The issue of high teacher turnover in rural Alaska is a long standing one. But the idea, presented at the Alaska Board of Education recently, is generating controversy over whether it would create a double standard. Many Bush teachers come from Outside and stay for only a short time.
Rural districts estimate a quarter to a third of their teachers quit every year.
The disruption prevents schools from offering consistent classroom programs long enough to make them work. Most village residents are Native, but few become teachers. While Bush teachers stay mostly in a village for two to four years, the aides live there and tend to work in the same schools for 10 or 20 years. Many aides attempt but don't complete the established college programs to become teachers, said Robert Gottstein, chairman of the Alaska Board of Education. University and state officials don't know why.