Just five years ago, Alaska offered the highest average teacher salary in the country, according to the Association of Alaska School Boards. Last year, the state ranked sixth, but the cost of living in remote areas of the state can be astronomical compared to most parts of the Lower 48. Once they're here, most of the time they stay. Competitive pay and benefits, and community support probably will be enough to keep good teachers, Kronberg said. In rural Alaska, rapid turnover of teachers is getting in the way of academic improvements.
Pay is an issue there, too.
Decent housing, running water, flush toilets and realistic expectations about life in the Bush are important to rural teachers, said Johnson, the deputy state commissioner. Mike Husa, union president for the Lower Kuskokwim District, said a teacher in Kwigillingok, on the Kuskokwim Bay, left this year partly because she was forced to live in the school. There was a house, but it wasn't livable. It had no Arctic entry. When the wind blew, it came right through the door.