Schools in many remote parts of Alaska are losing students as high energy prices and lack of economic opportunity push families to relocate to larger cities.
Losing the local school can be an almost fatal blow to a community. Principals and superintendents understandably struggle to keep enrollments at 10 or above, the level that triggers full state funding. Sometimes a single family's decision to move away can lead a school to close. Intense personal lobbying can help maintain enrollment until the magic date in the fall that locks in state funding for the entire year, even if students later move away.
When families do move from the Bush to Alaska's cities, urban schools feel the strain. Stable home lives are one big key to success in school. If families move after the school year starts -- say, right after Permanent Fund dividends arrive -- it's disruptive to the student and to the school. The newcomers may need extra support services as they adapt to unfamiliar ways of urban life, but state funding has already been locked in for the year.
Students who remain behind in tiny rural communities aren't left to fend for themselves. The state still has a constitutional obligation to ensure they are educated.
State-funded correspondence programs, also known as distance education, are another option for rural students. Those students do all their work by computer and mail rather than coming to a school building.
Those correspondence programs no longer cater mainly to families living deep in the Bush. They grew rapidly by making a special appeal to families that want state-funded computers and supplies to home-school their children. Many districts that have increased enrollment over the past decade are rural ones that did so through correspondence programs.
PACE, a program based in the town of Craig (pop. 1,054), is an example. It boasts that it "offers every new student a personal desktop or laptop computer," which can be "refreshed" after three years in the program with "state of the art machines."
Correspondence schools like PACE are not all that popular an alternative for Alaska Natives, who are the majority of students in most rural schools. Less than 2 percent of Alaska's Native public school students are in correspondence programs. By contrast, the programs draw 6.7 percent of white public school students. Eighty percent of correspondence students are white, versus just 55 percent in regular schools.
For motivated families, correspondence instruction can be an effective alternative. Native students in the programs do a little worse in math compared to their Native peers in regular schools, but they do noticeably better in reading and somewhat better in writing. (White students in correspondence programs do worse than their white peers, especially in math.)
Mt. Edgecumbe High School is another option for rural students. The statewide boarding school in Sitka has a reputation for high academic standards, but it is a small program with only 405 students. Almost nine of every 10 students there are Native, and they do much better than Native peers on state-mandated tests.
Even with all Alaska's oil money, the state can't keep a bricks-and-mortar school in every community that would like one. Ten students is a generous standard for full state school funding. In places that don't meet the standard, the state makes a reasonable effort to provide alternatives.
BOTTOM LINE: Correspondence programs are an option in the Bush, but they appeal mainly to home-schoolers who want state-funded computers and supplies.
A beauty
Dena'ina Convention Center is stunning on the inside
Our new convention center is an austere, almost industrial-looking gray building on the outside, yet inside, it's a thing of beauty.
A third-floor ballroom in the Dena'ina Civic and Convention Center opens into a grand lobby surrounded by windows with spectacular views of the city and mountains to the east and south.
Just the other side of the lobby windows you'll find one of the coolest architectural features in Anchorage -- an outdoor terrace extending most of the length of the building and around the corner.
It's breathtaking, even on a day when you can see your breath. Nine hundred people can lounge on the deck at one time.
Other things are right about the building. Cultural touches reflect a pride in Anchorage's Native heritage. The building itself is named after Dena'ina Athabascans; meeting rooms have Athabascan names; the art is Native art.
At one end of the third-floor lobby, a colorful stained glass work portrays Athabascan daily life around Cook Inlet.
The AFN convention last week showed the potential of Anchorage's new $111 million building.
Thousands of people from around the state attended meetings, shopped at an arts and crafts marketplace on the ground floor, or just greeted old friends in the hallways.
There were no major glitches, says convention center general manager Greg Spears. (AFN leaders were not available Monday or Tuesday.)
The new convention center has just been open a few weeks. It's too early to tell if it will be a financial boon to the city.
But Mayor Mark Begich and others who planned the building can be proud of what they accomplished. Nice job.
BOTTOM LINE: The gray exterior of the new Dena'ina Civic and Convention Center hides a classy building inside.