It's no secret in Alaska, but the state is constantly hiring teachers from Outside, especially for its rural communities, and the turnover rate for administrators and teachers is ridiculously high.
WFAA-TV, from Dallas, Texas, has published a report -- complete with a Manokotak dateline -- about the challenges posed by Alaska education, with a focus on perennially troubled rural schools. Perhaps because the reporter actually visited the village west of Dillingham, the report turns out to be better than most Alaskans might expect.
The report focuses on a Texas couple, the Cantrells, who moved to Alaska in July from the Dallas metropolitan area so that Amanda Cantrell could take a job teaching school. Texas has been cutting education budgets by the billions and laying off teachers right and left.
But Alaska is always hiring.
Estimates say around 80 percent of Alaska's school teachers are from Outside, and districts are afflicted by a high rate of turnover, both in administration and in the classroom. Nowhere has that been the case more than in the rural parts of the state. Alexandra Hill, a UAA researcher, told WFAA that as many as 30 percent of the teachers in the Southwest Region leave in any given year.
For students, it means investing in their own education is much harder, and there's ample evidence turnover negatively impacts student progress. "It'd be like if you had a different mom every year," said Larry Johnson, Manokotak school's principal, who also arrived in July.
Alaska's overall turnover rate has been decreasing, thanks in part to new investment in teacher housing, but Hill thinks the lack of opportunity in a sour Lower 48 economy is a bigger factor. Rural teachers simply have a harder time bailing out these days.
Read much, much more, here.