Alaska Progress Report

Alaska Receives Gentleman's D+ Grade on Teacher Quality

Education affects so many downstream outcomes for people it should always be first among equals when it comes to public policy issue areas. Education level is the strongest predictor of economic success in life, and the strongest predictor of educational success outside the home is teacher quality.  Therefore it is worrisome to read reports like the 2008 State Teacher Quality Yearbook from the National Council on Teacher Quality, which gives Alaska a D+, the average state grade, on managing teacher quality.

For a good summary that includes he-said/she-said from Alaska teacher organizations see Megan Holland's article in the Anchorage Daily News. To continue our logic chain, teacher quality rises steeply through about the five year mark, so retaining quality teachers is critical, but teacher turnover is high in Alaska. One possible reason is that the move a few years ago from a defined benefit to a defined contribution pension plan for new public employees in Alaska, which could have the effect of scaring off new teachers (as well as firefighters, cops and other public employees). Alaska is one of a minority of states where public employees do not participate in Social Security. As the current economic situation clearly demonstrates, the volatility of private retirement accounts makes them a risky substitution for defined benefit plans.

Anchorage School District Profile of Performance

The Anchorage School District, educating 50,000 kids speaking 84 languages, will absorb about $581 billion in general funding for the 2008-09 school year. What we get for all this is summed up in their annual Profile of Performance, an abbreviated version of which ("Expect the Best") was inserted into the Anchorage Daily News on Tuesday, November 11.

From the press release: "Much of the 2007-08 test score data was flat or declined slightly, following several years of solid growth... The district did see solid improvement in lowering its preliminary dropout rate. The board’s goal of a 5 percent decrease was surpassed with an 18.46 percent decline bringing the overall dropout rate to 4.16 percent. In the past four years, the dropout rate of ASD students has decreased by more than one-third. The 2007-08 preliminary graduation rate realized a small decline, less than 1 percent from 64.99 percent to 64.33 percent."

So despite some bumps in the road, the general consensus seems to be that the district is trending in the right direction overall. ADN has an education-specific page on their web site that is a useful guide to more information.

Teacher Turnover Remains High in Alaska

In the immortal words of David Lee Roth, a man who truly appreciated teachers, "I don't feel tardy..." But Alaska certainly lags in improving teacher turnover. Why do we care? Outside of the family, teacher quality is perhaps the primary determinant of student performance. And the longer teachers stay on the job, the better they get.

In August ISER released a new report: Turnover Among Alaska Teachers: Is It Changing? The answer is no, it's still bad: "Turnover among Alaska's teachers was roughly the same in 2007 as it had been in 1999, with about 14% leaving their school districts. Turnover also remained twice as high in rural as in urban districts - about 22%, compared with 10%. That lack of broad change comes after years of effort... to reduce teacher turnover, especially in rural areas."

Teacher salaries are still about 10% above the national average, but that may not be enough given the recent elimination of the defined benefit pension for new state employees and other challenges: "To put Alaska teacher turnover in context, it’s useful to know that turnover in Alaska’s largest districts is roughly comparable to turnover in mid-sized cities nationwide. [T]urnover in Alaska’s rural districts is higher than turnover just about anywhere in the U.S.—except in inner-city neighborhoods in America’s largest cities. Conditions unique to remote rural Alaska certainly contribute to high turnover—the shortage of good housing, high living costs, isolation, difficulties and costs of travel, and limited access to medical care, to name some."