angoon Kwaan
Senator Murkowski, thank you for holding this hearing on a subject
of vital concern to the Native community. May I also express the
gratitude of the Native community for your staunch advocacy and support
of Alaska Native education.
In honor of my ancestors and in respect to this committee, I am
privileged to tell you who I am:
Lingit x'einax Yeideiklats'ok ka Kaahani ax saayi.
Shangukeidi ka Chaak' naa xat sitee.
Kawdliyaayi Hit aya xat.
Lukaax.adi yadi aya xat.
My Tlingit names are Yedeilats'ok and Kaahani
I am of the Thunderbird Clan and the Eagle Moiety.
I am from the House Lowered from the Sun of Klukwan.
I am a Child of the Sockeye Clan.
My English name is Rosita Worl, and I serve as president of the
Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI), whose mission is to perpetuate and
enhance the cultures of the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshians and to
promote cross-cultural understanding and cultural diversity.
My Tlingit names, clan and house are the basis of my social
identity and cultural values. They establish a bond between me and my
ancestors, and they create a responsibility to our future generations.
I shared my traditional identity to offer you a glimpse into our
world, our relationship to our land and environment and the complexity
of our culture. It is also a simple measure to illustrate the
differences that exist between the Native and non-Native society. The
essence of our being and our Native world view are rarely taught in
schools or understood by educators.
One of our institutional goals has been to ensure that our children
have the opportunity to develop a positive identity around their
cultural heritage and legal status as Native Americans and Alaska
Natives. Although seemingly simple, a basic premise we hold is that a
``positive identity'' contributes to one's well-being and academic
achievement. This knowledge of self and one's heritage and history have
been historically denied to Native students. Today we are trying to
resolve the many social and educational dilemmas afflicting past and
current generations caused in part by undervaluing our Native identity,
self, and heritage.
I previously submitted a summary responding to the three questions
that you had posed, which is also included here in my written
testimony. I would like to briefly review the success of Native
students who participated in Alaska Native Education Program (ANEP)
funded programs in Juneau school and summarize my written statement on
the participation of Alaska Native organizations (ANO) in Native
educational programs.
efforts by native organizations to improve the educational outcomes
of alaska native youth
Focusing on Native educational achievement.
Integrating language and cultural restoration in school as
a means to improve academic achievement of Native students.
Monitoring progress of Alaska Native education and Federal
funding for Native education and language.
Promoting systemic change in educational systems to
address Native educational needs.
Specific Actions:
Teacher training and employment in school districts;
Curriculum development;
Professional development;
Partnerships with school districts and Alaska's university
system;
Summer academies and programs; and
Federal and State funding for Native education.
challenges
Positive Native identities.
Cross-cultural training and understanding.
Increasing number of Native teachers and administrators
and their employment in schools.
Recognition by schools, government and public that
integration of indigenous culture and language into schools promotes
academic achievement.
Funding to support Alaska Native organizational
participation in educational efforts.
the role of federal government
Advocacy, support and funding for Native educational and
language programs.
Support research efforts to understand barriers to Native
academic success.
Fund Alaska Native organization to become full partners in
educational efforts.
shi and native education review
In 2000 the Sealaska Heritage Institute, in partnership with the
Juneau School District, launched a pilot program in Harborview
Elementary School that over the next 10 years would make an
unprecedented impact on the District. The program was designed to turn
the tide of low academic performance and family engagement of Alaska
Natives by creating a place-based, culture-based ``school within a
school'' where the Tlingit language and culture were integral to daily
instruction, where they were celebrated and respected. Over the next 10
years it evolved into the Tlingit Culture, Language and Literacy (TCLL)
program with support from three consecutive grants awarded by the ANEP
and the Office of Bilingual Education in the U.S. Department of
Education. The initial grant was awarded to the SHI. The following two
grants were awarded directly to the Juneau School District. Although
SHI was identified as a partner in the school district grants, SHI was
not involved in the programmatic development nor actually were we aware
that we were a partner or understood the authorities that came with
being a partner. Several other Native organizations donated funds to
the school district to support various aspects of the TCLL Program.
During the last decade, SHI together with other Juneau-based Native
organizations developed educational programs, curriculum, supplemental
material, teacher training programs, cultural workshops and summer
leadership programs around Native culture and language that were
primarily funded by ANEP, the Administration for Native Americans and
other sources of public and private funding.
We were keenly interested in the overall impact of the Native
language and culture programs on Native student achievement during the
last 10 years. We commissioned Dr. Annie Calkins, a former assistant
superintendent of the Juneau School District, to conduct an evaluation
of students who participated in the TCLL program. We would like to
share a few highlights of the draft report that we will make available
to you upon completion of the final report:
70 percent of the first group of students (17) enrolled in
the ANEP-sponsored TCLL graduated from high school in 2012. This is
double the percentage of Native students in the district who typically
graduate.
One student, who participated in the TCLL program from
grades 2-5 was awarded a Gates scholarship and will attend Stanford
University in 2013.
TCLL students generally do as well or better than their
Native peers on standardized tests in reading and writing.
The TCLL program was available to a rather small number of the
Juneau School District population averaging 25 to 30 students each
year. We believe the data and success of these students reflect that
ANOs should have the opportunity to expand and implement this approach
to a greater number of students and schools. It has nurtured positive
connections with Native parents, many of whom had negative experiences
with schools as students, and parents of students.
The Alaska Native Education Equity, Support and Assistance Act was
authored by the late and our dear friend, Senator Stevens, to ensure a
funding stream designed to specifically meet the needs of Alaska Native
students. His second objective was to ensure that Alaska Native people
were maximally involved in the planning and management of Alaska Native
Education programs. Senator Stevens authored the Alaska Native
Education Equity, Support and Assistance Act in response to these
disparities, and to create an opportunity for equity in education for
Alaska Native people. ANEP was designed to address Alaska Native
students' needs in a threefold way by:
1. focusing attention on the educational needs of Alaska Native
students,
2. investing substantial funding in the creation and operation of
supplemental educational programs for Alaska Native students, and
3. maximizing participation of Alaska Native people in the planning
and management of Alaska Native education programs.
Tribes elsewhere in the country can utilize Bureau of Indian
Education (BIE) funding to establish and run their own tribal schools
and programs. However, Alaska receives no BIE funding, and in Alaska,
the State is responsible for educating all Alaskans, including Alaska
Natives.
Historically, the State's and districts' track records on educating
Alaska Native students have been poor. As noted above, our data reflect
that Native students who were able to participate in a Native language
and culture-based program are doing better than other students.
However, the overall record for Native academic achievement remains
dismal as reflected by data extracted from the Alaska State Report
Card:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
2002 [In 2003 [In 2004 [In [In [In [In [In [In [In [In
percent] percent] percent] percent] percent] percent] percent] percent] percent] percent]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alaska Native student 23.3............ 23.7............ 24.3........... 24.7 25.2 25.1 23.2 22.8 22.8 22.5
dropouts in grades 7-12, as
percentage of all Alaska
Natives.
Alaska Native student 34.5............ 39.7............ 40.6........... 33.7 36.6 37.8 37.9 37.3 38.3 41.2
dropouts in grades 7-12, as
a percentage of total number.
Graduation rate of Alaska N/A............. N/A............. N/A............ 43.0 45.0 51.0 48.1 55.4 55.4 50.9
Native students.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Direct Native participation in the education of our students is
possible with funding the ANOs have received, and it serves to improve
the status of Native education. However, ANOs are increasingly
concerned that the manner in which the Department of Education is
implementing the ANEP is paying inadequate attention to the most
important principle of the authorizing legislation: Equity.
Senator Murkowski, you, and all members of the Alaska delegation,
have strongly advocated for the ANEP program in both the authorization
and appropriations processes. And, may I emphasize again that we are
especially grateful for your unwavering support for the program over
the years when it has been attacked as an earmark and/or as duplicative
of other programs.
We want to introduce another reason for you to continue your
support for this program: We believe that putting ANOs in the position
as lead grantees for ANEP funding will make a marked difference for
Alaska Native students. From our experience over the last decade we
have observed that being a lead grantee in an ANEP grant allows ANOs to
come to the table as an equal partner with larger educational entities
such as school districts and universities. This equality creates
fertile ground for systemic change. Unfortunately, since 2005, over
three-quarters of the funding and three-quarters of the grants have
been awarded to non-Native entities.
Alaska Native Education Equity Act--Award/Funding Analysis 2005-11
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Percent Percent
Organization type of of
grants funds
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alaska Native Organizations:........... 31 grants................. $39.3 million............ 23.3 21.70
ANO competitive awards only.......... 23 grants................. $27.3 million............ 17.29 17.72
Other Organizations:................... 102 grants................ $114.7 million........... 76.70 78.30
School districts..................... 50 grants................. $75.7 million............ 37.5 41.9
Non-profits.......................... 30 grants................. $37.2 million............ 22.5 20.60
Universities......................... 22 grants................. $28.3 million............ 16.50 15.60
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sec. 7302(2). It is the policy of the Federal Government to encourage the maximum participation by Alaska
Natives in the planning and the management of Alaska Native Education programs.
Sec. 7302(7). The Federal Government should lend support to efforts developed by and undertaken within the
Alaska Native community to improve educational opportunity for all students.
In our concern for the inequitable allocation of funds, the Alaska
Federation of Natives passed a resolution (enclosed) last spring urging
Congress to ensure that grants funded by the Alaska Native Equity
Program are administered through ANOs and as lead grantees. Our
analysis of the 2012 grants reveal that ANOs made modest gains with the
percent of grants and the percent of funds both increasing by 12
percent.
Alaska Native Education Equity Act--Award/Funding Analysis 2012 only
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Percent Percent
Organization type of of
grants funds
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alaska Native Organizations:...........
ANOP competitive awards only......... 11 grants................. $6.17 million............ 29 30
Other Organizations: 27 grants.................
School districts..................... 15 grants................. $7.60 million............ 39 36
Non-profits.......................... 8 grants.................. $4.80 million............ 21 23
Universities......................... 4 grants.................. $2.28 million............ 11 11
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some non-Native organizations, like school districts and
universities, may argue that funding is being taken away from them.
Maximizing ANO involvement as lead grantees will simply realign
implementation of the ANEP program with the original intent of the
statute: Equity and maximum involvement of ANOs.
As ANO's, we are concerned that the program is not being adequately
implemented, particularly in relation to the purpose of maximizing
Alaska Native participation. In fact, in April 2012, AFN wrote to you
detailing our concerns about the program. First, the law requires that
the Department of Education (the Department) prioritize funding to
Alaska Native regional organizations, but as I have already mentioned,
the majority of ANEP funding over the last decade was awarded to non-
Alaska Native organizations and entities (including school districts
and universities).
The statute provides a clear priority to Alaska Native regional
nonprofits or consortia that include these organizations. However, this
priority is being increasingly undermined by other priorities as
identified by the Department. In the last 2 years, Request for
Applications (RFA) for the ANEP program gave the same number of points
to applications from Alaska Native regional nonprofits (ANRO) as it did
for programmatic priorities identified by the Department. Furthermore,
the programmatic priorities identified were neither targeted to Alaska
Native needs, nor relevant goals for supplemental education programs
focused on outcomes for Alaska Native students. In fact, the priorities
in the RFA were not even reflective of the priorities listed in the
statute. In addition to last year's programmatic priorities, this year,
novice applicants, including non-Native organizations, were given a
five-point priority. Again, ANROs were given only two points. As a
result, the statutory priority given to ANROs was subordinated to other
priorities.
Current statute allows the Secretary to make grants and enter into
contracts with non-Native organizations, and at the same time it also
requires that Local Education Agencies (LEA) and State Education
Agencies (SEA) apply in consortia with Native organizations. ANOs are
often enlisted for the value of their imprimaturs, but not considered
or involved as full partners in the consortia as we reported above. It
is time for this to change.
Opponents claim that the ANEP program is duplicative and
unnecessary. On the contrary, this program is essential and beneficial
to Native students. The Alaska Native Educational Equity, Support and
Assistance Act was designed to ensure equity, not duplication. ANEP
funding can make a significant difference for Alaska Native students,
in the right circumstances. The right circumstances involve strong,
equal partnerships between Alaska Native and non-Native organizations
as required by the statute.
Congress is likely to tackle reauthorization of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act in the new Congress. I urge you to leverage the
reauthorization process to realign this essential program with the
original goals of the legislation.
Educational policy and laws that were once written in order to
maximize Alaska Native Organizational involvement in education and the
management thereof are being implemented in such a fashion that
actually, through the grant-making process, minimizes Alaska Native
Organizational involvement. We urge you to support efforts that ensure
ANOs are the lead organizations and that partnerships are partnerships
of equals. ANOs in the position as lead grantees for ANEP funding will
make a marked difference for Alaska Native students.
Alaskan Natives believe in self-determination and want an active
role in the education of our children. We want to be trusted with the
future of our own children--educationally, socially, and economically.
Gunlcheesh.
ATTACHMENT
Alaska Federation of Natives, AFN Board of Directors--Resolution 12-03
TITLE: TO AMEND ALASKA NATIVE EDUCATION EQUITY ACT AND INCLUDE
DIRECTIVE LANGUAGE IN APPROPRIATIONS BILLS SO THAT FUNDING IS
ADMINISTERED BY ALASKA NATIVE ORGANIZATIONS IN ORDER TO IMPROVE
EDUCATION FOR ALASKA NATIVE YOUTH.
WHEREAS: The Alaska Native Education Equity Act was enacted by
Congress in 2002 and provides approximately $33 million per year in
funding for programs across the State that address the needs of
Alaska Native students--from early childhood education to secondary
school preparation programs; and
WHEREAS: The Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) does not contribute
funds to the education of Alaska Native students;
WHEREAS: The Alaska Native Education Equity Act authorizes the use of
funds under the Act for the development of curriculum and
educational programs that reflect and are aligned with the cultural
diversity, language and contributions of Alaska Native people and
for other supplemental educational programs that support Alaska
Native college and career readiness; and
WHEREAS: The Alaska Native Educational Equity Act states that it is
the policy of the Federal Government to encourage maximum
participation by Alaska Native people in the planning and
management of Alaska Native Education programs; and
WHEREAS: The Act also authorizes the Department of Education to fund
programs under this act administered by Alaska Native
Organizations, educational entities and cultural and community-
based organizations; and
WHEREAS: Assessments of grant funding reflects the following:
Decreasing awards granted to Alaska Native
Organizations
Increasing awards to school districts,
University of Alaska, and other organizations, and
Alaska Native Organizations may be
identified as ``Partners'' with school districts, University of
Alaska, or other organizations, but in actuality have little to
no control or oversight of the grant development,
implementation, and programs; and
WHEREAS: School Districts and Universities have access to other
funding that Alaska Native Organization are ineligible to apply
for; and
WHEREAS: The Act specifically prioritizes funding for Alaska Native
regional nonprofit organizations or consortia that include such
Alaska Native organizations; and
WHEREAS: Native Cultures and Languages have been documented to serve
as resilience factors in youth, and inclusion of such content in
meaningful ways can support academic success; and
WHEREAS: Alaska Native corporations, organizations, and tribes
throughout the State of Alaska are working to improve Native
Education through intentional and strategic programs that utilize
culturally relevant curricula; and
WHEREAS: Over the last 10 years, Alaska Native Organizations have
successfully demonstrated that they can provide programs that
improve academic performance of Alaska Native students; and
WHEREAS: Alaska Native Organizations, working in partnerships with
Schools, Universities, or other Organizations as the lead can
ensure the success of Alaska Native students; and
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED the Alaska Federation of Natives supports
the continuation of Alaska Native Education Equity Act funding in
order to meet the dire needs of Alaska Native students, and urges
the delegation to pursue every means possible to amend the House
version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to ensure
inclusion and continuation of the Alaska Native Education Equity
Act and sufficient funding in the appropriations and authorization
processes; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Alaska Federation of Natives further urges
Congress to take action to ensure that grants funded by the Alaska
Native Equity Program are administered through Alaska Native
Organizations and as lead grantees with partners, and that the
Department of Education consults with Alaska Native Organizations
to identify programmatic priority areas for future funding.
ADOPTED THIS DAY, 22nd
OF FEBRUARY 2012
Julie E. Kitka,
President.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Rosita.
Doreen.
STATEMENT OF DOREEN E. BROWN, SUPERVISOR, TITLE VII INDIAN
EDUCATION DEPARTMENT, ANCHORAGE SCHOOL DISTRICT, ANCHORAGE, AK
Ms. Brown. Thank you, Senator Murkowski, for having me sit
at the table today and to be able to share information with you
about our program in the Anchorage School District, or many of
our programs.
My name is Doreen Brown. My family is from Aniak, and I'm
also the proud mother of two children that attend the school
district now. I am here to discuss the urban education
experience. I think it's really important. I think sometimes we
forget that particular conversation and how school districts
and Native organizations can come together to be more
synergistic partners in encouraging academic success for our
students.
I am the supervisor for Title VII Indian Education that is
embedded within NCLB. If you ever need some reading material--
it's actually title VII--to go to sleep at night, it's really
exciting stuff. But it is really important, because it is
something that our government--is an obligation for them to
serve our students--one way. That language does need to be
stronger, I think, and we need to hold our districts' feet to
the fire to make sure that they're implementing that with
rigor, with true accountability to our people, and making sure
our people have a voice with what's being done with those
funds.
I stand before you, and I feel like I really do do that. I
have a great parent committee, and I have a lot of input from
the community of Anchorage. With that, I just want to let you
know that we are the largest grantee for title VII funding. I
have over 8,800 Native students in this district. I think
people are really shocked at that number. I say children are
either currently our customers, they've been our customer, or
they're going to become our customer.
Here's some statistics from last year. We started out with
about 8,800 Native students at the beginning of the school year
last year. We ended in May with about 8,500 students. But the
total number of students that came in and out of Anchorage was
10,300. That's 1,800 students that withdrew. They went
somewhere. Some of them dropped out, as you know from our
indicators throughout the State.
I don't think anyone here is not familiar with those
statistics. But most of them leave, and they go on to a rural
area. So we have to be included in these conversations and
these decisions that are going on within our State.
So I'd like to address four questions today. The first one
is: Why is there an increase in Native students in the
Anchorage School District? I think if you were participating in
the conversation with Senator Murkowski and Congressman Don
Young, you would have heard the cheese story, and that was one
of the factors. But I'll elaborate on that in a minute.
What are the challenges that face our students that come
into urban areas? What are we doing to assist the students,
families, and staff as they work to encourage the success of
our Native students? And how are our Native organizations
working together to help our students achieve success?
In thinking about the increase of Native students,
urbanization is occurring globally. It's just a natural
occurrence that's going on across our globe. The other thing is
that we are able to more effectively identify our students.
Before, we only got to choose a box, either white or Native.
But now we are able to self-identify and to choose more than
one box. We're able to identify more students that way.
The other thing is transients. People come in. They come in
for a variety of reasons. Maybe it's healthcare. Maybe it's for
education. Maybe it's just for access to all the great things
that Anchorage has. It sounds really good at the beginning, and
then oftentimes they leave. So there's many reasons why we have
an increase of Native people. And the last one is because of
just pure population growth. I think we're a healthy, robust
population.
And what are the challenges that our children face when
they come to Anchorage? East High School has over 2,000 Native
students. You can imagine that this is pretty intense when we
have kids that are coming from small villages that only have
maybe 300 to 500 people in the entire village. This school is
larger than their village, and to access that is just
overwhelming. Trying to get a lunch is pretty profound for some
of our students that are coming in from those areas. Even kids
that are urbanized going into those large urban areas--when
you're really about making connections with people, it's quite
difficult.
So besides that, there's also educational disparity. And
I'll just read some statistics just from the Anchorage School
District. Only 53 percent of our students are proficient in
reading, 46 percent proficient in writing, 43 percent
proficient in math, 40 percent proficient in science, an 8
percent dropout rate, and graduation rate is about 50 percent.
So other issues include social. I think one of the things
our kids really struggle with is about connections. My family
is from Aniak. I taught out in Kalskag, and we knew everyone.
We waved at everyone. We knew everyone's business. We knew
where Mingo was. We knew if somebody was sick. We knew if
somebody needed something. We helped one another out.
Kids that come in sometimes often don't have those
connections. I will say, personally, I have many family members
in the Anchorage area. I very rarely see them. I Facebook them,
but I very rarely see them. So taking kids away from that is
really hard, and so we do try to make those connections within
the school.
For example, at East, we had a class--not last year, but
the year before when we had a lot of kids coming in, we had a
class at the very beginning of the school day so that they can
meet kids coming in from rural areas or new to East High School
to assist them, thinking about the school profile, the physical
tour of the school, introductions, explanation of policies and
procedures of that school, how to ride a bus. Many of our
students maybe have never ridden a bus before or have walked
eight city blocks to get to school in the dark when they don't
know anyone and their parents have to go to work--just school
resources.
And then also getting to know the families--what are their
needs and how can we help them in setting up community
organizations? I think one of the main things we know is that
they really lose connections with their culture. I have about
60 staff members in the schools. We have 110 schools. We're not
in every school. Chinook Elementary School, which is on the
Diamond side, has 165 Native students. I have two staff members
there. They don't see every kid.
So it's really difficult to do that, and we know, based on
research--and I'll cite Demmert and Towner in 2003 and
Kana'iaupuni in 2007--defined cultural-based education. All of
you referenced cultural-based education. It's critical. We see
elements of it in the school district, but not much. We need to
change that. They talk about Native languages, a pedagogy,
teaching strategies that align to traditional culture.
Curriculum is really important and understanding the strong
Native family connection and also community connection. And
there's more if you'd like to read on that particular research.
So what are we doing to help families, students, and staff,
actually, within the school district? We do some staff
training. We need to have more. There's one of me. I need
everyone to help with this particular endeavor. It's good for
everyone.
We are also, as a district, really moving and have been a
key player with social-emotional learning--that has really
helped with our students--and creating a plan of support,
locating resources for students and families. We also provide
some language, but not very much. It's very limited. And we
struggle with trying to find teachers that can teach language
and putting them within the system and having our system really
honor and respect that and utilize the people that teach that.
So title VII really addresses this. I really look at our
staff as really being liaisons and champions for our students.
But it takes a whole community. So we have more work to do with
that.
Currently, we have two ANEP grants. The first one--and
these are really exciting ways to be innovative with our
students and our families. For me, I actually went to schools.
This came from our Native--one of the grants came with an idea
from one of our Native advisory committee members. And she
said, ``You know, my son is really having a hard time accessing
and finishing this particular area. I wish that we could talk
about dealing with mobility.'' He kept coming back from Nenana
to Anchorage, Nenana to Anchorage.
So we sat down and we had some more dialogue. And then I
started having more dialogue with other people, and we thought,
``Wouldn't that be great if we infused some 21st century
learning tools, thinking about how do we address this mobility
issue so we can make sure that kids are successful?''
So this great idea came up, and it's called Project
Puqigtut, and it's actually an online course offering. We
looked at the courses that students typically fail, and we
started offering those online. But the key there, and why we
have a 70 percent success rate with this particular grant and
over 40 students as of--actually, almost 50 students that have
graduated because of this program, is because we have aligned
with BOT courses, but we adapted those courses to be culturally
responsive.
The other components that--we broke down barriers. What
were the barriers that kids were having? I actually went from
school to school. I had groups of kids, at-risk students,
engaged students, and gathered data from them and from
families. Internet is expensive. We asked the wrong question:
How many of you have Internet? We need to ask: How many of you
have consistent Internet? How many of you have Internet that
you share with your students? You know, your iPhone doesn't
count when you're trying to do an assignment on it. So we
provide Internet that people can check out and also computers
and transportation.
And the other thing is that they really want those
connections. So we hire teachers that are really dynamic with
our youth, and they have the opportunity to meet with them on a
consistent basis. And this has just been a wonderful, exciting
program, and we've had many students that have traveled
throughout the State and have been able to complete their high
school classes that way. So I think it's been wonderful.
The other project is called Project Ki'l, and that's a
Dena'ina word for boy. This is a boy specific program at eight
schools. We looked at our data, and I would say we're at the
bottom of the barrel--these boys. Our Native boys are
underneath the barrel, academically, socially. So one of the
things that we talk about and we really strive for is that
cultural connection, the rights of passage, making sure that we
have role models that are engaging with our youth, and really
looking at attendance and also academic success.
This, too, has shown great results. We're in year 4, and we
look forward to having more results for both of these
particular programs. They're innovative, and I know that many--
there's a program called iSchool with a Native school district
that is replicating some of the services that we've been
providing with Project Puqigtut. If it works for our kids,
it'll work for all kids. Project Ki'l--there's elements also
that I know the schools around the school district are looking
at as well and replicating.
I'd also like to just mention the Alaska Native Culture
School. They have done some great things within our district.
And I know that we look at them, and we say, ``Great job for
title I--a distinguished school.'' But it goes beyond that
because families, kids and parents, really feel welcome there.
So thank you. And I know they're in the audience right now.
The other thing that I'd like to highlight is that, as you
know, many of you are probably facing budget cuts, and we are
as well. And one of our school board members asked the
question: What kind of services are we having? There were two
people that were going to be cut that provide services to
students. So they ordered a study called the McDowell Study,
and it looked at all the services that are being provided
within the Anchorage School District, and it was a lot.
And Gloria O'Neill, if she's in here--she gathered us all
together to look at the particular report and decided to have
STRIVE, a creative framework for building what we're calling
Cradle to Community. I appreciate her leadership, and it's been
a wonderful opportunity. We're really at the very beginning
stages of it.
But this is about a community partnership. And if you can
visualize lots of different agencies doing all kinds of great
things for students and families--but the arrows were going all
over. We all have our own directions. We all have our own
funding sources. We all have our own objectives. Right?
Sometimes we write grants to win the grant, not necessarily
because it aligns with what we're doing.
And then we look at education, and maybe the arrows are
going in the same direction. But with STRIVE and the work that
we're doing as a community, we're aligning those arrows. And
we're going to have three to five outcomes that are measurable.
And guess what? We have agencies. We have CIRI, CITC, UAA, the
mayor, United Way--people that we've never really had strong
partnerships with--joining us to make sure that those arrows
are aligned.
We have hope, and we are really optimistic about the
services and having those specific goals for our students. It
is imperative that we collaborate on a fundamental level,
whether with Anchorage or within the State. And we need to look
at each other as allies with whom we can work together to
address and dispel the disparity that exists in educational
achievement within our State for our future.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Brown follows:]
Prepared Statement of Doreen E. Brown
summary
Doreen E. Brown will be discussing the urban education experience,
and how school districts and Native organizations can become more
synergistic partners in encouraging academic success for our students.
As the director for the Anchorage School District's (ASD) Indian
Education Program, which is the largest title VII grantee in the Nation
with over 8,700 Alaska Native/American Indian (AN/AI) students enrolled
in the Districts' 110 schools, she will share her expertise. The topic
is critical, because in order to meet the cultural, social, and
academic needs of these students, our Native organizations must work
together.
There are four questions that will be addressed:
1. Why is there an increase of Native students in the ASD?
Answer. Major contributors to the increase include: urbanization,
increased transience and employment mobility and population growth.
2. What are the challenges that face them?
Answer. Significant disparity in educational achievement, moving
into large urban centers from a smaller community (the school total
population is often bigger than the community the student has moved
from), and the lack of a cultural-based education.
3. What we are doing to assist students, families and staff as they
work to encourage the success of our students?
Answer. The Indian Education Program, the Alaska Native Education
Program, and many community and Native organizations work in
partnership for Native student success.
4. How are our Native organizations working together to help our
students achieve this success?
Answer. Native and many other city-wide organizations are creating
a framework for building a Cradle to Community infrastructure with
STRIVE. The infrastructure includes a shared community vision,
evidence-based decisionmaking, a collaborative action plan, and
developing an investment and sustainability strategy as well.
It is imperative that we collaborate on a fundamental level, and
look at each other as allies with whom we can work together to address
and dispel the disparity that exists in educational achievement in our
District.
______
Purpose: To determine the efficacy of efforts being made to improve the
educational outcomes of Alaska Native and American Indian students, to
problem-solve what challenges remain, and to explore the role of the
Federal Government in helping to build on our successes.
Date: October 19, 2012
Time: 4:00-5:30 p.m.
Location: Dena'ina Center
I am pleased to be here today to discuss the urban education
experience, and how school districts and Native organizations can
become more synergistic partners in encouraging academic success for
our students. My name is Doreen Brown, and I am the director for the
Anchorage School District's (ASD) Indian Education Program, which is
the largest title VII grantee in the Nation. Today in Anchorage there
are over 8,700 Alaska Native/American Indian (AN/AI) students enrolled
in the Districts' 110 schools. Our topic of discussion here today is
critical, because in order to meet the cultural, social, and academic
needs of these students, our Native organizations must work together.
There are four questions I wish to address today:
1. Why is there an increase of Native students in the ASD?
2. What are the challenges that face them?
3. What we are doing to assist students, families and staff as they
work to encourage the success of our students?
4. How are our Native organizations working together to help our
students achieve this success?
why is there an increase of native students in asd?
There has been a significant increase of Native students in the ASD
over the past 10 years, as determined by the number of completed 506
eligibility forms on file at our office, and also by self-reported
ethnicity codes. The number of Indian Education eligible students with
completed 506 forms in the 2005-6 school year stood at 5,758. Today
that number is 7,737. Based on self-reported ethnicity codes, we have
potentially another thousand students who may be eligible for our
services.
There are numerous reasons for this increase, including population
growth, increased transience and employment mobility, and continuing
urbanization.
what are the challenges?
Educational
One of the greatest challenges facing Alaska Native/American Indian
people is a significant disparity in educational achievement. Below is
a snapshot of the data from the Anchorage School District's 2010-11
Profile of Performance:
Grades 4-10 Reading: Percentage of proficient students
Alaska Native/American Indian (AN/AI) 53.18 percent.
Grades 4-10 Writing: Percentage of proficient students AN/
AI 46.01 percent.
Grades 4-10 Mathematics: Percentage of proficient students
AN/AI 43.56 percent.
Grades 4-10 Science: Percentage of proficient students AN/
AI 40.31 percent.
Grades 7-12 Annual Dropout Rate of AN/AI students 8.47
percent.
4-Year Cohort Graduation Rate of AN/AI students 50.88
percent.
Social
Many rural students are enrolling in Anchorage schools that are
larger than their home community. They and their families need
assistance in acclimating to our school system. This assistance could
include: school profile, physical tour of school, introduction and
explanation of school personnel, school bus operation and schedules,
school resources, input from family about student's educational
history, and setting up social supports within the school and
community.
Culture
Many AN/AI students in an urban environment such as Anchorage lack
opportunities to connect with their heritage, language and culture that
may be more readily available in rural settings. Research has
identified several components of Cultural Based Education that are
critical to improving Native student performance. In recent literature
reviews of these studies, Demmert and Towner (2003) and Kana'iaupuni
(2007) defined Cultural Based Education as having these critical
elements:
1. Recognition and use of Native languages;
2. Pedagogy using traditional cultural characteristics and adult-
child interactions;
3. Teaching strategies that align with traditional culture and ways
of knowing and learning;
4. Curriculum based on traditional culture and Native spirituality;
5. Strong Native family and community participation in education
and the planning and operation of school activities;
6. Knowledge and use of the community's political and social mores;
7. Meaningful and relevant learning through culturally grounded
content and assessment; and
8. Use of data from various methods to insure student progress in
culturally responsible ways.
what we are doing to assist students, families and staff?
Indian Education Program
The Anchorage School District's Indian Education Program is crucial
to meeting the cultural and academic needs of Native students that
schools do not otherwise address. Our program staff works hard to
improve academic outcomes for Native students, while encompassing
social-emotional learning, and building connections to heritage,
culture and language. They also perform other critical tasks, such as
researching the educational history of new-to-District students,
addressing individual needs of the student, creating a plan of support,
locating resources for the student and family, finding or assisting
with Indigenous language translations (over 270 Yup'ik and 60 Inupiaq
students enrolled in the ASD's English Language Learners Program in
2011), making personal connections, and conducting culturally
responsive professional development at each school site. Funding is
limited, therefore our resources are limited as well. In 2010-11, the
Indian Education Program provided direct supplemental services to 3,378
AN/AI students.
Alaska Native Education Program (ANEP)
Alaska Native Education Program funds provide critical resources
for the creative solutions needed to address the issues facing our
Alaska Native and American Indian students. We currently have two
successful projects through this funding source. The first, Project
Puqigtut (Cup'ik word for ``Smart People''), is a ground-breaking high
school success program, launched in 2008 for 21st century Alaska Native
and American Indian students. Students can earn core credits through
culturally responsive online coursework, either to get ahead, or get
back on track in order to graduate. Project Puqigtut incorporates
cultural role models and Native ways of knowing into a 21st century
learning model. It can operate outside of the school day, so that it
has the unique ability to meet students where they are--at school, at
home, at a shelter--and prevents them from falling through the cracks.
Project partners include Cook Inlet Tribal Council, Job Corps, King
Career Center, the University of Alaska, Anchorage. Project ``P'' has
brought over 300 high-risk students closer to graduation and has quite
literally made it possible for them to complete high school.
Our second program funded by ANEP is Project Ki'l (Ki'l is Dena'ina
Athabascan for ``boy''). This highly innovative project was launched in
2007, and serves over 500 Alaska Native boys between the ages of 3 and
10 each year. Native boys are one of our highest risk and most
vulnerable student groups, and among the most likely to experience
academic failure and/or drop out. Project Ki'l reaches these boys and
their families early in the boys' development. It seeks to demonstrate
that culturally responsive education results in higher academic
outcomes, and brings in fathers and other male role models to foster
high self-esteem and success. This model helps parents, educators, and
community supporters such as Cook Inlet Head Start, the Alaska Native
Heritage Center, University of Alaska, Anchorage, and Cook Inlet Tribal
Council meet the unique and pressing needs of Native boys--all as
partners in their education. Project Ki'l reaffirms the boys' identity
by celebrating, sharing, and embracing their heritage and traditions.
how are organizations working together?
During the spring of 2010, the ASD was tasked with the difficult
task of making budget cuts. One of the proposed cuts was to two
positions that primarily served AN/AI high school students. One of the
ASD school board members, Jeannie Mackie, performed several sites
visits to learn more about the services these two positions supported.
In addition to learning about these services, she made connections
between other agencies and ASD departments that also offered support to
students and families. Mrs. Mackie found that there are many services
for Native students and families from numerous organizations, she then
requested that a study be conducted that reviewed and consolidated the
services, the McDowell study was completed in February 2011. The STRIVE
school board initiative was borne out of these connections.
STRIVE creates a framework for building what is called a Cradle to
Community infrastructure. It is a way for the community to organize
itself around a shared vision and identify the things that achieve
results for children. STRIBE improves and augments these efforts over
time, targeting the investment of the community's resources in
different directions to increase their impact.
It is imperative that we collaborate on a fundamental level, and
look at each other as allies with whom we can work together to address
and dispel the disparity that exists in educational achievement in our
District.
References
Demmert, W.G., Jr., & Towner, J.C. (2003). A review of the research
literature on the influences of culturally-based education on the
academic performance of Native American students [Final paper].
Portland, OR: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. Available at
http://educationnorthwest.org/resource/561.
Abstract: One of the major tasks facing Native American communities
(American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians) is to create
lifelong learning opportunities that allow all the members to improve
their quality of life, and to meet their tribal responsibilities
through meaningful contributions to the local, national, and world
communities in which they live and interact. The greatest educational
challenge for many is to build learning environments that allow each of
their young children to obtain an education that ``creates good people
that are knowledgeable and wise.'' The formal reports cited in this
review of the literature present the position that knowing,
understanding, and appreciating one's cultural base are necessary
starting points for initiating a young child's formal education. The
theory is that it sets the stage for what occurs in a youngster's later
life. The task of this report is to review the research literature to
determine whether there is a direct relationship between a culturally-
based education curriculum and improved academic performance among
Native-American students.
Kana'iaupuni, S.M. (2007). A brief overview of culture-based
education and annotated bibliography (Culture-Based Education Brief
Series). Honolulu: Kamehameha Schools, Research & Evaluation. Available
at http://www.ksbe.edu/spi/cbe.php.
Senator Murkowski. Thanks, Doreen.
Carl.
STATEMENT OF CARL ROSE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ASSOCIATION OF
ALASKA SCHOOL BOARDS, JUNEAU, AK
Mr. Rose. Thank you, Senator, for this opportunity to speak
with you and be on the record. I would like to associate myself
and maybe establish my credibility. I am not only the executive
director of the School Board Association. I am also very
interested in the American Indian and Alaska Native and Native
Hawaiian Act. I happen to be Hawaiian.
As a young boy, I was taught the term, when you have no
more love in the soul of the Hawaiian, then there is no more
Hawaii. Then there is no more Hawaii. So I want to report to
you that many of the people in Hawaii--though there are very,
very few pure Native Hawaiians, Hawaii is alive and well
because of their language and their culture.
So with that, I think I want to proceed with some of my
comments, if I may. I've been asked to preface some of the
opportunities that are available to Alaska and its people that
maybe many of you don't realize. So I will take a couple of
minutes to say that in the Constitution of the State of Alaska,
under Article VII, Health, Education, and Welfare, the
legislature shall establish by general law and maintain a
system of public education open to all children. That is
profound.
The Alaska legislature has seen fit to delegate certain
educational functions to local boards, in order that Alaska
schools might adopt and reflect the varying conditions in
various locales around the State. We're talking about local
control here. The decisions over your schools are held largely
locally. And I want to touch on something that Doreen said. The
public, you, need to hold your school districts accountable.
You need to hold your boards' feet to the flame.
Now, that sounds kind of strange for the executive director
of the School Board Association. But, if nobody attends our
meetings, nobody is monitoring public schools. You need to
engage yourself.
School boards are created in the statute. This is their
authority under AS 14.12.030 and also in the unorganized
borough under AS 14.12.170. The Rural Education Attendance
Areas, the REAAs, are part of the unorganized borough, and they
are recognized as school districts. Therefore, their governing
bodies are school boards as well.
So it doesn't matter where you're at in the State of
Alaska, whether you're in organized Alaska or unorganized
Alaska. Your borough assembly in unorganized Alaska may be the
Alaska legislature. But your schools are governed by local
school boards. And that's a real opportunity I think you should
avail yourself of.
The authority of school boards over their budgets and
district operations--school districts have broad discretion
over procedures, procurement, and finance decisions. And in
statutes, in courts, they quote that the court should exercise
great caution before disturbing the districts' boards'
authority. That doesn't mean you can't overturn them. But that
means you should observe that they represent the people
locally.
The duties of the school board is to determine and disburse
a total amount of funds available for salaries, compensation
for all school employees and school district operations, and
provide an educational program during the school term every
year. This should be of interest to you. In AS 14.14.100,
bylaws and administrative rules, the school board policies
related to management and control of the school district shall
be expressed in written bylaws formally adopted by regular
school board meetings.
Every year, school boards review their policies. And, in
fact, at every meeting, you have an opportunity to speak on
those policies. They have to be clearly stated in bylaws, and
they're available to the public. The chief school administrator
may be selected and employed and needs to be a qualified person
and shall be compensated and controlled as well as all
administrative officers. The Association of Alaska School
Boards is also in statutes as a representative agency of school
board members of the State of Alaska.
So what I'm trying to say is that the process for governing
our schools is really quite clear. Through statutes, through
regulations, through negotiated agreements, through budgetary
decisions that are being made and also court decisions, this is
the framework that is set for school districts. Aside from all
that jargon, the thing that you need to know is that your
elected officials are responsible and accountable to you. And
so these are their responsibilities, but you need to hold them
responsible.
One of the difficulties we have that faces the public is
the active exercise of citizen ranks in a representative
government. Too few citizens understand how schools are
governed, how they're financed, how they're controlled, and how
they're overseen. Let me repeat that. Too few of our citizens
understand how we're governed, how we're financed, how we're
controlled, and how we're governed. Some people in this room
may be in that group.
The public in public education in many ways are absent from
the representative form of government. I don't say that to be
critical. I'm saying that many of us expect something to happen
without us being part of the solution. So communities being
actively engaged, intentionally engaged, in their civic
responsibilities are key to the public success in public
education. The public is key.
We can blame school boards. We can blame teachers. We can
blame administrators. We can blame anybody we want. The fact of
the matter is it's clear in statutes that the public has the
ability to ensure that the process works, so the process is
clear. And I think that that kind of leads me to some of the
comments that I wanted to make, and I'm trying to preface my
written testimony.
But, understanding the challenges that we face is a pretty
important issue. When you talk about quality, performance,
accountability, and fairness; quality, performance,
accountability, and fairness--those are our challenges. Do we
understand that? I don't know that we do. In many cases--not
anybody in this room--but in many cases, we go straight to
blame before we even start to understand what our
responsibilities are and what the challenges are that we face.
At AASB, we have done some research to try to determine
what have been the overriding factors that contribute to
student success in terms of staying in school or leaving
school. And we find that there are some personal problems and
some family pressures that really top the list, and they are--
like you don't already know--drug and alcohol use, peer
pressure, lack of family support, economic reasons, early
parenthood, and mental health reasons, depression. Some of our
kids suffer from depression, and many of them in our schools
have to go it alone--followed by this negative experience with
peers, teachers, and authority figures in schools, the lack of
positive connections and support from teachers and staff in the
belief that school will help them in their future careers. They
lack that belief.
I think right there, where are the families? Where are the
parents? Where are the people who care for our kids? Doreen
asked you. We need help. We need help.
So, I would share with you there are some distinct
differences that make good schools. And these are responses
from some of the students that we surveyed and asked. These are
from Native students, non-Native students. These are people who
are engaged, not engaged. The list goes on. In terms of the
things that they think are good with schools is that they feel
connected with schools. And, of course, if they don't feel
connected, they're not too keen on schools.
So when you take a look at the importance of feeling
connected in schools, when you take a look at the kind of
academic opportunities you have, extracurricular opportunities,
good teaching structure, and teacher expectations, they view
those items as critically important to them to want to stay in
school. To the contrary, when we lack that expectation for our
kids, maybe we get what we get. But we shouldn't.
The two major issues we're dealing with here today, not so
much health, but education, I think, are critically important
in our communities. So, when I talk about my association, I am
governed by a 15-member board that's elected from the regions
of the State. I have 333 school board members elected. They're
created in statutes and they are empowered with what I just
told you. They come from 53 school districts and they represent
the interest of 129,000 kids.
And so what is it that they do when they come together as
an association? Well, we have decided that as a result of what
we're seeing in the field in over the last 11 years, we have
engaged in a community engagement, the Initiative for Community
Engagement, Alaska ICE. We think that if you engage parents,
families, and communities in the intentional concern for your
students and how you might be able to interact with the
entities that exist, mainly school boards, your chances of
success go way up in terms of impacting the system.
I will tell you that the reason we have this program or had
this program was over the last 11 years, we have been
recipients of dollars from the Alaska Native Equity Program. We
did not get that money this year. And I will tell you what I
told my board of directors. The day may come when we say that
might have been the best thing that happened to us.
I understand why Native people want to have more control of
Native moneys. That does not negate the fact that community
engagement is critically important. So the school board
association is going to take it upon themselves to sustain that
effort through whatever means necessary. We have some designs
in terms of how we're going to do that.
The other concerns that we have are early childhood
development at the community level and pre-kindergarten--
critically important. We know that if our kids are better
prepared to take advantage of an education, that is, a free
education that they'll never receive again, their chances of
success go way up. And if they're proficient in reading and
writing and mathematics by the third grade, it is the leading
indicator of success through the educational process, the
leading indicator. If they're not prepared, that's where the
performance gap starts, because the curriculum steepens and
they fall farther and farther behind. If we know this, why are
our systems not paying more attention to that?
Another thing that came up here shortly, and we are deeply
involved in, is the whole issue of digital learning. We think
it's a great equalizer. The kind of technology that's available
to us today is critically important. The ability to give kids
the opportunities that everybody else enjoys via digital
instruction requires some investment to be made. Do we have
enough bandwidth? No, not yet. Do we have enough professional
development? No, not yet. Is it worth the investment to ensure
that our kids get the best bite of the apple? Absolutely.
Senator, I think that's one area we may want to pay
attention to rather than a competition for Federal funds such
as Race to the Top dollars that we are not included in.
What I want to say is that, in conclusion, the challenges
that we have regarding fairness and equity--I think everything
that I've heard here today and comments that were made outside
is that Native Alaskans feel that fairness and equity is not
being provided like everywhere else. And I think the same is
true in our State. I think many of our citizens feel like
fairness and equity is not provided for us.
Now, I'm getting into the deep end of the pool here. But if
you take a look at the census data and the reapportionment, if
you look at the representation in our State, the rail belt is
represented quite well. So you know what the alternative is.
We've lost much representation across rural Alaska. And it's
important that all of us recognize that and remind people that
we have responsibility under our constitution.
So if I could share with you this idea of engaging people,
when we talk about engaging and having citizens exercise their
rights, communities and public and private entities getting
engaged in schools, these are our children. And though many of
us don't have kids in school anymore, we have grandkids in
school. These are our children. These are our communities. It
is our responsibility.
So I would share with you--join us in helping kids succeed
Alaska style through the Initiative for Community Engagement.
It's in your communities.
Senator, I've gone on quite long enough. Thank you very
much for the opportunity to speak and thank you for being here.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rose follows:]
Prepared Statement of Carl Rose
summary
Educational opportunities and student proficiency in Alaska will
improve if the ``public'' in public education were to engage in
``Helping Kids Succeed Alaska Style.''
Understanding the challenges we face as we address issues of
quality, performance, accountability and fairness are critical to
ensuring the most appropriate solutions are applied. Although there are
no ``silver bullets,'' we know the root causes and initiatives need to
remedy the challenges facing us.
AASB researched reasons why students stay in school or leave early.
We asked students directly--engaged and disengaged, Alaska Native and
non-Native, rural and urban, and youth who had recently dropped out--
about why they or their peers leave school. Across all groups, they
listed personal problems and family pressures as the top reasons (drug
or alcohol use, peer pressure, lack of family support, economic
reasons, early parenthood and mental health reasons (depression),
followed by negative experiences with peers, teachers or other
authority figures at school, lack of positive connections with or
support from teachers and staff, and belief that school will not help
them in their future careers).
But these groups also showed some distinct differences in their
views on what makes a good school: disengaged students put higher
importance on feeling connected to school and adults; Alaska Native and
disengaged students more often listed academic and extracurricular
opportunities, good pedagogy, structure, and teacher expectations as
important.
Clearly, the two major issues this committee is examining today--
health and education--are closely intertwined.
AASB believes that proven ways to improve student achievement in
Alaska revolve around empowering parents, families and communities to
take a greater interest in their children's education. We are already
seeing great dividends from AASB's Initiative for Community Engagement
(Alaska ICE), which has built working partnerships between school
districts, non-profits, tribes, local communities and other agencies
that advocate for children and families.
AASB also believes that Alaska must continue to improve early
childhood development through community-based family engagement
programs and pre-kindergarten to prepare our youngest citizens to be
ready for school.
A greater investment in digital learning will also level the
educational playing field between urban and rural communities. Alaska
needs additional bandwidth, curriculum and professional development to
take advantage of advances in digital learning. This investment would
produce more dividends than a competition for Federal education funds.
______
Chairman Harkin, Senator Murkowski, members of the committee, thank
you for this opportunity to testify on an issue of critical importance
to my State and Nation.
Alaska differs from any other State in many ways, but we share some
notable similarities with rural America when it comes to education.
Because of changes in our census data and reapportionment, there has
been a realignment of representation that has left rural Alaska in a
secondary position when it comes to education.
When Alaska became a state in 1959, we inherited a system of
schools operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in rural Alaska.
Following a difficult transition to State Operated Schools and the
Molly Hootch consent decree, Alaska made a commitment to fund and
operate high schools in small rural communities so that students could
stay at home and families remain united. And so the Rural Education
Attendance Areas were born in 1976.
Alaska invested in the REAAs by building schools and establishing
elected regional school boards to make important decisions about
curriculum and staff. For some of our smallest communities, the local
school board was the first form of local government they had.
Naturally, there have been challenges with such a new and Western
concept of local control of education.
The Association of Alaska School Boards is a small 501 (c) 3 non-
profit organization. AASB represents 333 elected school board members,
53 school districts and the interests of 129,000 public school
students. We meet annually to resolve ourselves behind core belief
statements and resolutions. AASB is governed by a 15-member board
elected from the judicial districts of the State. We are organized
under a long-range strategic plan that identifies clear goals,
objectives and strategies that guide our efforts. AASB is assisting
school boards to create the vision and structure for successful K-12
schools. Our Board Standards, our Policy Service, and our Quality
Schools initiative are used by nearly all school districts in Alaska.
AASB's board of directors made the decision years ago to spend less
time fighting labor issues and instead focus proactively on being an
advocate for Alaska's youth and on success for all of Alaska's
students.
As a result, since passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001,
AASB has been instrumental in implementing a key provision of that law,
title VII's Alaska Native Education Program. A small but critical
portion of annual funding provided by title VII has helped AASB empower
families, communities and parents to take a greater role in their
children's education. For the last 11 years, AASB, through our
Initiative for Community Engagement (Alaska ICE), has built working
partnerships with school districts, non-profit organizations, tribes,
faith communities and other groups with an interest in kids to change
the environments surrounding youth and increase their chances for
success in school and the workplace. Alaska ICE is highly successful,
and we have data to prove it.
As you know, America's schools do not exist in isolation. Neither
do schools in Alaska. What happens in our homes and on our streets
inevitably affects the child as he or she arrives at school each
morning.
One of the challenges is the lack of basic infrastructure in some
of our most remote communities. Transportation is expensive. Groceries,
utilities, heating all cost more, sometimes double. Communication with
the outside world is improving, but stubbornly spotty as bandwidth
continues to be a barrier. These may be the facts of life in rural
America. But it is neither fair not equitable that the water and sewer
systems we take for granted in America are still absent in too many
rural Alaska homes. If these conditions existed in our Railbelt
communities, they wouldn't be tolerated.
As you may know, the Alaska constitution requires our legislature
to establish and maintain an education system for all children. And we
have some excellent schools serving rural students. Students graduate
and go on to attend Dartmouth, Harvard, and Stanford.
But too many students struggle.
Today, the statewide graduation rate for Alaska high schools stands
at just over 70 percent. The Department of Education & Early
Development calculates that the graduation rate for Alaska Native
students is just over 58 percent.
Why is that? AASB decided to ask students themselves.
Each year, we work with participating school districts to measure
the climate of our schools and the degree to which students and staff
feel connected. Climate and connectedness are directly correlated with
student engagement and achievement (higher school-wide proficiency
rates in reading, writing and math and higher graduation rates), and
also with fewer student risk behaviors (drugs, alcohol and violence).
In the last school year we surveyed more than 31,000 students and 6,700
staff in 28 school districts across Alaska. This is the School Climate
and Connectedness Survey, another innovative service that AASB staff
has pioneered in Alaska.
AASB also recently undertook a research project to delve into what
matters to students and especially to understand what drives students
to stay in school or leave early. With the help of four school
districts, we interviewed a broad spectrum of students at 26 schools
about why they and their peers stay in school or drop out. Students--
engaged and disengaged, Alaska Native and non-Native, rural and urban,
middle and high school, and some young people who had already dropped
out--had quite similar opinions about why they and their peers leave
school; across all groups, they listed personal problems and family
pressures as the top reasons. Their answers (by frequency of response)
were:
1. Drug or alcohol use;
2. Choosing to spend time with peers or a boyfriend or girlfriend
who dropped out;
3. Lack of family support for education;
4. Needing to help support their family (from a financial or
practical perspective);
5. Early parenthood;
6. Laziness or not wanting to get up in the morning;
7. Depression;
8. Negative experiences with peers at school (bullying, being
picked on, being isolated);
9. Negative experiences with teachers or other authority figures at
school;
10. Lack of positive connections with or support from teachers and
other staff; and
11. Belief that school will not help them in their future careers,
so it would be better to drop out and start earning money.
But these groups also showed some distinct differences in their
views on what makes a good school where students want to be:
Feeling connected to school and adults is viewed as
significantly more important by disengaged students than engaged
students.
Alaska Native and disengaged students more often listed
academic opportunities, rigor, good pedagogy, structure, academic and
extracurricular options and teacher expectations as important.
And while it appears that schools are not ``pushing''
students out as much as students are being ``pulled'' out by personal
and family pressures, it may be that adults at school can especially
help disengaged students resist that pull by reaching out and teaching
well.
Those answers from young Alaskans lead me to the conclusion that we
cannot separate family and community issues from school-related
problems for students who leave high school early. The two major issues
this committee is examining today--health and education--are closely
intertwined.
Regardless, we know what the solutions are, and they don't
necessarily originate in Washington, DC. Our experience with NCLB has
taught us many lessons, not all positive. Despite its good intentions,
NCLB never adequately addressed how we should improve curriculum,
instruction, professional development and assessments. Schools were
forced to put everything on hold to teach the basics and then measure
progress. In the end, the only job left for us to do under NCLB was to
deal with the sanctions the law imposes on even our best schools.
Now the latest solution from the Federal level asks schools to join
in a Race to the Top.
Instead of a competition for education dollars, I would advocate
that the Federal Government provide a level playing field. We know a
relatively small investment can pay huge dividends when it helps
empower families, parents and communities to take more interest in
their kids' education. As citizens we need to take more responsibility
on ourselves to make sure our schools and communities serve the needs
of our children.
One significant investment that would provide educational
opportunity for more students is digital learning. This can be the
great equalizer for rural and urban Americans. Not every family can
afford the Encyclopedia Britannica, but today that 100 pounds of
knowledge is available on a computer near you.
Does rural Alaska have enough bandwidth to enter the age of digital
learning? Not yet. Are America's teachers getting the professional
development they need to make digital learning successful? Not yet. Are
our students worth the investment to bring the world and all it has to
offer to them digitally? You bet. Perhaps Congress can lend a hand to
Alaska and other States.
AASB members also believe that Alaska must continue to improve
early childhood development through community-based programs and pre-
kindergarten to prepare our youngest citizens to be ready for school.
We know that children who are proficient in the basics by the third
grade are much more likely to be successful in school and in the
workforce upon graduation.
In conclusion, the challenges to provide equity and fairness are
immense but not insurmountable. AASB and its elected membership accept
this challenge and encourage all of our citizens, communities, public
and private entities to assist us in ``Helping Kids Succeed Alaska
Style.''
Mr. Chairman, once again, thank you for allowing me to testify
today.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Carl. Appreciate it.
And let's hear Sonta.
STATEMENT OF SONTA HAMILTON ROACH, TEACHER, INNOKO RIVER
SCHOOL, SHAGELUK, AK
Ms. Roach. Thank you so much for having me, Senator
Murkowski. I am very honored to be serving on this panel today.
As you can see, my title right now is teacher in Shageluk. I
just took off my hat as the director of Future Educators of
Alaska, and I think that also is why I'm here to talk about
growing our own educators.
I really heard today that the main topic, which we should
focus on is ownership of education and what that means, and
that's one of the things I'm going to talk about in my
testimony. But I want to say that that's really kind of the
foundation of what I'm going to be talking about, and also the
importance of having education brought to AFN.
We had a real education caucus 2 years ago, and it was held
in Fairbanks. And it does need to be pushed to the forefront of
AFN and our corporations. Education is something that is the
future for our corporations and our communities. So I thank you
for bringing this conversation here today.
Through my experience as a local teacher from my own
community--I am in Shageluk right now teaching--and, like I
said, formerly the director of FEA, Future Educators of
Alaska--being the director is one thing, but then actually
being in the classroom, seeing it, being with the students--
that's entirely another thing. And it has really opened my eyes
to the need to grow our own educators, and not just teachers,
but also administrators, superintendents, more
paraprofessionals, and more funding and support to develop
pathways for students to go through, finish in a timely manner,
and be back in their communities and in their schools.
I'm focusing on three things. One is the need, of course,
for more Alaska-grown educators. The second is ownership of
education, and it's just another kind of spin on what we're
talking about, culturally relevant curriculum, engagement,
community engagement. Ownership, I think, means a little more.
It's just the word I've been putting on it. It's community
members being empowered, contributing to the process. The last
one is the career pathways and workforce development.
As a student in rural schools, you often see teachers
coming and going year after year. This is a big topic that
we've all heard, just the high turnover rates, and teachers
still leave mid-year. We need to get teachers that are in the
community, staying. We've done some successful things in terms
of the courses that they have to take for teachers that aren't
from Alaska, the culturally relevant course. And that has
helped tremendously. I think there needs to be more of an
effort, though, for supporting the programs that would support
teachers, growing our own educators.
Education needs to be seen as a career pathway. And I think
the Future Educators of Alaska did a really good job of that.
We had 600 students across 29 school districts in Alaska, and
one of our big successes--and it's still kind of in the process
of being ironed out right now--is at each of the MAUs, the UAF,
UAS, and UAA, we're looking at an Ed 100 level course that's
geared toward--I shouldn't say geared toward--both juniors and
seniors in high school and freshmen in college can take this Ed
100 level course that's accepted at each of the campuses.
And that's still in the works. I think it's important to
say that that's a huge success for our students in our
districts across Alaska that have that opportunity when we talk
about access to colleges, to education. That's been tremendous,
I think, for us--and just to continue to support that.
Bringing it back to me, personally, as a student in
Shageluk, one of the things that I knew--if I could go back to
Shageluk, I either had to get a job in the tribe or an
education. And I really worked hard with both my degrees, rural
development and elementary education, because I knew I wanted
to get back there. And I think that's important when we're
talking about career pathways. What are those pathways for our
students? Where do they see themselves, and how can we help
them achieve those goals?
Ownership of education means local level control. This is--
and I know we just briefly talked about this--not our
definition of having, local school boards, but instead it's
community planning as it relates to what our children, the
whole child, should know while going to school. It relates to
our culture, those skills that they need, their traditions. And
the planning and implementation process will directly affect
their test scores.
Students desire to live and learn in their own communities.
And I think, along the same page of what other people are
saying, those conversations need to happen locally, regionally,
statewide. They need to be facilitated in a manner that's
proactive and progressive, whether it's getting more elders
into the school, the tribe into the school, and at the regional
level, corporations, and the nonprofits helping develop some of
those career pathways for students. I see that really being a
benefit to communities and to schools, and for that ownership,
of feeling like we know what our children want to be.
We've thought about career opportunities in the community
for them. Those career pathways need to be made. We talk about
high dropout rates and other issues that happen when they get
to high school. You know, maybe it is because they don't see
themselves going to college anymore.
I teach K through second grade now, and one of my second
graders wants to be a policeman, and I said, ``Yeah, that's
great.'' And we talked about college and what that means. But
we talked about, can you be a police officer in Shageluk? And
even at second grade, they can understand that. I think that
speaks volumes. Career pathways--and I keep mentioning it. We
need to ask ourselves: Where do students really see themselves
after high school?
And, finally, I want to stress the importance of student
count. I know I'm kind of switching gears here, but I want to
wrap it up. Shageluk, as well as a couple of other communities
in our school districts, are on the verge of the magic No. 10.
You know, school closure. If you get under 10, your school is
going to be closed. And we've really gone through--or made some
strategies in terms of getting people to come back.
I think it's really important to think about formula
funding. We have a lot of students at the high school level
that go to regional boarding schools. I went to a regional
boarding school. I don't have any negative things to say, other
than a lot of our students go, come back during Christmas, and
that funding stays with that school. So I think it's a big
concern, especially for our small schools that are facing
funding issues.
And, again, I appreciate the opportunity to talk today.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Roach follows:]
Prepared Statement of Sonta Hamilton Roach
Through my experience as a local teacher from my own community, and
over the years as director of Future Educators of Alaska, I have
focused my attention on three things: increasing the number of Alaska
Native/local teachers and administrators in Alaska schools;
``ownership'' of education and empowering communities through
education; and the need for career pathways and workforce development.
As a student in a rural school, you often see teachers coming and
going year after year. Often, and many Alaskan students have
experienced this, teachers will leave mid-school year. The reasons we
are all familiar with: culture shock, lack of accommodations,
difference in communication, and distance from family and cities. With
less than 5 percent of the teaching workforce being Alaska Native, and
over 90 percent of students in rural schools being Alaska Native, there
is a strong need for more Alaska Native teachers, papa professionals,
principals, superintendents. Funding needs to be aimed at this goal.
Education needs to be seen as a career pathway. When I was a student, I
viewed either teaching or tribal work as my career goals because that
way I could live and work in my community.
``Ownership'' of education means local level control. This is not,
as our definition stands, having a board for school districts. It is
not local school boards. Instead, it is community planning as it
relates to what their children--the whole child--should know while
going to school. It relates to their culture, their local skills, their
traditions. I believe that this planning and implementation process
will directly affect, in a positive manner, student test scores,
students' desires to live and learn in their own communities, and
community revitalization as a whole. Our communities are in need of
this--many of our schools are facing school closure, and the school and
education can play a role in making positive change.
Career pathways should be a strong focus for our rural Alaska
schools. We need to ask ourselves--Where do students REALLY see
themselves after high school? When they're in elementary school,
perhaps they say dentist or police officer, but when they reach high
school, is this dream still possible? Do they want to work at the city
or tribal offices? What are the career pathways? Who is talking to
them? I don't see this being a focus, and I believe it should be.
Realistically, students need to know what jobs are available in the
cities and what's available in the villages. They need access to
resources, scholarships, jobs, programs--we need access and
communication of resources.
FINALLY--I want to stress the importance of student count and the
impact it has on communities. I didn't preface this earlier, but I
think it's everything we need to focus on. We need to look at the
student count and formula funding. What are the benefits of waiting
until October to do the student count? We get MOST all of our students
back from boarding schools after Christmas. Funding should follow the
student wherever they are.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Sonta.
Thank you to each of you. There's been a lot of--if not the
same words used, certainly the same suggestions and ideas,
whether we refer to it by way of engagement or ownership or
community planning. So much of it seems--at least this
conversation up here seems to be focusing on how we really do
work collaboratively in an effort to make these connections
with the kids.
I want to ask a couple of questions. I had specifically
asked each of you to be kind of prepared to speak to what
barriers in Federal law, regulation, or policy need to be
changed in order to help better facilitate our students'
successes. And then, more broadly, how can Native organizations
and our schools and our tribal governments, our communities,
the parents, the students, everybody that is involved, all
stakeholders, really be working together to, again, improve our
students' success?
But I want to ask a couple of specific questions, and it
stems from your comments, Peggy, on the curriculum that has
been developed there in the North Slope Borough and your
framework, your Inupiaq Framework. And everybody, I think, has
mentioned the need to have culturally relevant curriculum. It
allows you to make that connection to school, whether you're in
Barrow or whether you are in Anchorage.
How big of a challenge is it to implement culturally
relevant curriculum? And maybe this takes us back to some of
the Federal laws and regulations and policies. It sounds easy
enough. You can just go ahead and put together a nice chart. Is
it really that easy? How difficult is it, given what we're up
against with some of the Federal initiatives and policies that
we're dealing with?
I'll start with you. But anybody else can jump in. This is
supposed to be a dialogue. This is not me posing individual
questions. So go ahead and start us off.
Ms. Cowan. It's hugely difficult. But, I mean, we're on
year 3 of a 5-year plan, and we're not going to be done at the
end of that, and it's taking a lot of resources. But there's a
lot of levels of difficulty. Sonta's emphasis on local teachers
and local people in our schools and career paths--and those are
critical. And your emphasis on collaboration and community
people, community folks in our schools--because we are largely
a community of teachers from largely the lower 48 and largely
not Native, even those from Alaska. So that's a huge thing
which, again, Sonta's program and others do.
But then the emphasis--that's why I made the big push and
echoed some of your words on the mission-driven curriculum,
because at the same time that we need to be accountable to
adequate progress and tests that don't necessarily measure what
our students know and don't emphasize authentic learning and
could have a cultural bias--so we're juggling those at the same
time we're trying to get to significance. And so it's a matter
of--and not having materials, because our textbooks and
everything are from the lower 49.
So not only do you have to have local people with a deep
understanding and ability to articulate the cultural knowledge
and help the teachers in those things. You also have to have a
really rigorous understanding of content area, because the
reason you teach from a textbook is that if you can't look out
the window and see the math or see the science or see the
concepts in the world around you, because it's a foreign world
to you, and you don't have really great depth of understanding
of the knowledge, then you rely on the textbook.
I'm in North Slope now, but years ago I was down in the
Lower Kuskokwim area. And I mention it because I was trying to
help a teacher. His textbook said that the largest wetlands in
the United States were in Louisiana. And I was sitting in the
Lower Kuskokwim area, in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. But the
teacher I was working with didn't know that the textbook was
wrong.
But back to the Federal Government. The emphasis on NCLB
and all your efforts are really focused on making it more
flexible, making it more responsive, making it so it's not one-
size-fits-all for Alaska in terms of the remedies, are
critical. And so it's a huge challenge, and that's one of the
reasons it hasn't been done in all these years. And teacher
retention is another issue. If you don't have people that live
there and understand and can work on it and build it, then
that's--so all of those things lead into it.
And then not directly related, but since you sort of opened
the ground to me, another thing I would refer to is the
bilingual laws and the current definitions. If they would
include heritage language as an asset rather than a deficit--
because the current labeling is hurtful, not necessarily
helpful. So I'll put that in there just in our work to talk
about.
Senator Murkowski. Rosita, if you want to, jump in on how
difficult it is to build a culturally relevant curriculum.
Dr. Worl. Well, first of all, I have to say I have great
appreciation for developing curriculum. I came from the
university system, where professors develop lectures. And so
that's what I thought I would have to do when I came to the
Sealaska Heritage Institute and do curriculum. I had no idea
about the complexity of doing curriculum. But I will say that
with the adequate funding, we were able to do that.
And I don't know that it's that difficult. I mean, it is
complex and I certainly had to hire educators to come in and
help me. But we had to have our Native people there as well.
And I'm an anthropologist by training, so much of the work that
we were doing centered around cultures that I hadn't studied.
But I will tell you that even if you have your educators, in
trying to meet all the different standards, you have to have
the knowledgeable Native person there who is reading that and
making sure that all of the nuances, that Native culture, is
represented.
We have developed curriculum that we use extensively in our
schools. I can appreciate that teachers are always so busy, and
I understand now that you have to have almost everything all
there for them because they are so busy. They have so many
requirements. And what I found out that was best was we
developed a curriculum, but we also developed supplemental
material that could be made available to feed in as they were
doing curriculum. So it was a two-step process for us.
But then we also had to go and try to grab the teachers and
have professional development so that they could use that
curriculum material. So we count that as part of a major
project. We not only have to do the curriculum development and
the supplemental material, but we hold professional development
for the teachers so that they can use it.
The other thing that we have done is everything that we
have produced--and I would invite school districts from around
the State to look online. Everything that we have done, we have
put online. And I will tell you that we get calls from all
across the State wanting to use our curriculum. It's there for
people to use.
But it really is a matter of do we have the funds to do
that. And when we first started to get involved, we saw the
Alaska Native Education Program Act or ANEP, and we put in for
grants. We were very frustrated when we wouldn't get grants.
And I think we have a good team of grant writers. But what we
found when we really started to do the analysis is that there
was this inequity in the allocation of funds.
I think we've sent to you some material that shows that up
until last year, we were receiving 15 percent going to Alaska
Native organizations. This year, we're up to 30 percent. And
I'm sorry, Carl, if you lost yours, but I'm glad it's going to
lead to systemic change and you're going to do that. But Native
people have to be involved in that. And I think if we become
good partners--and it's been a two-way learning process for us.
I will tell you that I am chagrined sometimes when I see
somebody going to Native organizations. I know they're well-
meaning, but I will tell you they do not know--if they're
Anchorage-based and they're going to be working in our
villages, I have great concerns about that. And I try to
monitor it to make sure that there's not harm coming to our
children because they don't know the communities, they don't
know the families.
We can call immediately to a community and find out, what
are the issues there and where are the problems. And, I'm
sorry, we do have families that are not functional, and we
certainly don't want to have any of our children put into that.
So I just can't stress enough that I think we have to be at the
table in trying to work on curriculum, trying to help out with
the education of our children.
We started a language program about 12 years ago. I worked
to help the Alaska Native Language Center get established. And
in the 30-some years that it was established, we had two
Tlingit people who came out of their programs, and neither of
them were working in our language restoration.
So going in, I said, ``OK. What do we do to do language
restoration? '' And I will say, Carl, we went to Hawaii and
learned the model there. But then we found that we had to take
it to a different level because we didn't have the teachers and
we didn't have the curriculum. So we had to start focusing on
that. But maybe we didn't know--I'm not a linguist, and I
hadn't been involved at the Alaska Native Language Center. But
I knew that model wasn't working for us.
So we've had to develop our own models, and sometimes it's
been hit or miss. We have a summer program and actually wanted
to start off with just focusing on Native males. But it was
like the same problem. We couldn't get the Native males to come
to those programs.
Now, we've slowly built up the equity, so we have gender
equity. We always get in trouble at Sealaska because we hire
mostly women, and I always say we hire the best. But we know we
need to be concerned about Native male education. And so right
now, we're looking at ways that we could do that. I was hoping
we had the AFN implementation funds, but, unfortunately, I just
couldn't get any of the funds extricated to focus on Native
men.
And this is why I think it's so important to go back to the
culture. We went and we asked our men, ``How did you train the
young men? Why aren't our Native men doing well today? '' And
in my naivete as a Tlingit and as an anthropologist, I thought
it was physical strength that our men were trained in, just
physical strength. So we have a council of traditional scholars
that oversees our curriculum development. All of our program--
we have to let our council of traditional scholars look at
that. And they are traditional leaders. They're clan leaders.
And I found what I was missing was strength of--it's not
only body, but mind and spirit. And they taught us some things
that--sometimes I didn't know if I liked it because in the
traditional training, when some men weren't doing so well, they
would say, ``There goes a man who was raised in the arms of his
mother.'' And the discipline was strong, hard training. They
used to put rocks on their ears, like earrings, to remind them
they had to care for their family.
So we've tried to figure out how do we take that kind of
traditional training and integrate it into the school. We want
academic success. But we know if we're going to have academic
success, then it has to be relevant to our kids. Right now, we
participate in the university listening session, and we found
our kids aren't doing well in math. I kind of knew that, but
when I heard we're not getting our Native students into
nursing, we're not getting them into engineering, we're not
getting them into finance--because of math. They weren't doing
well in math.
And I know our teachers--we have a good teacher training
program, Preparing Indigenous Teachers for Alaska Schools
(PITAS), in southeast Alaska. But our students were taking 3
years just to get through that Math 106 or something like that.
They could not pass that. So this year, we're developing a
curriculum on culture-based math. And we've got people who are
expert in that area. We're going to be teaching math around
basketry, around construction of canoes.
So it can be done, but, unfortunately, it does require
those resources. And the major barrier that we see that we need
to address and that I'm hopeful--I know your office has tried
to be helpful on it, and I think the law is there. But I think
it's the implementation in the Department of Education. And I
know Karen has tried to work with us in trying to pursue that
to make sure that we have more equity there. But I think we
need to take a closer look at it.
Senator Murkowski. And we want to do exactly that with you,
and I think we all recognize that we're dealing with tough
budgets. And as pies shrink, there's typically more competition
for that pie. At the end of the day, I think what we need to
keep in mind is that ICE may lose the grant, but knowing that
we're working together to pick up that work and ensure that the
good things that were going on are continuing in terms of the
level of engagement--how we best meet the needs of our Alaska
Native students that are out there.
I've had a chance to be in the school there in Juneau at
Harborview. Selina is my namesake, if you will. But to have an
elder working with the kids, teaching them song, teaching them
dance, is what I think we would like to see everywhere. You can
kind of understand how you can do it in a place like Barrow.
And even though you've got such a huge school district, you're
not this big melting pot that Doreen is dealing with, to have
8,000 Native students from all over the State.
How we can provide for that culturally relevant curriculum
when there's this mindset that I'm dealing with in Washington,
DC--a Native is a Native, just like a Hispanic is a Hispanic.
You tell that to a Cuban-American, that he's the same as a
Mexican-American, and they look at you and tell you you're
crazy.
Well, the same holds true with our Native population. And
yet there's no real acknowledgement--Inupiat and Athabascan or
Tlingit--it's a good thing everybody is still sitting together
here. You know, there was a time when the relationships were
not all that good. But it speaks to the differences and how we
do right by our kids when we're talking about culturally
relevant, how we make these connections.
I'd like everybody to pivot just a little bit to the
technology side--because one of you mentioned that this can be
the equalizer out there--and how you can take concepts as basic
and as historical and age-old as going out and hunting for a
whale and using technologies that we have at our disposal to
make this meaningful for these kids. Now, there's a great
barrier for us here in Alaska. And I'd like you all to talk
about where we really are.
I've been in schools in the State where they take me into
the computer room and they show off their computers, but not
one of them is plugged in because they don't have the broadband
capacity and things just don't work. So the kids have the
machines sitting there but nothing else. Talk to me a little
bit about where we are with technology.
Chris and then Doreen.
Mr. Simon. Thank you for the question, Senator. All I can
tell you is a story about when I was the principal in my
hometown of Huslia. We had a bunch of seniors there, and I met
with every one of them at the beginning of the year, because my
goal was that every senior leaving Jimmy Huntington School in
Huslia was going to be doing something after high school.
Whether it was postsecondary training, the military, college,
or a job, they were going to be doing something. I wanted to
set that bar for them.
And so I met with every one of them, and they told me what
their goals were. Then I turned around and sent them to
Fairbanks for the Career and College Day. That's what it was
called. They came back with brochures, and I sat down with them
again, and we talked over their plans. There was an itinerant
counselor because their school is so small. I sat down with--I
think it was a lady at the time--and told her the goals of our
students and that we needed to start the paperwork process now.
She was itinerant so we were going to do it by video
conference. We tried that, and because it was always going down
or there was all this freezing, it didn't turn out very well.
I'm happy to say five of the six seniors did go out and do
something after that year. But just the whole idea of
broadband--we're lacking there.
Senator Murkowski. Doreen.
Ms. Brown. We really are diverse in Anchorage, and we have
people from all over the world and, specifically, from all over
the State that are indigenous, so it is difficult. Not only
that, but we also have between 96 to 110 different languages
spoken at one time in the Anchorage School District. It's the
second most diverse city. Honolulu is actually No. 1.
So with technology, we're always looking for ways to
incorporate that. And I'll just share one particular story.
This is when iPods were really big. I think we have to now move
to iPads. But we had carts of iPods. And what we did was we
took free resources off the Internet. We did different dances
from across the State. And we incorporated this in our summer
program, sort of piloted it in our summer program, and then
pushed it out to the music teachers and they loved it, because
we can't get every dance group from all over the State.
And it was so powerful to see the kids just sitting there,
each individually with an iPod, to be able to see the different
dances and to do like a Venn diagram with the differences and
the similarities and the history of that. So that's just one
way that we've utilized technology. We use it all the time,
even for AFN. We have Google Docs. We have it on our blog. We
shared information--we did a presentation on what is a
resolutionist.
We did a lot of prep work with our students and also shared
that with AFN or first Alaskans so we could build a data bank
of--like a scavenger hunt that we did for an elders youth
conference. But we're always looking at things, and, really,
we're just a bunch of borrowers, so I'm writing notes down as
people are talking.
Senator Murkowski. It's called collaboration.
Ms. Brown. Well, I am a true educator, so we really are
borrowers. So I look forward to hearing what other folks have
to say. Thank you.
Senator Murkowski. Sonta and then Carl.
Ms. Roach. I'll be brief. I have nothing but good things to
say about the technology in the schools and the video
technology conferencing, VTC, as we say. But it's really helped
bridge a huge gap, I think, in access to education, especially
when we're having issues with getting highly qualified teachers
teaching some of those core content courses like math,
especially in a school district like ours that has three very,
very small schools. And maybe others can talk about other
school districts.
In my former job with FEA, I had the privilege to go to a
couple of school districts, Lower Kuskokwim School District and
North Slope Borough School District, and to go into a classroom
and see students taking a class, and it was rich. It was
curriculum rich. I mean, it was good content and instruction.
And I think that it really does help bridge that gap.
And then the language program that's available on the
Internet in North Slope Borough School District is amazing. And
I've seen a couple of the students actually--you can click on a
dialect, so it's more local-based, I think. And I just think
that's amazing to see that now.
Ms. Cowan. Let me pick up on that, if you would.
Senator Murkowski. Go ahead.
Ms. Cowan. The VIVA program is wonderful, and we do it in
the different dialects, so our technology is significant. But I
remember 10 years ago--I think it was then Secretary Paige,
when NCLB was first passed--so back to your Federal
Government--came up here. And the question was, ``What are we
going to do about small sites? '' And the answer was distance
delivery.
And we are still trying to meet that vision, and broadband
and latency are huge issues in our area and other areas of
rural Alaska, which really prevent us from--I mean, VIVA is
wonderful, but we base it on our own computers so we don't have
to get into the net. And the more robust--which is what's
happening--the media becomes, the more crippling our
technological limitations become.
We just got a new VTC system. We're thrilled about it. But
the curriculum program I told you about uses Adobe--I mean,
Rubicon Atlas to create the units, and we can't have the video
conferencing at the same time that the teachers are on their
computers on the Internet, because one will shut down the
other. So the idea was they were all supposed to be on--
connecting together and then being on the computers. And we
have only one or the other. We've got to turn one or the other
off. So the broadband and latency are still crippling and
become more so the more robust the technology becomes.
Senator Murkowski. I see what you're saying.
Carl.
Mr. Rose. Thank you, Senator. I'll try to make my comments
brief. I heard a wise man say one time you're never trapped
unless you're trapped in your own mind. And I think many times
we see barriers and we consider that to be the end of the road.
The fact of the matter is that broadband is an issue for
everyone.
But did any of you know that there are 32 school districts
that are currently involved in digital learning and 12,640
units are out there. We were dependent heavily on broadband,
but we were able to use satellite, nano-links, and microwaves
to take advantage of technology as it was in 2006.
How many of you knew that the iPhone came on in 2007 and
the iPad came on in 2010? The changes in technology have
allowed us to reduce our dependency on bandwidth, not that it's
not important. But we can contain instruction in the classroom
through the use of iPads by networking through a computer for
the teacher that we can either store, No. 1, within the
equipment that we have; No. 2, within the servers that we have;
or, No. 3, on Google Docs.
The world is really wide open to us. If we wait for
bandwidth, we do ourselves a disservice. We should struggle
because, as you heard from your mother, if you didn't struggle
for it, it's not worth very much in terms of being meaningful
to you. We should do whatever we can to give our kids what we
can in terms of digital technology. It's available to us. Do we
have everything we need? Not yet. But if you were to look to
any other area in education for our kids, you are not going to
find another opportunity greater than digital technology.
Let me give you an example. Is Melissa Borton in the room?
She is a school board member from Kodiak. She's the executive
director of the Alutiiq Native Corporation. She's carrying
around an iPad right now where they have the Alutiiq talking
book. We worked with the Alutiiq region and developed a talking
book in the Alutiiq language. It's on an app, and she's
carrying it around right now. And there are other areas of
language that we want to be able to do.
Now, just think about this. If we were to work with the
Alaska Native Cultural Center and all the documents that they
have, put it in context, and place them on iTunes U, which is a
repository for content, that could be available to everyone.
I'm not going to go any farther, because there's so many
opportunities that are available that we need to avail
ourselves of.
But if you're thinking that bandwidth is the problem and we
can't go any further, you're badly mistaken. There is a lot
that we can do. We should do everything that we can. I'm sorry
for taking all your time.
Senator Murkowski. No, it's a good reminder to us, because
I think we do kind of lock ourselves into the technology that
we have right now, today. But how quick did it take us to get
to the iPhone 5? I don't have one. But just think about how the
generations move so quickly, but it all takes money, just about
money. And, unfortunately, that's one of the challenges that we
face--making sure that our kids have access.
I was out at the Kalskag school with the principal of the
year there and walked into a middle school classroom, and all
the kids are working on their iPads. And as he reminded me, if
we are not communicating with our kids in the way that they're
talking, through their Smart Phones, we're going to be the ones
behind. It's no wonder that they're not going to be following
what's going on at the front of the room if we're not catching
up with them. So technology is something that I think we always
key in on.
I want to ask a question about--Rosita? Go ahead.
Dr. Worl. May I comment on technology?
Senator Murkowski. Absolutely.
Dr. Worl. Thank you. Well, I'm an advocate of it. I totally
support it. We are hoping to include that in our Walter
Sobeloff Center. I actually have a staff person today down in
San Jose meeting with Google folks to talk about--they want to
know what it is that we need in terms of technology. But the
point I want to stress is we also need to make sure that we
have Native people involved in it.
I have two examples. Someone was trying to use one of our
recordings to teach language and oratory and about our culture.
But, unfortunately, what they did was they tried to repeat
this. It was a recorded piece of oratory from Hoonah. But what
happened was that they ended up calling up the spirits. And so
we ended up having to rush into that classroom to try to
restore the balance, the spiritual balance and the social
balance. The teacher was well-meaning but just didn't know
enough about the culture to be able to protect our cultural
values.
Our clan stories are owned by clans. And we wanted to be
able to use it in a performance at Perseverance Theatre, and we
brought it to the Council of Traditional Scholars. At first,
they were just adamantly opposed--no, you can't do that. And we
argued that the younger people need to have this. So we ended
up arguing with the elders about how we were going to use it.
In the end, the elders said yes, the council said yes, but you
have to have all of these protections around it, that it is
clan-owned.
So then we brought it to Perseverance Theatre. And the
script writer, the playwright, wanted to have the copyright,
and we said, ``No, you can't have the copyright.'' So we ended
up going through a process where we negotiated out, to protect
the script writer, the playwright's rights and our clan rights.
So these are the kinds of things that have to be mediated as we
move into these kinds of things.
Senator Murkowski. That's kind of a segue into the last
question I wanted to throw out to you. I think we recognize
that we can have great curriculum, we can have great
technology, but, ultimately, it comes down to great teachers
and teachers who know and understand that this is culturally
appropriate or, to use Peggy's example, knowing that Louisiana
doesn't have the most wetlands in the Nation.
What role do you think, whether it's the districts, whether
it's the communities, whether it's the parents--we haven't
really talked about the parent piece, which is so key. But we
can bring good energetic teachers in, particularly out in
remote villages. We have a tough time retaining them. We have a
tough time keeping them.
To what extent does a school or a school district need to
have a--I don't know if I want to call it a planned process,
but just some kind of a process where you have elders that sit
and visit with them, talk with them, those that are raised
within the community, to not only make them feel welcome--
that's one thing--but to really kind of act as a mentor to
these new teachers. They're coming in, and they've got the
academic credentials, but that's not what it's all about
necessarily.
Sonta, with your experience with Alaska Future Educators--I
don't know. Maybe this is something that is already done. But I
worry about the support that we give to our educators who want
to try to do the right thing but perhaps just step in it
inadvertently because they don't know. How can we do a better
job working with them?
Ms. Roach. This is something that I think a lot of our
schools face and something that definitely Future Educators--
the main goal of it was to grow more educators of our own
because of the high turnover rates and because of those
teachers leaving because of culture shock or because the
amenities aren't what they're used to in the communities. And I
think as much prep that the school district can do, that the
community can do, the better.
I know that some districts have things in place that help
that process by having maybe their school board members helping
with the process of selecting teachers or the now requirement
to have that course, the multicultural education course, for
new teachers that come into the districts. But at the local
level, I think it's critical. And you hit on a good point of
elders perhaps being mentors. I don't have solid examples of
what works. Maybe others do.
But I think that's a great idea for having elders in there,
their tribal leadership, and that solid partnership between the
tribal government and the school is huge, because the tribes
also have funding that can go toward education. And the more
they can communicate, I think, the better.
Senator Murkowski. Carl.
Mr. Rose. I just want to comment that, one of the things
that we have some difficulty with is understanding the issues
at hand. And I will share with you this. I was in an audience
maybe 15 or 20 years ago where some gentleman got up and said,
``I'm really sensitive to your issue.'' And somebody else got
up and said, ``Sensitive? I don't want you to be sensitive to
my issue. I want you to understand what we're talking about, a
keen understanding of what we're doing.''
Somewhere between there, our school districts and the
programs that they provide may not be hitting the mark because
we don't have a better understanding of what's needed. So what
I told you earlier--this system of local control is designed
for you, the people. If we don't take advantage of it, we can't
expect our systems to function like we want them to.
So if you take anything away from here--democracy is
chaotic. But representative government, as a republic, is a
much more effective way of doing our business. What if
everybody wanted to run the school? It can't happen. So you
elect your leaders to do it on your behalf. So I would share
with you, if you want a better understanding and a better
product of your needs out of your schools, you've got to
organize to be able to bring that to the decisionmakers so they
can effect policies that serve your needs.
Thank you, Senator.
Senator Murkowski. Doreen, how do we get more of you to
address the needs if there's so many Native students in the
Anchorage School District?
Ms. Brown. Well, I practice what I preach, and I always
have mentors. In our summer enrichment program, in the summer,
I hire high school students. Sorry on that, but I actually pay
them a little bit more than other people because we may not
have them for as long, just to entice them to come and
participate in our summer enrichment program. They want to
work. They may have a desire to go into education, so I nurture
them along with my staff. And they're working with our Native
students. So that's one way.
And I always mentor people that are working with me. We
have to do that. I mentor my cousins. It's about living,
eating, breathing what we're supposed to be doing, and I do
that. So I have somebody right now that I'm mentoring for 1 day
when I decide to do something different. It's a constant thing,
and we just have to do that.
I want to also touch on the teacher training part of that.
There's a couple of things that I'm really noticing. Because we
have a new superintendent, he needs training. He is coming from
Florida. He needs training. Our school board needs training. We
have huge communication issues. So who's doing that? Who's
doing that in your communities and in other communities? We
talk about teachers, yes, but it's the leadership that's
working with the teachers that we need to address as well, and
I don't think we're doing a really good job of that.
The other part of that--I'm hopeful--within the Anchorage
School District, we're looking at our evaluation process. And I
am so excited that they are actually considering two areas that
are actually culturally responsive standards, to look at that
and start assessing teachers if they're using Alaska Native
cultural standards within their classroom. I mean, I'm cheering
for that. Let's make it happen.
And then the other thing is let's go down to the child
level and also the family level. We have to make sure and say
this to our kids, ``It's your time to learn. Make it happen.
This is your opportunity''--just constantly giving that
message, because it's their responsibility as well as ours.
Senator Murkowski. Good words.
Rosita.
Dr. Worl. Thank you. First of all, I lived in Barrow for
some time. I did my field work up there, and I saw teachers
coming up there and I saw the trauma they went through. And
I'll tell you, they do go into culture shock. So I know that
it's a serious problem. I just attended--the university
sponsored an education workshop just for teachers, or a session
on what could we do about these issues.
And I would say, first of all, we need to hire Native
teachers that have gone through the system and are not hired by
the school district. And I will tell you that that's a problem.
It is a problem that Native teachers who have gone through our
university system are not hired as teachers. I know that for a
fact, and I beat up the school district for not doing that.
It is a reality, and I kept telling the university we need
to work with the school district to find out why they're not
hiring our Native teachers. We've tried to take care of those
Native teachers when they're not hired by the school district,
pulling them into our program so we could keep them in
education. As much as I need help, I will never take a Native
teacher out of the classroom to help us in our programs,
because I know they need to be in that school district.
But I will tell you, Carl, that the schools do not always
hire Native teachers. And so one of the things we did was we
got on the employment--where they hire the teachers, so we sit
there, and we now have an input into that. And I think it's
unusual--I didn't know it was that unusual where Native
organizations have these MOAs with the schools so that they can
participate in that area.
The other thing that we did was with the MOA, and even
before we signed the MOA, we started doing orientations for
teachers. We didn't have the program money, but we squeezed
things together where we were able to do that. Some of our
villages brought people out to their culture camps. And in our
summer camp, we try to bring teachers in there, and we've had
teachers coming into our leadership camp to participate so that
they can get exposed to the culture, to the environment, and to
the realities of Native children.
The other thing that we did--we started having orientations
for educators who teach our teachers. And I think that was the
first for us where we had about 25 faculty members from the
University of Alaska Southeast come in to Sealaska for--we had
a 2-day training session. Maybe it wasn't enough, but we
brought them there into the board room, and then we took them
out in the field.
The other thing that I am determined that we're going to
start doing now is to look at--I know we have teacher aides in
our villages. And in our region, I think I counted that we had
at one time--no, it was teachers and school aides--we had only
80 in all of the southeast school districts. So we are going to
be developing a project where we can start working with the
school aides people to do career development for them.
The other thing I think that we could do that we've found
is successful in other areas is internships. And we are
producing right now--we'll probably have more Native archivists
than we will have Native archives, but we're doing that. So
we're doing that in other areas, and so I think it's a good
approach that we might want to explore. Those are concrete
recommendations that I could offer.
Senator Murkowski. Those are good.
Peggy or Chris?
Ms. Cowan. Thank you. Actually, you have a legacy on the
North Slope, so thank you for that. It shows that we are one
State and appreciate it.
The first goal of the board's strategic plan is curriculum
and teaching through the Inupiat language, history, and
culture. The second goal of the board's strategic plan is
teacher retention and professional development. And so
everything that is said here is very important to the Slope.
But I would like to do a little bit of a segue to your
allusion to the community and partnerships and parents and
those things. I think one thing that I haven't mentioned but
was introduced really with Dr. Worl's and Carl's introductions
when they talked about identity. Student identity is really
what a lot of this is all about. And identity is just critical
in the system, and one of the big issues is that students don't
see themselves in the system. But, anyway, it's student
identity at so many levels.
It will help teachers, hopefully, when they become,
hopefully, Native teachers for the future. But the white
teachers there now--if the community contributes to the
education of the youth through helping with that identity. It
is just so basic and so core to the work. And as the students
get a sense of their identity, then they thrive in the school
system, and then the teachers can better understand them and
their identity and work it into the culture. So just the
community partnership identity I see as really crucial.
Senator Murkowski. I think Rosita said the essence of being
Native is not being taught in the schools, and that's critical.
Chris, did you want to add anything to this conversation?
Mr. Simon. Sure. Thank you very much. We're talking about
teacher retention, and when I was a superintendent, there was a
problem in the district where I was the superintendent also. So
I did an exit interview with every teacher or every district
office person that was leaving. And there were a couple of
things that came out of it.
One was the new teacher orientation, where the new teachers
to the villages showed up at the district office 3 days early.
And we brought them out to the village ourselves and showed
them the post office, showed them the stores, and showed them
the tribal offices so they could get a sense of what it's like
in the village before we just put them out there and say,
``Start teaching.'' The only problem with that is we ran out of
funding. So that's what I would have to put in a plug for the
Federal Government, a little bit of funding for new teacher
orientations across the State.
And also housing--a lot of our teachers were leaving after
2 or 3 years as they started a family and their families were
expanding. They wanted nice housing for their kids. So I'm
happy to say Alaska Housing Finance Corporation stepped up and
is providing help with housing. But if the Federal Government
could help with that, that would be great also.
Senator Murkowski. All absolutely key. I'll never forget
when I took Secretary Paige out to Savoonga, and we were
talking with the principal there. And the principal mentioned
that he slept in the broom closet, and that they had cleaned
out all the mops and buckets and that was where his mattress
was. And Secretary Paige was horrified, just horrified. He
couldn't believe that.
And the principal was pretty nonplussed about it. He said,
``Well, it's better than the elementary second grade teacher
who slept in her classroom and she took one of the gym mats
out.'' And it was from that conversation with the Secretary
that we actually had a meeting of five cabinet members of that
administration to look at the issues and the barriers that
surrounded delivery of education in parts of rural Alaska.
And we've made some good headway with the teacher housing.
But I think we all recognize that this is an area of great
need. And, again, you don't see this in the discussions back in
Washington, DC. Why would you possibly need to provide for
things like teacher housing?
We could go on all afternoon. I think the sun is setting
out there. Sonia is not really like Vanna White in the back
holding a card up. I think she's trying to block the sun for
everybody, and she has moved down the aisle here.
But this has been a good discussion. We clearly need more
of it. We need it at different levels. We need it in different
areas. But I'm glad that we have put some of this on the record
as part of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee
to understand some of the challenges, some of the barriers that
we face, but, clearly, some of the opportunities that we have
and how we embrace them.
I'll just let those of you who have been on the panel and
those who are still with us know that we are going to try to
put a little focus on what is going on within Alaska education,
particularly the rural piece. We are putting together what
we're calling the Alaska Education Library. And what I'm asking
folks to do is to share.
You said you were a borrower, and you're jotting down your
ideas. What I'd like folks to do is to compare notes, share
your stories, put your ideas out there, email me with your
innovative methods. Let's put them all together online. Any
Alaskan, any Alaskan out there at all who has either a success
story or a story that kind of talks about just some of the
matter of fact things that we're dealing with and how we're
dealing with them on a daily basis--let's share how these
innovations have improved student success. You can email them
to me at [email protected].
And so this is for tribes, this is for schools, this is for
Native organizations, this is for teachers--anybody who's got
an innovative and successful idea to share. And then once we
get these entries received, what we'll do is we will post them
on our Web site. I've got a new page that we've created, and
this is called the Alaskan Education Library. If you go to my
main Web site, www.murkowski
.senate.gov, it's located under the students tab at the top of
the homepage.
So, hopefully, this can kind of be a portal to collect
great ideas, because I think we do recognize we are challenged.
But as Carl has reminded us, let's not be limited by the
problems that we had yesterday or last year. Let's figure out
how we advance and move forward. So share some of these things
with us. We've got a lot to work on.
Rosita, I appreciate your comments and the suggestions that
you have given me, as well as Gloria O'Neill, on how we can
really look to the Alaska Native Education Equity Program in
terms of making sure that that opportunity for grant funding
remains solid, remains viable, and really rooted to its initial
purpose. So we've got some work to do on that. We will do that.
Clearly, the conversation hasn't stopped here. We've got a
lot more to work on. But I thank those of you that have given
me the time here this afternoon.
Chris, Peggy, Rosita, Doreen, Carl, Sonta, thank you for
your leadership in these areas. I've also asked Gloria O'Neill
to--Gloria, as I'm sure everybody in the room knows, is
president and CEO of Cook Inlet Tribal and very involved with
CITC and the work with the Anchorage School District. So I've
asked her to submit testimony as well.
[The prepared statement of Ms. O'Neill follows:]
Prepared Statement of Gloria O'Neill, President and CEO,
Cook Inlet Tribal Council
Senator Murkowski, thank you for the opportunity to submit this
testimony for the record.
My name is Gloria O'Neill and I am the president and CEO of Cook
Inlet Tribal Council (CITC), an Alaska Native tribal non-profit
organization which serves as the primary education and workforce
development center for Native people in Anchorage. CITC has been
designated tribal authority through Cook Inlet Region Inc., organized
through the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and recognized under
section 4(b) of the Indian Self-Determination Act and Education
Assistance Act, P.L. 93-638. CITC builds human capacity by partnering
with individuals to establish and achieve both educational and
employment goals that result in lasting, positive change for
themselves, their families, and their communities.
CITC's programs serve Alaska Native and American Indian people in
the Cook Inlet Region, which includes Alaska's most urbanized and
populated communities, and is home to an Alaska Native/American Indian
population of more than 40,000, approximately 40 percent of the Native
population of the State of Alaska. In Anchorage alone, the Native
population is approximately 22,000, about 20 percent of the total
Native population in the State. Anchorage is the fourth largest Native
community in the Nation. CITC's programs address many of the social,
economic, and educational challenges faced by Alaska Native people.
Our mission is to work in partnership with Our People to develop
opportunities that fulfill Our endless potential. All of CITC's
programs are rooted in the understanding that true self-determination
is based in self-sufficiency and the ability to take responsibility for
one's own success. CITC has a 25-year history of providing programs
that effectively meet the challenges of inadequate education,
unemployment, poverty and addiction.
Alaska Native education is in a deepening crisis. Alaska Native
students have historically been subject to significant risk factors
including under-performance and under-engagement in school, low post-
scholastic employment and income, over-representation in the justice
system, and increased rates of alcohol and drug use, as well as
suicide. Alaska Native educational achievement continues to fall far
below national norms, as reflected in the fact that performance on
standardized tests is low and Alaska Native students are twice as
likely to drop out as their non-Native peers--this, in a State with a
school dropout rate that is already one of the highest in the Nation.
Since 2003, CITC has been the recipient of directed funding
authorized in the Alaska Native Educational Equity, Support and
Assistance Act, now known as the Alaska Native Education Program
(ANEP). This funding provided CITC, as a Tribal Organization, a
critical resource and unique opportunity to develop creative solutions
to the problems that plague the school districts. When ANEP funding is
granted to Alaska Native organizations (ANOs), it creates opportunity
for systemic change. For example, CITC created Partners for Success
(Partners) with our ANEP funds. Partners is a strength-based,
culturally focused educational support service implemented in
partnership with the Anchorage School District. The program, which
functions as a school-within-a-school, is an innovative and
comprehensive program dedicated to growing college and career-ready
graduates from kindergarten through 12th grade. This unique tribal-
district collaborative relationship allowed CITC to hire our own
educational teams, including highly qualified certificated teachers, to
provide core content academic classes to Native students within the
public schools. CITC's programs recognize the need for a continuum of
educational services from elementary school through high school. CITC
classes follow required school district curricula while also
interweaving cultural content and methodology, and meet or exceed
district and State standards in a variety of content areas such as
language arts, math, science, and physical education. Our program
served approximately 700 K-12 Native students and their families
annually. Our programs focused on increasing literacy and math skills
as well as offering supplemental programs in high-level mathematics and
science classes, health and wellness. Our bold vision was designed to
improve overall academic achievement while decreasing the Native
student dropout rates. Accountability by demonstrating outcomes and
constantly retooling programs to achieve our goals are key components
for CITC's strategy.
CITC has been involved in educating Alaska Native students in our
service area for over 10 years. From the start, CITC faced an uphill
battle. The disparities were and remain extremely daunting. After
nearly a decade, the partnership provided a number of critical, if
perhaps not surprising, findings:
CITC students had better outcomes on the High School
Graduation Qualifying exam than other Native students.
In schools where CITC taught Language Arts at the Middle
School level, our students did better on the Standardized Basic
Assessment tests than their peers in the same subjects.
Students enrolled as seniors in CITC's high school program
at Bartlett High School had a 100 percent graduation rate for the last
2 years.
CITC students performed better on Standard Based
Achievement Tests at all grade levels.
Small class sizes really do make a positive impact on our
population. Students enter our classes at very different proficiency
levels. To make our students successful, teachers and teaching
assistants need to be able to meet students where they are and advance
them from that point.
The ``achievement gap'' starts early. The outcomes for
Alaska Native education are dramatically worse than they are for non-
Natives. The learning and knowledge disparities begin to be
institutionalized as soon as Alaska Native students enter mainstream
education as kindergartners.
CITC elementary school students reach reading proficiency
in kindergarten and first grade if they are working with our teachers.
Creating school-to-jobs pipelines, through programs that
increase student engagement, academic performance, and career-readiness
is a key to changing outcomes.
The ANEP funding that CITC received was the essential catalyst that
allowed us to create such a unique and effective partnership with the
Anchorage School District; without it, the partnership would likely
never have happened.
The late Senator Ted Stevens originally authored the Alaska Native
Education Equity, Support and Assistance Act to create equity in
education for Alaska Native people. With the exception of a small
amount of Johnson O'Malley funding, Alaska receives no Bureau of Indian
Education (BIE) funding. In other States, BIE funding is available only
to Tribes so that they can create their own education programs for
their students or their own schools. In Alaska, the State is
responsible for educating all Alaskans, including Alaska Natives.
Historically, the State's and school districts' track records on
educating Alaska Native students are poor.
In response, the Act sought to ensure that Alaska Native people
were maximally involved in the planning and management of Alaska Native
Education Program. We appreciate your keen understanding of how
important this program is for the success of Alaska Native students. We
are especially grateful for your support for the program over the years
when it has been attacked as an earmark and/or as duplicative of other
programs.
We are increasingly concerned that the Alaska Native Educational
Equity, Support and Assistance Act is being implemented in a way that
paying inadequate attention to the most important principle of the
authorizing legislation: Equity. We hope to be able to rely on your
assistance to address our growing concerns. Over time the program has
come to be known as the Alaska Native Education Program (ANEP). We
would like to put the equity back in the Alaska Native Equity Program
and to ensure that implementation and reauthorization of this Act are
realigned with the original intent of the law.
The statute provides a clear priority to Alaska Native regional
nonprofits or consortia that include these organizations. However, this
priority has being increasingly undermined in the RFA's by other
priorities identified by the Department. Programmatic priorities and
novice applicants have been given greater priority than the legislated
priority for Alaska Native regional nonprofits (ANRO). While the ANEP
statute allows the Secretary to make grants and enter into contracts
with non-Native organizations, it requires that Local Educational
Agencies (LEAs) and State Educational Agencies (SEAs) can only do so in
consortia with Native organizations. Furthermore, each grantee is
required to provide for ``ongoing advice from and consultation with
representatives of the Alaska Native community.'' Regardless, ANOs are
often enlisted for the value of their imprimaturs, but not considered
or involved as full partners in the consortia. Equal and quality
partnerships and respectful consultation create a sound foundation for
systems change and lead to the development of programs that can make a
profound difference for Alaska Native students.
We know from our own experience that our students benefit when
Alaska Native organizations' (ANOs) involvement in their education is
maximized. ANOs are ready, willing and able to be the lead grantees and
contractors for ANEP funding. It is time that programs are designed and
implemented with and by Alaska Natives, and that Alaska Natives are the
experts consulted, employed, and nurtured throughout the process. If we
had BIE funding in Alaska, we would have Alaska Native-controlled
schools and programs. It would never enter anyone's mind to give BIE
funding to a non-Native school district or program. Instead, we have
ANEP. Please ensure that ANEP, or better yet, ANEEP, funding is used as
it was intended to provide equity in education.
The Alaska Federation of Natives passed a resolution in February
2012 urging Congress to ensure that ANEP funding be administered
through Alaska Native organizations. In addition, AFN wrote to the
Alaska Delegation in April 2012 detailing their concerns with the
current implementation of the program. I have included both documents
and submit both for the record.
Thank you for your longstanding support for this program, and we
look forward to working with you on this issue in the future.
Senator Murkowski. We will leave the record of hearing open
until November 5th for any additional comments or materials
that the witnesses may have. I mentioned the essays. I'd love
to hear from the students and would certainly welcome all their
comments.
And, again, for those of you who are here, thank you for
your interest in learning more about what we can do to
celebrate our education successes and do right by our young
people. And with that, the field hearing is adjourned with
great thanks and appreciation.
[Additional material follows.]
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Essay of Nicole George, Juneau, AK
high school roller coaster
On my first day entering high school, I felt like a little fish
entering a big pond. I was very inhibited, close-minded, and lacking
diligence. It was very intimidating starting high school because I had
to find a way to adjust to the classroom conversation. I was also
hesitant in the aspect of presentations, speeches, and tutoring
positions that were offered by teachers. Little did I know that my
participation in the school would help me grow as an individual, help
with the understanding of my peers, and my community as a whole.
As the years went by, my high school experience was a roller
coaster ride. My freshman year was the year that I had to find myself.
Growing up as a native child in the village of Angoon, AK I was never
the type of person to raise my hand to answer a question. This was the
case for all my classes even the one I enjoyed the most. I was used to
people assuming that I knew nothing when in reality I knew a great deal
of information that was just waiting to come out. Like most I took part
in extra-curricular activities such as basketball and volleyball. Along
with those I took part in academic decathlon, Future Educators of
Alaska (FEA), and Early Scholars. Freshman year my grades were decent
but they could have been a lot better. I was a distracted student
trying to find her spot in the world of high school.
Sophomore year was the year that my shell started to crack. I was
an emerging leader in the Early Scholars' community. I volunteered for
every fundraising event and was the one Mrs. Reyes could go to for
anything. My grades started to excel and I wanted my peers to be right
by my side. I was becoming well-known and well-versed with the school
faculty. I became an advocate for my peers who were just like me. I was
giving them a voice when no one else would.
Junior year was the time I wanted to take the school by the horns.
My grades kept excelling and my shell was completely gone. I was
comfortable talking in the public as it became more natural and
eloquent. I became an avid reader and my writing comprehension and
skills improved tremendously. I excelled in every activity that I did.
I became a top competitor for the regional speech competitions for
academic decathlon and I became a force to reckon with on the court.
With some time and observation I mastered the ability to adapt and to
appeal to all array of groups within the school. I was welcomed and
valued in each group that I had the pleasure to join. Behind all the
acquired skills and success I need to re-evaluate my focus. I was
determined to do the work that was necessary to get into a good
university but I also wanted to have time to self-indulge in activities
that I enjoyed.
My senior year had finally come and I was now using everything I
had learned and built on based on my high school experience. I had
become a critical thinker and my points of views on things had changed
drastically. My maturity level had increased and I had become well-
rounded and better in the way I managed my time. I was an AVID tutor, a
mentor for Early Scholars', a leader on the court, and a role model in
the classroom. I had received the Gates Millennium Scholarship, the
Denny Wilcher Award for young Environmental Activist, the Literature
Award as well as the Self-Less Senior award at my high school.
I contribute all my success to the community as well as the school
faculty. I know every teacher and administrator at the high school and
I have formed some type of relationship with them. In the community
organizations such as Sealaska Corporation and Tlingit and Haida had
helped me become well-versed and emerged in community issues facing
Juneau. I was well aware of our young native students not graduating,
the environmental issues that were arising, and the potential loss of
our culture. I had obtained real world skills based on the experiences
given to me by the community. If the State could fund and start
programs like AVID and Early Scholars it would do the community some
good. You would have students that were well-rounded and successful
with the skills needed for the real world such as effective
communication, team work, flexibility, and organization. Also if the
school could cut down on the meetings faculty members had to partake
in. I remember needing a teacher and they were never available because
they had to run off to some meeting. Another word of advice is the
mandatory advisory times. They really aren't necessary. If they could
use that time for enrichment period, where it was optional for students
to meet with teachers they needed to talk to, the teachers time and the
students time would be used more effectively. The last thing I have to
say is informing teachers and staff about the Alaska Native students.
Not all but most students are shy and won't be the first to answer
questions. I really liked what Sealaska did when they had the school
district conference during the summer. If more events like that
occurred to inform teachers it would break the barrier that they all
face when trying to teach. Thank you for listening to my narrative.
______
Alaska Federation of Natives,
Anchorage, AK,
April 25, 2012.
Hon. Daniel K. Inouye, Chair,
Committee on Appropriations,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC 20510.
Via e-mail: [email protected].
Dear Senator Inouye: As you know, our friend, the late Senator Ted
Stevens originally authored the Alaska Native Education Equity, Support
and Assistance Act in 1993 to create equity in education for Alaska
Native people. The authorized funding was to address the following
inequities: (1) Alaska receives no Bureau of Indian Education (BIE)
funding, and the State is responsible for educating all Alaskans,
including Alaska Natives, and (2) the State's and districts' track
records on educating Alaska Native students are poor. In response, the
Act sought to ensure that Alaska Native people were maximally involved
in the planning and management of the Alaska Native Education program.
Over time, the program has become known as the Alaska Native Education
Program (ANEP). ANEP is designed to address Alaska Native students'
needs in a threefold way by:
1. focusing attention on the educational needs of Alaska Native
students,
2. investing substantial funding in the creation and operation of
supplemental educational programs for Alaska Native students, and
3. maximizing participation of Alaska Native people in the planning
and management of Alaska Native education programs.
I am attaching copies of the letters that I sent to the Honorable
Lisa Murkowski who sits on the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations
with you and the Honorable Mark Begich regarding the Alaska Native
Education Program; these letters address ANEP comprehensively but in
the interest of your time, my letter to you is very brief. It is my
sincere hope that you would consider supporting appropriations by your
committee that would lead to improving the quality of education for the
Alaska Native students; and in particular, the implementation of ANEP.
Thank you for your consideration. Your interests of improving the
quality of life for the Alaska Natives have always been fully
appreciated.
Sincerely,
Julie Kitka,
President.
______
Alaska Federation of Natives,
Anchorage, AK,
April 24, 2012.
Hon. Lisa Murkowski,
709 Hart Senate Office Building,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC 20510.
Via e-mail: [email protected],
Fax: (202) 224-5301.
Hon. Mark Begich,
144 Russell Senate Office Building,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC 20510.
Via e-mail: [email protected],
Fax: (202) 224-2354.
Hon. Don Young,
2314 Russell House Office Building,
U.S. House of Representatives,
Washington, DC 20515.
Via e-mail: [email protected],
Fax: (202) 225-0425.
Dear Senator Murkowski, Senator Begich, and Congressman Young: The
late Senator Stevens originally authored the Alaska Native Education
Equity, Support and Assistance Act in 1993 to create equity in
education for Alaska Native people. The authorized funding was to
address the following inequities: (1) Alaska receives no Bureau of
Indian Education (BIE) funding, and the State is responsible for
educating all Alaskans, including Alaska Natives, and (2) the State's
and districts' track records on educating Alaska Native students are
poor. In response, the Act sought to ensure that Alaska Native people
were maximally involved in the planning and management of the Alaska
Native Education program. Over time, the program has become known as
the Alaska Native Education Program (ANEP).
We appreciate your keen understanding of how important this program
is for the success of Alaska Native students. We are especially
grateful for your unquestionable support for the program over the years
when it has been attacked as an earmark and/or as duplicative of other
programs. We are increasingly concerned that the manner in which the
Department of Education is implementing the Alaska Native Educational
Equity, Support and Assistance Act is paying inadequate attention to
the most important principle of the authorizing legislation: Equity. We
hope to be able to rely on your assistance to address our growing
concerns.
ANEP is designed to address Alaska Native students' needs in a
threefold way by:
1. focusing attention on the educational needs of Alaska Native
students,
2. investing substantial funding in the creation and operation of
supplemental educational programs for Alaska Native students, and
3. maximizing participation of Alaska Native people in the planning
and management of Alaska Native education programs.
First, we are concerned that the program is not being adequately
implemented, particularly in relation to the purpose of maximizing
Alaska Native participation. Information on awards made prior to 2005
is unavailable; however, the available information regarding previous
ANEP awards clearly indicates that the majority of the funding over the
last decade was awarded to non-Alaska Native organizations and entities
(including school districts and universities), even though the law
requires that the Department of Education (the Department) prioritize
funding to Alaska Native organizations. The question has been raised as
to whether Alaska Native organizations have the capacity to manage such
grants. These suggestions are not consistent with the fact that Alaska
Native organizations contract with and receive grants from the State
and Federal Governments regularly. In fact, Alaska Native organizations
working in the education arena have demonstrated not only capacity and
competency, but positive outcomes for Alaska Native students.
Alaska Native Education Equity Act--Award/Funding Analysis 2005-11
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Percent
Organization type of Percent
grants of funds
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alaska Native Organizations:.......... 31 grants................ $39.3 million............ 23.3 21.70
ANO competitive awards only......... 23 grants................ $27.3 million............ 17.29 17.72
Other Organizations:.................. 102 grants............... $114.7 million........... 76.70 78.30
School districts.................... 50 grants................ $75.7 million............ 37.5 41.9
Non-profits......................... 30 grants................ $37.2 million............ 22.5 20.60
Universities........................ 22 grants................ $28.3 million............ 16.50 15.60
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sec. 73C2(2) It is the policy of the Federal Government to encourage the maximum participation by Alaska Natives
in the planning and the management of Alaska Native Education programs.
Sec. 7302(7) The Federal Government should lend support to efforts developed by and undertaken within the Alaska
Native community to improve educational opportunity for all students.
This trend is of particular concern, given that appropriators
overrode the statute last year and directed the Department to implement
all ANEP funding as competitive grants. This change puts all discretion
regarding how ANEP money will be used in Alaska in the hands of the
Department.
Second, the statute provides a clear priority to Alaska Native
regional nonprofits or consortia that include these organizations.
However, this priority is being increasingly undermined by other
priorities as identified by the Department. In the last 2 years, RFAs
for the ANEP program gave only two points to applications from Alaska
Native regional nonprofits (ANRO), and two points for each programmatic
priority identified by the Department. The programmatic priorities
seemed to parallel ``Race to the Top'' priorities, and were neither
targeted to Alaska Native needs, nor relevant goals for supplemental
education programs focused on outcomes for Alaska Native students. In
fact, the priorities in the RFA were not even reflective of the
priorities listed in the statute. In addition to last year's
programmatic priorities, this year, novice applicants, including non-
Native organizations, were given a five-point priority. Again, ANROs
were given only two points. As a result, the statutory priority given
to ANROs was subordinated to a category created at the sole discretion
of the Department. This action further undermines the equity provided
by the original statutory priority. We urge you to address this
directly with the Department. Furthermore, we look forward to working
with you to explore legislative vehicles, such as appropriations report
language and the reauthorization process as additional opportunities.
Third, current statute allows the Secretary to make grants and
enter into contracts with non-Native organizations, and also requires
that LEAs and SEAs can only do so in consortia with Native
organizations. Each grantee is required to provide for ``ongoing advice
from and consultation with representatives of the Alaska Native
community.'' The RFA does not require any evidence of plans for such
consultation, but should. Anecdotally, we know that ANOs are often
enlisted for the value of their imprimaturs, but not considered or
involved as full partners in the consortia. AFN is currently surveying
present and past ANEP grantees to more fully evaluate the breadth of
this problem. We urge the delegation to address this issue of
consultation and quality partnerships with the Department.
Additionally, the Alaska Native Educational Equity, Support and
Assistance Act was designed to solve current problems for students in
Alaska, specifically Alaska Native students. The current measures of
success written into the RFA reduce ANEP to a duplicative funding
stream for advancing testing and school performance goals. Positioning
ANEP in this way leaves it more vulnerable to opponents' claims that
this program is duplicative. The intent of the program is not
duplicative. In fact, it is essential, and the implementation of the
program needs to be realigned with the original goals of the
legislation. Priorities for this funding identified by the Department
must be done in accordance with the statute, and in consultation with
Alaska Native people. Furthermore, the measures of success for grant
awards should not only include--but prioritize--measures that
incorporate Alaska Native views of student success. Finally, efforts of
data collection by Alaska Native organizations have been complicated by
the provisions within the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act
(FERPA), and for ANEP partnerships between Alaska Native organizations
and school districts to be fully realized, all parties must have equal
access to the data on the students involved.
We respectfully request your assistance to ensure maximum
involvement of Alaska Natives in the success of Alaska Native students.
Specifically, we urge the members of the Alaska congressional
delegation to work together to address our concerns with the U.S.
Department of Education by sending the Department a joint letter
outlining the situation.
Furthermore, we request your collaboration to leverage the
reauthorization process to address these issues. Fundamentally, we
believe that only Alaska Native organizations should be the lead
eligible grantees and contractors for ANEP funding, and that LEAs,
SEAs, universities and non-Native organizations should be required to
apply as secondary grantees and contractors in consortia with Alaska
Native organizations. We are convinced that such a change is required
to maximize Alaska Native involvement in all levels of programming and
is vital to the success of Alaska Native students and to the success of
the program. It is time to ensure that programs are designed and
implemented with and by Alaska Natives, and that Alaska Natives are the
experts consulted, employed, and nurtured throughout the process. For
that reason, we request that legislative language reflecting this
change be incorporated into the reauthorization of ESEA, and to the
furthest extent possible, be included in the appropriations process.
We recognize that this request may require legislating on an
appropriations bill, which is an unpopular tactic. However, ANEP was
fundamentally altered last year in an appropriations bill by the
inclusion of a rider that overrode the directed grants authorized in
the statute. We look forward to open and thorough discussions with your
offices on all options available to address these issues.
In summary, we respectfully request your assistance in ensuring
maximum involvement of Alaska Natives in the success of Alaska Native
students. Specifically, we request that the delegation members: (1)
Send a joint delegation letter to the U.S. Department of Education
sharing our concerns, and work with the Department to improve
implementation of ANEP; (2) Hold joint delegation field hearings around
the State this summer to learn more about the needs of Alaska Native
students and Alaska Native communities' expectations and standards as
they relate to educational outcomes; (3) Work with each other and AFN,
Sealaska, and CITC to identify what can be achieved during the
appropriations process; and finally, (4) Work closely with each other,
and us to prepare for the reauthorization process, whether the
opportunity arises in the short-term or the long-term.
We recognize that a number of our concerns require congressional
action, and that vehicles are limited, and move quickly when available.
For that reason, we are bringing all of our concerns to your immediate
attention. It is our hope that we can collaborate to identify the best
solutions and the appropriate vehicles as they become available. Thank
you for your consideration.
We look forward to working with you to improve education for Alaska
Natives.
Sincerely,
Julie Kitka,
President.
[Whereupon, at 5:57 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]