Education Week - July 17, 2019 - 1

Education Week
VOL. 38, NO. 37 * JULY 17, 2019

edweek.org:

Many Unknowns
In K-12 Spending

BRE AKING NEWS DAILY

LETTERS FROM

ALASKA

Data Systems Limit States' Capacity
By Daarel Burnette II
Where, exactly, do those billions of dollars taxpayers
annually spend for schools go?
In most states, policymakers really don't know.
That's because state education departments don't
have the technology to track the tens of thousands of
transactions that district officials, using a combination
of federal, state, and local dollars, make throughout the
school year.
So instead, the departments give lawmakers a receipt
that includes a summation of broad spending categories,
a breakout of average salaries, and maybe a mention of
whether spending is up or down.
This hazy picture, sometimes two to three years out of
date, has frustrated both school funding advocates and
conservative accountability hawks who say they can't reform states' K-12 spending if they're not confident about
where the money is going and assured that it's being
spent effectively.
"Every time the education department goes to the legislature with their hands out, they get it spanked away,"
said Ray L'Heureux the president of Education Institute
PAGE 21 >

Students in Distress
Strain Teachers' Skills

Students from the Native Village of Scammon Bay, Alaska, give their peers from Anchorage's East High School a tour of their remote
community. The visit this spring is part of a sister-school exchange program run by the Alaska Humanities Forum.

Photographs by Erin Irwin/Education Week

A Taste of Rural Life-and Moose Snout

By Sarah Schwartz
In Tacora Snell's 5th grade classroom, it's not unusual
for students to tell her that they need a break.
Snell, a math and science teacher at Ketcham Elementary School in the District of Columbia, starts talking
with her students early in the year about vocalizing
their emotions. And if a student does have an outburst of
frustration, she'll pull them aside to ask: "You're angry-
you have every right to that emotion-but how could we
have dealt with that differently?"
With these practices, Snell hopes to build her students'
social-emotional skills. Her school is one of the growing
number across the country that are explicitly teaching
students how to build strong relationships, make smart
decisions, and take on challenges.
Some research has linked focusing on these socialemotional competencies to higher academic performance
and better outcomes outside of school. But while most

By Victoria Petersen
Outside of Alaska's few urban pockets, a constellation of tiny communities, scattered across a rugged landscape, is home to more than half of the
state's residents. Alaska is among the
nation's most rural states-99 percent
of its land mass is considered so. Resource extraction, transportation, food
insecurity, and climate change have
strained and complicated relationships between the state's first inhabitants-members of 227 Alaska Native
Villages-and non-Natives who, for the
last three centuries, have come from
all over the world to seek opportunity
on one of the continent's last frontiers.
Many familiar with that history see
education as a powerful means for diffusing tensions among the geographic
and cultural groups. That's what programs like Alaska's Sister School Ex-

PAGE 12 >

change aim to do, enlisting middle and
high school students to build bridges, by
offering them the chance to visit one another's communities. Founded in 2001
by the Alaska Humanities Forum, the
program was initially funded through
Congress and a private foundation.
Since 2007, the U.S. Department of Education Alaska Native Education program has fully funded the exchange. As
of this year, more than 2,000 students
have traveled to 88 communities across
the state to participate in the free,
weeklong exchanges.
Seven years ago, I was one of those
students who left her comfortable,
urban home in Anchorage to fly 300
miles to New Stuyahok to participate
in the exchange. I was a shy high
school junior and fourth-generation
Alaskan with my own set of misconceptions about my rural neighbors.
The exchange gave me the chance

to understand the challenges of life in
rural Alaska-like the feeling of being
completely isolated and the pressures
of subsistence living in an ever-changing natural environment-while also
showing me what it's like to be part of
a tight-knit, culturally rich community
where I made friends for life.
This April, I made the trip again,
this time with an Education Week
photographer and four Anchorage students and their teacher to get a sense
of the kinds of academic and cultural
lessons the program might offer to
communities across the country with
different needs and lifestyles.

Prepping for the Adventure
The program begins each year
long before the travel takes place.
To participate, teachers must apply
PAGE 15 >

" I was a shy high school junior and fourth-generation
Alaskan with my own set of misconceptions
about my rural neighbors."
BUSING: Buses arrive at South Boston High School, Jan. 8, 1975 as

classes resume at the racially troubled institution. Police were on
hand to provide protection as black students arrived. PAGE 18 >

-Victoria Petersen, 2019 Gregory M. Chronister fellow
AP

1975

This is the first in a series of articles offering snapshots of schooling and student and teacher experiences in the
49th state. The project is sponsored by the Education Week Gregory M. Chronister Journalism Fellowship.

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Education Week - July 17, 2019

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