The Alaska Association for Career & Technical Education (ACTE) held their annual professional development conference, Growing Stronger Together 2019, this week at the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage.
ISER researchers have a long history of studying education issues in Alaska, and in 2009, to emphasize ISER’s commitment to education research, the Center for Alaska Education Policy Research (CAEPR) was established as part of ISER. Examples of education research at ISER include assessing turnover rates among teachers and readiness of high-school students to go on to college. Another focus at CAEPR is looking at education issues that Indigenous peoples face in Alaska and the broader Arctic. ISER researchers also evaluate Alaska education programs.
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Director of the Center for Alaska Education Policy Research (CAEPR) and Research Assistant Professor of Education Policy, Dr. Dayna DeFeo, was recently featured by KTUU to discuss the growing concern around the number of teachers in Alaska. Dr. DeFeo explained that lower enrollment in education programs has resulted in less teachers being produced locally. On top of that, issues with the budget make it difficult to hold on to the ones that are currently working here.
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The Improving Childcare Outcomes Research (ICOR) project, with Diane Hirshberg as part of the team, is expanding the definition of culturally responsive teaching from its current K-12 focus to include early childhood education. This involves creating and assessing the effectiveness of new professional development aimed at strengthening culturally responsive practices among early childhood educators. The work is intended to be informed by research. As part of that, researchers surveyed parents and educators about how they define culturally responsive practice.
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ISER researchers Dayna DeFeo, director of the Center for Alaska Education Policy Research and Diane Hirshberg, professor of education policy, were featured prominently in Education Week for a recent article on teacher turnover in Alaska.
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In a new education publication, Dayna DeFeo, Matthew Berman, Alexandra Hill, and Diane Hirshberg examine how Alaska’s K-12 spending compares to other states in the US. In Alaska’s fiscal crisis that has drawn increased attention to education spending, this report shows that after taking into account higher Alaska prices for items largely beyond local school districts' control, Alaska's per pupil spending is about average among all the US states.
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In the midst of a national teacher shortage, Alaska does not simply need teachers, it needs high quality educators who reflect the diversity of its students. Teachers who are prepared in Alaska not only bring cultural familiarity, but also have lower turnover rates. Grow-your-own initiatives to recruit and train local teachers are a sustainable and effective way to staff classrooms with “homegrown” educators who are culturally and linguistically similar to the students and communities they serve, but Alaska is not recruiting enough Alaskans into teaching.
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Between 2010 and 2016, Alaska’s graduation rate grew faster than the national average, increasing 8 percentage points, among the top 10 rate increases in the country. All demographic groups improved, with Native, low-income, and rural student rates growing the most. These are some of the trends described in a new Research Summary, “Alaska High School Graduation Rate Trends,” by Trang Tran, ISER Research Professional, and Alexandra Hill, Associate Director of ISER.
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ISER’s Diane Hirshberg, Professor of Education Policy, contributed to the development of “Alaska, A Brief History of the State and Its Schools” in the latest edition of Education Week. The historical overview anchors a series of articles on schooling in Alaska, including cultural and geographic challenges that have helped shaped schools in Alaska.
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School superintendents are all too familiar with the costs of teacher turnover that deplete educational resources and challenge student achievement. A new paper, by Dayna DeFeo, director of ISER’s Center for Alaska Education Policy Research (CAEPR) and Trang Tran, ISER research professional, looks at how superintendents in Alaska’s rural districts – where teacher turnover is particularly pronounced – are working to address turnover by integrating a place-conscious approach in their hiring practices.
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Dual enrollment programs provide access to college-level courses to high school students prior to graduation, often helping students become more successful in high school and easing their path to college. Between 2008 and 2017, University of Alaska (UA) dual enrollment programs experienced an 85% increase in student enrollment and, among those who graduated from high school, 41% went on to attend a UA institution within a year.