Alaska's rural schools funding requests are often ignored, leaving children in crumbling schools

Some Alaskan schools are only accessible by air, boat
or dog sled. (Photo by Drew Dempsey, Unsplash)

Alaska is the largest state in America, more than twice the size of Texas. Most of Alaska’s school districts are located in hard-to-access places. 

Getting to these schools means travel by air, boat, dog sled or all-terrain vehicles, according to the University of Alaska. Some of these schools have fewer than 25 students.

“Just under half of Alaska’s rural schools are owned by the state, which is required by law to pay for construction and maintenance projects,” wrote Emily Schwing from Alaska’s KYUK in partnership with NPR and ProPublica. She said that every year Alaska’s rural schools put in more than 100 maintenance requests which are largely ignored.

Most of the students in the rural school districts are Alaska Native children. Schwing wrote that these Indigenous children suffer the greatest and are a population that has been “long forced to attend separate and unequal schools.”

Schwing reported that some Alaska Native parents sued the state in 1997. They argued that “the funding system violated Alaska’s constitution and the federal Civil Rights Act. State Superior Court Judge John Reese agreed.”

The judge wrote an order in 1999 saying, “Because of the funding system, rural schools are not getting the money they need to maintain their schools.

“Deficiencies include roofs falling in, no drinkable water, sewage backing up, and enrollment up to 187% of capacity. Some rural schools have been at the top of the priority list for a number of years, yet have received no funding.”

Even though it seemed like changes might be made in 1999, the article's investigation found, “Alaska’s education department has received 1,789 funding proposals from rural school districts since 1998. But only 14% of them have received funding. This year, requests from rural school districts to the state’s construction and maintenance program stand at $478 million.”

A historic first in Alaska may mean drilling in an untouched national refuge; Native Alaskans want a 'seat at the table.'

Map by Sarah Melotte, The Daily Yonder, from Bureau of Land
Management data. Click on map to enlarge.

Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is big, beautiful, and rich in natural resources and biodiversity. It has also been the "focal point of more than six decades of drilling controversy," which will come to a tentative resolution when tracts within the region's 19-million-acre expanse open for oil and gas leases this month, reports Sarah Melotte of The Daily Yonder. Native Alaskan communities want to be among the decision-makers for the coastal land that "is estimated to contain 11.8 billion barrels of recoverable oil."

Drilling in ANWR has never been done before. The region is home to "charismatic species like polar bears, wolves, and the caribou that are sacred to the Gwich’in, a Northwestern Alaska tribe," Melotte writes. "Oil and gas operations elicit mixed responses from Alaskan Natives. . . Some worry that drilling activity will hurt vulnerable wildlife and subsistence living, others say the oil and gas industry funds important infrastructure for their communities."

The coastal region, also known as the North Slope Borough, receives 95% of its total budget from oil and gas development taxation. Reservation members also depend on shareholder income regional corporations generate and pay out to Alaskan Natives. The Artic Slope Regional Corporation serves as an example. The company "has over 13,000 shareholders who receive dividends," Melotte notes. "Since its establishment in 1972, the ASRC has distributed more than $1 billion in dividends."

"Many leaders of the Iñupiat, an indigenous people native to Alaska’s North Slope Borough, say that oil and gas operations can be good for native communities if conducted responsibly," Melotte reports. Nagruk Harcharek, president of the Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, a nonprofit organization that advocates for Alaska’s Iñupiat people, told Melotte, "Before oil and gas, you couldn't graduate high school and stay in the North Slope. Now there are K-12 schools in every North Slope village."

Harcharek used a past North Slope drilling project to help explain how Native Alaskans want to be included in drilling activity and practices. Melotte writes, "He said they were consulted 'early and often' in the decision-making process. . . . He said they want to be included before decisions are announced publicly."

Despite Alaska's rich natural resources, many Alaskan Natives live in poverty and still hunt for food, and drilling activities could interfere with their reliance on wild game. "Hunting is more than just a hobby in many native villages with high poverty rates," Melotte writes. "Hunting is a method of survival, said Dr. A.L. Lovecraft, professor of Political Science and director of the Center for Arctic Policy Studies at the University of Alaska. '[Drilling] also comes with all of this other baggage... Problems related to health, indoor health, indoor air quality, outdoor air quality.'"

The Cherokee Nation and Oklahoma State University collaborate to increase number of Indigenous physicians

Charlee Dawson, a member of the Cherokee Nation, is an OSU at
Cherokee Nation medical student. (Photo by Arielle Zionts, KFF Health)

Native American health care has been marked by glaring disparities in access and affordability for tribes when compared to other U.S. populations. In one dramatic solution, the Cherokee Nation and Oklahoma State University worked together to build the only physician training program on a Native American reservation and affiliated with a tribal government: Oklahoma State University's College of Osteopathic Medicine, reports Arielle Zionts of KFF Health News. Its first class will graduate in May 2024.

Located in Tahlequah, the capital of the Cherokee Nation, the program "aims to increase the number of Cherokee and other Indigenous physicians. It's also focused on expanding the number of doctors from all backgrounds who serve rural or tribal communities," Zionts reports. "Natasha Bray, an osteopathic physician and dean of the program, said most medical schools teach about barriers that can make it difficult for rural or Indigenous patients to get care and improve their health. But she said students in Tahlequah get to see these barriers firsthand by studying on the Cherokee Reservation and doing rotations in tiny communities and within facilities run by the federal Indian Health Service."

Overall, rural America doesn't have enough doctors now and not enough medical students seeking to enter rural medicine for future needs. For Native Americans, recruitment and retention numbers are abysmal. Zionts adds, "Rural residents make up about 14% of the U.S. population but fewer than 5% of incoming medical students, according to a study of 2017 data. Native Americans are 3% of the population but represented only 0.2% of those accepted to medical school for the 2018-19 school year, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges."

In a refreshing contrast, the new medical school has been successful at recruiting rural and Native American students. "Half the 2020 medical students in Tahlequah are from rural areas, and nearly a quarter are Native American," Zionts reports. "Most of the Indigenous students are from Oklahoma tribes. Others come from tribes outside the state, including from Alaska and New Mexico. . . . Students said studying at the Tahlequah campus prepares them to work in tribal and rural areas in ways that might not be possible at other medical schools."

Zionts reports, "Native Americans have long received inadequate, discriminatory, and unethical health care. The Indian Health Service sterilized thousands of women in the 1960s and '70s. Today, the agency remains chronically underfunded. . . . This [history] has led some Indigenous people to mistrust the health care system. But several of the Tahlequah students said they've bonded with patients who share similar backgrounds."

Medical student Caitlin Cosby, a member of the Choctaw Nation, told Zionts, "It really comforts patients to know that someone like them is taking care of them." Zionts adds, "Cosby, 24, said she once had a patient who asked, 'Are you Native?' And I said, 'I am!'. . . The patient told Cosby he was proud of her."

News-media roundup: Presses dwindle; why the Kansas raid was unusual; family-owned daily marks 175 years

"Many residents in rural areas with poor internet access still rely on printed papers for local news." So says the American Press Institiute, painting with a broad and somewhat loose brush in noting the Medill Local News Initiative's report on press closures. Mark Caro pegs his piece to the shutdown of the press at Gannett Co.'s Pueblo Chieftain, first noted here last month, and examines the lack of any newspaper press in Vermont. Presses have been shutting down all over for decades, largely due to ownership consolidation, leading to earlier deadlines, changed publication schedules, longer drives, higher costs and a few newspaper closures. Anna Brugmann, policy director for the Rebulld Local News Coalition, told Caro that rural publishers discuss the need for “a runway” to transition to digital, but “Chopping off the runway altogether means the plane runs aground.”

Why is a police raid on a newspaper in Kansas so unusual? asks The Associated Press. David Bauder and Jim Salter write, "It’s very rare. . . . Police have confiscated material at newspapers, but usually because they are seeking evidence to help investigate someone else’s crime, not a crime the journalists were allegedly involved in, said Clay Calvert, an expert on First Amendment law at the American Enterprise Institute. . . . The Marion raid 'appears to have violated federal law, the First Amendment, and basic human decency,' said Seth Stern, advocacy director for the Freedom of the Press Foundation. 'Everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves.'"

"One of the oldest newspapers still owned by the same family" celebrates its 175th anniversary in Celina, Ohio, this month. "The Daily Standard and the genealogy of the Snyder family are, for all intents and purposes, one and the same. That makes this newspaper both a cherished family heirloom and a critical public trust," the paper says. "The family watched as corporations gutted newsrooms and cut back on local news coverage in pursuit of higher profits and the adverse effects these moves had on the communities they served. . . . It's a tough fight for a family-owned newspaper to stay afloat in a world where people expect free news content on the internet, but one worth waging to keep residents informed of happenings in their local governments, schools and communities."

Still native, but not only American: "The Native American Journalists Association announced Friday it is changing its name to the Indigenous Journalists Association in an effort to become more inclusive and strengthen ties with Indigenous journalists worldwide," AP reports. The change was announced at the group's annual conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba, after members voted 89-55 in favor of it. "About 400 Indigenous members were eligible to vote."

British Columbia amps up mining ventures; Native Americans in U.S. and Canada push for 'a seat at the table'

Argonaut Wharf near Campbell River, British Columbia, which calls itself "Salmon Capital of the World," is the primary export outlet for the Myra Falls mine in Strathcona Provincial Park. (Photo by Alex Ratson, Getty Images)

Wikipedia map

Native American tribes are asking the U.S. government "to pressure Canada to stop additional mining activity in British Columbia, which they say contaminates waters and threatens Native American ways of life in Alaska, Montana and Idaho," Jacob Fischler reports for States Newsroom.

“BC is moving full-steam ahead with doubling their amount of mines,” Jill Weitz, the natural-resource manager for the Central Council of Tlingit & Haida Tribes of Alaska, who was part of the delegation, told Fischler, “Tribes and downstream communities do not have a meaningful seat at the table as it relates to the management of these shared rivers and resources that everyone is dependent upon."

Fischler writes: "British Columbia plans to expand its profitable coal, copper and gold mining industry. . . . Spending on mineral and coal exploration in British Columbia increased by 56% in 2021 over 2020, reaching $660 million, according to a study for the provincial government."

Rich Janssen Jr., head of the Department of Natural Resources for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Montana and Idaho, told Fischler, "Once mining impacts occur, it’s very difficult to clean them up. We’re not against mining at all, but we’re against mining that doesn’t do the environment justice.”

To support their cause, "The Native American leaders are asking for the countries to refer the matter to the International Joint Commission, a U.S.-Canada partnership created to oversee water issues between the two nations," Fischler writes. However, Weitz told Fischler that "historically [matters] have only been resolved when both countries recognize the need to meet."

Diana Tan, a spokesperson for the Canadian Embassy, told Fischler that "Canadian diplomats met with tribes and other advocates this week for 'constructive discussion' but did not commit to any steps beyond continuing the conversation."

Media roundup: Alaska TV show is about Natives; candidate buys up paper with attack ad; brevity, soul of journalism?

Hilary Swank and Grace Dove are protagonists on "Alaska Daily."

"CNN is laying off hundreds of employees in a cost-cutting effort that illuminates the financial challenges facing a wide array of media companies as the economy teeters toward a possible recession," Jeremy Barr and Elahe Izadi of The Washington Post report in a story that is also about the previously announced layoffs at Gannett Co., which began yesterday.

"NPR is also facing a financial shortfall that will require $10 million in budget cuts over the next 10 months, chief executive John Lansing told employees on Wednesday. Also on Wednesday, Washington Post Executive Editor Sally Buzbee informed employees of plans to close the company’s weekly print magazine, citing the Post’s plans for 'global and digital transformation'."

The Post's owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, built success on his "overlooked and underappreciated communication skills," Bill Heavey writes in a Wall Street Journal review of The Bezos Blueprint: Communication Secrets of the World’s Greatest Salesman, by Carmine Gallo, who analyzed 24 years of Bezos's letters to shareholders, which now average 16 words per sentence "with a readability score fit for an eighth-grader."

Some newspapers have used the Flesch-Kincaid readability scale to guide their reporters and editors, and maybe it's time to use it again, when they are competing with other information sources for attention. Axios is building readership nationally and in local markets with "smart brevity."

Gallo writes, “Our brains are not made to think,” citing neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, who says “Your brain’s most important job is to control your body’s energy needs. In short, your brain’s most important job is not thinking.” Heavey writes, "This is one of the most reassuring sentences I have ever read. . . . Whether you’re writing an article, document or email, says Mr. Gallo, you have 15 seconds—the time it takes to read 35 words—to grab a reader’s attention. After that, 45% of readers will stop paying close attention."

ABC's "Alaska Daily" is in reruns until Feb. 23, but that means you can catch up with the show's primary subjects: local journalism and Alaska Natives. For The Seattle Times, Chase Hutchinson interviewed Vera Marlene Starbard, a Native and journalist who is a co-writer for the show: "She’s hoping the show will provide a more authentic portrayal of Alaska Natives that pushes back against harmful stereotypes she argues have been perpetuated in both television and journalism."

News literacy: "Billionaire couple Melanie and Richard Lundquist are throwing their support behind the News Literacy Project to arm students and the public against mis- and disinformation," Inside Philanthropy reports (behind a paywall).

Kentucky Press Association Executive Director David Thompson reports, "Seems there was an unhappy political candidate in Breathitt County just prior to the election. And you might think a newspaper selling out of all of its newsstand copies is great publicity for the paper. But what happened to the Jackson Times Voice on Nov. 2 was unusual. As soon as the paper opened its office that morning, calls and messages started coming in. There wasn’t a copy of the Times Voice to be found anywhere. After checking with some stores, the Times Voice learned that county judge-executive candidate Harvey Jason Richardson and his driver traveled throughout the county that a.m. buying up all copies of the Times Voice. The duo apparently told people they were buying up the copies for a “school project.” But investigating further, the Times Voice learned from sources close to the situation that Richardson was not happy with an ad that showed him in a negative light, namely multiple mugshots and court documents from previous DUIs and public intoxication arrests. Instead of going back to repress the day’s edition, the Times Voice just put the entire paper on its Facebook Page."

Journalism skills: Chris Sutcliffe and Catalina Albenau of Journalism.co.uk update their list of "12 essential self-taught journalism skills," from shorthand to coding.

Federal government is giving millions to Natives for 'managed retreat' from areas threatened by climate change

The village of Napakiak, Alaska, which is losing land to
erosion. (Photo by Emily Farnsworth, U.S. Air Force, via AP)

Three Native American tribes will receive $25 million each to relocate to higher ground because their settlements are threatened by global warming. The awards are "one of the nation’s largest efforts to date to relocate communities that are facing an urgent threat from climate change," reports Christopher Flavelle of The New York Times.

"Three communities — two in Alaska, and one in Washington state — will each get $25 million to move their key buildings onto higher ground and away from rising waters, with the expectation that homes will follow," Flavelle reports. "The federal government will give eight more tribes $5 million each to plan for relocation."

“It gave me goose bumps when I found out we got that money,” Joseph John Jr., a council member in Newtok, a village in southwest Alaska, told Flavelle. The land around Newtok is vanishing and the tribe will receive receive $25 million to relocate inland.

"Relocating whole communities, sometimes called 'managed retreat', is perhaps the most aggressive form of adaptation to climate change," Flavelle writes. "Despite the high initial cost, relocation may save money in the long run, by reducing the amount of damage from future disasters, along with the cost of rebuilding after those disasters."

Deciding who gets money when can be difficult. "This year, the Bureau of Indian Affairs held a contest, in which tribal nations applied for up to $3 million in relocation money," Flavelle reports. "Of the 11 tribes that applied, only five received funding; the bureau would not say how it had decided which tribes to help relocate." 

Officials acknowledge they have a learning curve. Bryan Newland, assistant Interior secretary for Indian affairs, told Flavelle, "The federal government needs to learn how to help relocate communities that want to move. The new funding will be a chance for the Bureau of Indian Affairs to learn to coordinate its relocation efforts with other agencies that work on disaster recovery, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency."

In addition to Newtok, the other tribes to receive $25 million were Napakiak, a village on the shore of the Kuskokwim River that is losing 25 to 50 feet of land each year to erosion, and the Quinault Indian Nation, on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, whose main town, Taholah, faces a growing risk of flooding, Eight other tribes will get $5 million each to consider whether to relocate and to begin planning for relocation if they decide to do so. They include the Chitimacha Tribe, in Louisiana; the Yurok Tribe, in Northern California; and other Native villages in Alaska.

Alaska apparently elects its first Alaska Native to Congress; Sarah Palin loses in the state's first ranked-choice election

Mary Peltola (ADN photo)

More than 60 years after it became a state, Alaska will be represented in Congress by an Alaska Native, if an election review board endorses results tabulated Wednesday in the state's first ranked-choice election. About 15 percent of the state's population identifies as indigenous.

In a special election to fill the vacancy created by the death of Republican Don Young, Democrat Mary Peltola edged out Republican Sarah Palin "after ballots were tallied and votes for third-place GOP candidate Nick Begich III were redistributed to his supporters’ second choices," reports Iris Samuels of the Anchorage Daily News.

Peltola, a Yup’ik from Bethel, would also be the first woman to hold Alaska’s only House seat. Palin, a former governor who was her party's 2008 vice presidential nominee and was endorsed by Donald Trump, may have been done in by the ranked-choice system, which tends to favor more moderate candidates. She and Begich got nearly 60 percent of first-place votes, but only half of Begich's voters made her their second choice, and 29% chose Peltola, giving her 51.5% of the final vote. Palin told supporters, “The task in front of me is to explain to Alaskans why ranked-choice voting is not in the public’s best interest.”

Peltola had placed fourth in the June 11 primary, barely qualifying for the Aug. 16 mail election. Independent Al Gross, who placed third, withdrew and endorsed her. It took two weeks to count the ballots and assign the ranked choices. "Another election in November will determine who holds the seat for the full two-year term that begins in January," Samuels notes. "Peltola, Palin and Begich said after results were announced Wednesday that they intend to remain in the November race." Palin called on Begich to drop out.

UPDATES: Alex Wagner of MSNBC said ranked choice rewards "crossover appeal," which Peltola had, partly from her time in the state legislature. "People are craving people who want to build coalitions," Peltola told Wagner. Conservative columnist Henry Olsen of The Washington Post writes that Palin was the victim of her own campaign, not ranked-choice voting, which he says could help Republicans if they use it like it has been used in Australia. "Suppose she had won a Republican primary and faced Peltola in a traditional one-on-one contest," Olsen posits. "Her high negatives could easily have spawned the same result. . . . In some sense, ranked-choice voting 'worked' because the candidate who was disliked by a majority of voters lost; the new system just made it easier for voters to register their disapproval of her." 

Daniela Altimari of Route Fifty reports, "According to the nonpartisan group RepresentUs, two states, one county and 52 cities, including San Francisco and New York, are expected to use ranked choice voting for at least some of their upcoming elections. Voters in Maine cast ranked-choice ballots in the 2020 presidential election and similar systems are in place in several communities in Minnesota. Alaska voters narrowly approved ranked-choice voting in 2020." CBC News notes, "The state has more registered unaffiliated voters than registered Republicans or Democrats combined."

Governor to sign bill giving Alaska Native tribes recognition

Supporters of the bill posed after its passage. (James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy will sign a bill giving state recognition to the 229 federally recognized Native tribes in the state Thursday, the Alaska Federation of Natives announced last week.

“This is an historic moment for all Alaska tribes,” AFN President Julie Kitka said in a prepared statement. She called it “a step toward building a stronger relationship with our state government.”

"State recognition is not expected to affect tribes’ legal relations with the state, but supporters have said it is an important symbolic statement by the state, which has historically fought efforts by tribes to exert their sovereignty," James Brooks reports for Alaska Beacon, part of States Newsroom.

The legislation heads off a potentially divisive referendum called by citizens who signed petitions circulated by supporters of tribal recognition. Alaska’s constitution allows a measure to be removed from the ballot if the Legislature passes a “substantially similar” law, and Attorney General Greg Taylor concluded in June that the bill "meets that standard," Brooks reports.