Arctic schools get creative under federal act

According to The Arctic Sounder, more schools in the Northwest Arctic and North Slope school districts passed the Adequate Yearly Proficiency standard under the No Child Left Behind Act this year than did in the previous two years, but 13 schools have still not met the standard, and the fight is on to fix it. Education in rural Alaska has always faced challenges, but this particularly concerns officials because the proficiency test will only get harder each year, requiring 100 percent of students to be proficient by the 2013-14 school year. The article examines steps that are being taken to work around aspects of the act that simply don't work in Bush Alaska. Although the Act has been a poor fit in some respects, the superintendent of NWASD said that it has noticeably improved the overall standard of education in rural Alaska. Read more here.