Local school districts differ in their ability to pay for teacher quality, and in the amenities they offer as places to live and work. Market clearing with heterogeneous quality yields geographically varying teacher salary levels that confound scarcity with unobserved differences in quality. The paper discusses identification and estimation of a…

Alaska's efforts toward sustainable development include protecting the subsistence lifestyle by involving indigenous people in stakeholder decisions about whaling and fishing quotas and offshore oil drilling; developing rural energy, water, and sewage infrastructures; using telecommunications to bring health care and education to remote areas; and…

The Alaska Family Practice Residency (AFPR) is a graduate medical education training program for family physicians headed for rural and remote practice sites. Located in Anchorage and affiliated with the University of Washington family practice residency network, the program has an integrated curriculum aimed at preparing family physicians to…

In remote Bristol Bay (Alaska), award-winning librarian Tiki Levinson built a library program that inspired students to read and teachers to embrace new resources for their classrooms. She recommends new books and Web sites to students and teachers and searches avidly for new resources that might pique a child's interest or meet a teacher's needs.…

Diversity of geography, climate, and culture dictate the nature of the service delivery systems in Alaska, including the provision of prevention programming in substance abuse, alcoholism, health, and behavioral health. Described here are training programs, conferences and symposia, health fairs, and culturally derived interventions that meet the…

Relates experiences in providing on-site Internet workshops to the newly networked Native-Alaskan village of Galena. Discusses a handbook of K-12 Internet resources, the collaborative relationship at the core of Internet innovations, creating an online course on brokering Internet learning resources, and the three biggest advantages the Internet…

To address the shortage of qualified early interventionists for young rural children with disabilities, the University of Alaska Fairbanks developed a Master's program that used distance education at remote practicum sites during fall and spring and on-campus instruction during the summer. The program has fostered university-rural community…

Information technology offers advantages to small rural schools: access to courses not locally available, opportunities for collaborative work with other schools, and access to professional development courses. Federal money can help disadvantaged rural schools afford the technology, but the teacher must integrate good practices with technology to…

The Rural Alaska Native Adult program of Alaska Pacific University is specifically designed for adult Native learners. Courses in business administration, human services, and teacher education are offered to rural Native adult students via an interactive Internet-based format after an initial 1-week residency. The Internet component is facilitated…

In the spring of 2001, the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Education included a web-based instructional component in all distance education classes. This component aims to mediate access and equity issues in providing postsecondary education to rural Alaska residents. The number of courses offered through distance education had been…

This manual offers practical advice to educators on conducting a job search and obtaining a position in Alaska. Alaska Teacher Placement (University of Alaska Fairbanks) is a statewide clearinghouse for the placement of educators. Although Alaska's certification requirements are similar to those of other states, school administrators are also…

The Southeast Regional Resource Center serves all of Alaska's 53 school districts, many of them rural. Its itinerant special education personnel deliver services on-site and train teachers, paraprofessionals, and parents to deliver services. Video exchanges, telephone conversations, and Internet communications are used to monitor student progress,…

In 1986, Colorado native Carolyn Kremers accepted an invitation to teach music and English at a school in Tununak, a remote Yup'ik Eskimo village on Nelson Island, Alaska. This memoir recounts her experiences as a teacher, and also her reflections on music, the outdoors, teaching, Alaska, and how she came to understand Yup'ik and Inupiat Eskimo…

Alaska has been forced by geography and weather to look at numerous innovative solutions to improving communication between families and schools. The Internet is showing more impact than any other technique that has been tried. This has been especially helpful to parents of children with disabilities, due to a severe shortage of special education…