Education

Researchers at ISER's Center for Alaska Education Policy Research (CAEPR) have recently published two articles examining issues important to Alaska's teachers.

• It’s more than just dollars: Problematizing salary as the sole mechanism for recruiting and retaining teachers in rural Alaska, by Dayna DeFeo, Diane Hirshberg, and Lexi Hill. This article, published in the Alaska Native Studies Journal, argues that improving teacher retention in Alaska’s rural schools will require both adequate pay and attention to working conditions. Full text available for download.

• Statute and implementation: How phantom policies affect tenure value and support, by Dayna DeFeo, Matt Berman, and Diane Hirshberg.  This article, published in Educational Policy, discusses how teachers and principals understand, inflate, or underestimate tenure protections, and how those interpretations affect the perceived value and effectiveness of the tenure policy itself. Abstract available for download, full text available for purchase.

The Alaska Department of Administration contracted with the Center for Alaska Education Policy Research (CAEPR) at ISER to study teacher salary and tenure issues in Alaska. As part of that broad study, CAEPR and ISER researchers explored attitudes and opinions about teacher tenure in Alaska. Please join us to hear what these researchers learned about how much teachers and principals understand (or misunderstand) about tenure policy in Alaska.

When: Tuesday, December 6, 2016, 12 to 1

In his first seminar as ISER's director, Ralph Townsend will discuss knowledge accumulation in the social sciences, and why thinking about that topic is important for ISER and other research organizations that study social problems. Please join us for this talk.

When: Friday, October 21, 12 to 1
Where: ISER Conference Room ,
Third Floor, 1901 Bragaw St, Suite 301.

Note: Those who can’t attend in person can stream the talk live at: http://stream.iseralaska.org

ISER is pleased to announce that Andrew Bibler is a new assistant professor and in UAA’s Economics Department. His research interests include the economics of education, especially nonstandard approaches to education. He is also interested in labor economics, public economics and applied econometrics.

He is currently working on a project that analyzes the impact of dual language programs on student achievement. The multiyear project has been tracking students from kindergarten to ninth grade in dual language programs and comparing their progress with students enrolled in single language schools.

Other projects are Household Composition and Gender Differences in Parental Time Investments and a coauthored paper, Precision for Policy: Calculating Standard Errors in Value Added Models.

He will begin teaching in the economics department in the spring semester. He’s taught previously at Michigan State University and Ohio University. He will receive his Ph.D. from Michigan State University in December. He holds an M.A. in economics from Ohio University and a B.S. in economics from Brigham Young University.

His office is located in the ISER offices at the Bragaw Building, #311. He can be reached at 786-5452, ajbibler@alaska.edu.

Joanna Karet is a new member of the research faculty at the Center for Alaska Education Policy Research, which was established as part of ISER in 2010. She will talk about her findings on whether attending two-year community colleges encourages or discourages students from going on to get four-year or advanced degrees. Existing qualitative research has indicated that attending community colleges causes many students to lower their goals. Dr.