Going the Distance!
October 2004

Newsletter Articles:

• GCI Joins Consortium to Help Alaskan Teachers
• NASA Holds Kick-off Event
• Smaller School Districts Struggle with NCLB
• Policy Brief: Distance Learning in Rural Education

GCI Joins Consortium to Help Alaskan Teachers
As part of a new initiative from the University of Alaska Anchorage, GCI will help improve educational and professional development opportunities for teachers throughout Alaska.

According to a press release issued by UAA on September 22nd of this year, UAA will use a grant from the U.S. Department of Education to create the Alaska Educational Innovations Network (AEIN), which is designed to improve teacher resources, training and professional development.

The 15-member consortium also includes UAA’s College of Arts and Sciences; UAA’s community campuses in Kenai; Kodiak and the Mat-Su Valley; the Anchorage, Mat-Su, Kashunamiut, Lower Kuskokwim, Kodiak Island Borough, Yupiit, Lake and Pen, and Pribilof school districts; the National Education Association-Alaska; and Follow the Leaders, a national education collaborative.

The release also outlines six areas that the consortium will focus on which includes:

1. Mentoring and Induction
2. Networks and Collaboration
3. Effective Teacher Education
4. Professional Development
5. Leadership
6. Culturally Responsive Teaching

Martin Cary, vice president of GCI Broadband Services, expressed his support and excitement saying that “Our SchoolAccess team has worked for schools and teachers around the state to connect them with new educational opportunities since 1997. In the last two years we created and deployed advanced, two-way video distance learning technology into school districts hungry for ever more content. These schools are tech-ready and highly motivated to tap into the high-quality content that will be made available as a result of this initiative.”

The consortium will receive support for five years, after which it will become self-sustaining.

To view the press release please go to: http://www.uaa.alaska.edu/news/Edconsrtgrant.cfm

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NASA Holds Kick-off Event to Congratulate Newly Named Explore Schools
On October 11, 2004, NASA officials were on-site for a kick-off event to congratulate three schools in the Chugach School District to the NASA Explorer School Program. Whittier Community School, Tatitlek and Chenaga Bay were the main attraction of the event held at Whittier Community School that featured officials from NASA as well as a NASA astronaut.

Astronaut Rex Walheim and NASA officials were welcomed by the school’s principal, Doug Penn, as they began a discussion on careers in NASA and what it means to be an Explorer School. GCI SchoolAccess officials were also on site to provide videoconferencing support.

The Chugach District schools were named as Explorer Schools this past summer, along with 47 other schools also announced nationwide. The Explorer Schools program, launched by NASA in 2003, is designed to help schools integrate mathematics, science and technology into the classroom. The 50 schools will partner with NASA over a three year period and involve teachers, administrators and parents and education specialists within various departments of NASA.

To learn more about the NASA Explorer School Program please go to: http://explorerschools.nasa.gov/portal/site/nes/

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Smaller School Districts Struggle to Comply with NCLB Requirements
An article in South Dakota’s Rapid City Journal describes the difficulties that small schools face in meeting NCLB requirements. The article, called “Report: Small schools struggle to meet NCLB,” highlights a study that released by the Government Accountability Office, showing that smaller school districts (with 600 students or less) have a harder time attracting highly qualified teachers. The report also notes that “teachers often must teach multiple grades or subjects and feel isolated from big libraries, professional development and programs for special-needs students.”

To compile information for the report, researchers from the Government Accountability Office visited several states, including schools in South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, and Montana. Educators in Iowa, Kansas, and Wyoming were surveyed by telephone. Approximately 85 percent of the 1,200 rural superintendents nationwide who received mail surveys returned them.

The report found that “declining enrollments mean less state aid but higher standards require more resources.”

“Nationwide, 13.8 percent of rural children live below the poverty line. But in South Dakota, that number is 19.8 percent. South Dakota also is 15th in rural minority students and 50th in pay for rural teachers.”

For more details on this article go to: http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2004/09/29/news/state/top/
state01.txt

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Policy Brief Discusses Role of Distance Learning in Rural Education
An article in Policy Matters, a newsletter of rural school and community action, discusses a policy brief from the Rural Trust called “The Promise and the Power of Distance Learning in Rural Education.”

The article, titled “Who Said, ‘Distance Learning is Only a Fad?’” discusses the lack of ground rules or policy pathways in place for handling policy and regulatory issues that arise from the great increase in distance learning. “Each state wrestles with issues of local vs. state control, teacher certification, distance learning course accreditation, commercial out-of-state providers, among a host of other issues.”

The policy brief contains “a discussion of distance learning technologies and their impact on rural schools, then focuses on two-way interactive television (I-TV), including barriers to implementation, cost models, and consortium development. A major section of the paper summarizes existing state policies relating to distance learning and offers recommendations for both state and local policies.”

For more information on the policy brief, please see http://www.ruraledu.org/rpm/rpm609d.htm or www.ruraledu.org.

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