The state Legislature created the group largely to address poor skills exhibited by many high school graduates entering college and vocational programs.
The task force, which includes education leaders, lawmakers and students, is meeting at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and hearing from education agencies.
Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak and one of the group’s two chairmen, said the task force hopes to pinpoint enough potential solutions to buttress recommendations, due by April, for better preparing high school students for postsecondary education.
“No surprises here, we know the problems,” Stevens said. Local funding shortfalls, heavy demand for remedial coursework after high school and a shortfall of student counseling services challenge school districts and the university, he said. Alaska would benefit from a standing education task force to keep studying those issues, he said.
The state’s university system and school districts have increasingly relied on the Internet to reach rural hubs, largely through distance education programs. University leaders said this morning that the lack of fiber optic and digital microwave infrastructure presents a major hurdle to the state, particularly as federal agencies raise broadband requirements to speeds unattainable in many rural communities.
Pat Gamble, UA’s president, said the state would reap benefits from major investments in fiber optic cable, which parallels the trans-Alaska Pipeline north to Deadhorse but is available almost nowhere else in northern and western Alaska. Access to research and academics would expand, and broadband represents a significant economic development tool, he said.
“The payoff for something like this, and what it will provide for our future, (would be) huge value to the state,” Gamble said of proposed fiber optic projects.
A number of firms, including Kodiak-Kenai Cable Company and GCI, are proposing to ring western or northern Alaska’s coastlines with submerged fiber optic cable to reach new communities. Steve Smith, the university system’s top information technology specialist, said those projects would cost hundreds of millions of dollars and could receive federal stimulus funding. Smith said the university and GCI are looking into cheaper fiber optic options, such as stringing lines — unburied — across tundra or along riverbeds.
UAF has five rural campuses — Dillingham, Kotzebue, Bethel, Nome and Interior-Aleutians — and operates the Center for Distance Education.
Smith said federal communication agencies want to give millions of homes access to the type of broadband service available only with fiber optics. Rural Alaska’s existing systems, such as Western Alaska’s DeltaNet network, work well but fall far short of “connect(ing) to the rest of the world” at higher speeds, he said.
“Basically, it’s like you’re all dressed up to go to the party but you don’t have a car to get you there. And it’s a problem,” he said.
Stevens said the task force will meet again in Nome, Sitka and Anchorage before meeting in Juneau and issuing recommendations to the full Legislature.
Greg Owens, an associate professor of mathematics and developmental education, said the Fairbanks university’s developmental education department stands to improve in identifying and aiding students who need extra help. He said it should collect more data to help identify its strengths and weaknesses, develop an annual report and post a set of objectives. Those with diagnosable learning disabilities, for example, are a “growing population” at the university, he said.
“Right now we don’t seem to have a good way to help these students,” he said.
Contact staff writer Christopher Eshleman at 459-7582.
And, if they did have actual educational material on the net, why waste time and money at UAF when you could attend MIT or Harvard?
88888 .. "If a person does not know how to communicate intelligently and skillfully, that person does not have much of a future to look forward to." .. 'to' what? I use to get a scolding for ending a sentence in a hanging prepossession.(wink) I guess it is the convoluted society that we live in, that is hanging us all out to dry. Did you ever listen to a politician talk .. they got the 'skillfully' down pat but I think the 'intelligently' part is missing.
dirttramp .. you ever read a doctor's prescription? More hen scratching hyroglifics and caveman hand prints. No wonder we have a health care crisis.
Pat Gamble, UA’s president, said the state would reap benefits from major investments in fiber optic cable, NO the fiber optic owners would reap the benefits, you fool.
Running wire into a room will not educate anyone, but I am old so what do I know?
A statewide "Smart Gasline Network" includes Fiberoptic Broadband and propane gas-service together in one package.
A lot of little gaslines crossing the Brooks Range is superior architecture to one big gasline.
The drop out rate at UAF has been in the 70% before Al Gore started the inter net.
Just like Harvard's drop rate has been 2% for years.
Nothing has changed at UAF since oil money started pouring in.. just more monuments to waste.
Harvard now offers free tuition to qualified students.
Have some fun!
Compare UAF to other schools.. MIT UCLA U of Colorado U of Denver Colorado Woman's College, West Point
http://www.whatwilltheylearn.com/schools/compare/results.html
And vote NO on the borrowed money make union work bond prop come Nov,
vnrst
"Lack of internet"? WTF? I just can't imagine how I made it through school without my laptop in front of me to look at porn in class. I can't see how I mde it without a cell phone to text on all day. I simply can't believe I made it with teachers who expected me to learn something!
No funding? What do we fail to understand about budget and priorities? Going to raze one building to build something new... but, what, can't buy books? What's the point?!
Lack of counseling?? When oh when are we going to look parents in the eye and say, "Get to work! You wanted the kid, so raise it for crying outloud!!"
Liberal, conservative, blah blah. This is common sense people. I'm sorry to say, but your kids aren't your little friends and school serves more of a purpose than just hanging out wasting time. Bring back some discipline in schools, get back to good old books, and parents get to parenting!
88888 - Teachers are allowed to discipline kids, they're just not allowed to touch or hit them. I remember getting spanked in school. Each time, I felt treated unfairly and did not learn the lesson the spanking was supposed to teach me. When someone hits me, I instantly lose respect for them. The "spare the rod and spoil the child" philosophy didn't work on me AT ALL. (Probably because the Bible was talking about a shepherd's rod, which is used to guide the sheep, not to hit them.)
out_in_the_cold - Thanks for the site. I figure I'll ask my adult children to help me with my math when I need it. They're all math whizzes, and are totally willing to help their math-challenged parent when the time comes.
Speaking of which, we've learned that early child development has a LOT to do with how a child learns for the rest of their lives. If a child is exposed to a lot of emotional turmoil, (rampant in today's culture) their brains actually develop differently than if they're raised in a functional, loving home. Many have behavior problems that stem from that lack of normal development. There are plenty of kids these days who spend their childhoods in survival mode, and public schools have to deal with every issue kids bring into the classrooms. Teachers have to be psychologists as well as educators these days. The difference in children by kindergarten is phenomenal, but they're all dumped into the same grade regardless. Maybe changing the system to one in which children are advanced when they learn skills might work better than simply advancing them by age. We also need to recognize that not all of them have the ability to excel in all subjects. I'm reminded of that really cool story called 'Animal School' in the first 'Chicken Soup for the Soul' book. We can't expect everybody to get an A in every subject. Everyone is born with different gifts as well as challenges.
Once upon a time the animals decided they must do something heroic to meet the problems of a “new world” so they organized a school. They had adopted an activity curriculum consisting of running, climbing, swimming and flying. To make it easier to administer the curriculum, all the animals took all the subjects.
The duck was excellent in swimming. In fact, better than his instructor. But he made only passing grades in flying and was very poor in running. Since he was slow in running, he had to stay after school and also drop swimming in order to practice running. This was kept up until his webbed feet were badly worn and he was only average in swimming. But average was acceptable in school so nobody worried about that, except the duck.
The rabbit started at the top of the class in running but had a nervous breakdown because of so much makeup work in swimming.
The squirrel was excellent in climbing until he developed frustration in the flying class where his teacher made him start from the ground up instead of the treetop down. He also developed a “charlie horse” from overexertion and then got a C in climbing and D in running.
The eagle was a problem child and was disciplined severely. In the climbing class, he beat all the others to the top of the tree but insisted on using his own way to get there.
At the end of the year, an abnormal eel that could swim exceeding well and also run, climb and fly a little had the highest average and was valedictorian.
The prairie dogs stayed out of school and fought the tax levy because the administration would not add digging and burrowing to the curriculum. They apprenticed their children to a badger and later joined the groundhogs and gophers to start a successful private school.
Higher expectations for those entering the profession will result in better teachers.
And don't give the excuse , but "she/he is only going to teach primary aged students" to explain why this "education major" can't divide. All good teachers need to understand what their students will be learning in two years, five years, or ten years so the student can be properly prepared for the next step.
Our schools MUST go back to teaching students how to read and write. Most teenagers and young adults today know nothing of proper grammar and sentence structure, cannot spell, and do not know how to express themselves, either verbally or in writing. If a person does not know how to communicate intelligently and skillfully, that person does not have much of a future to look forward to.
But recognizing your symbolic logic and affinity for Wikipedia .. I was about to post a web site for you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebra
Yep, some of us old timers got some "A's"
Food for thought .. better to play dumb, than be dumb and play. ;)
Good luck with your schooling.
If America wants to compete with the rest of the world, we have to keep up technologically at the very least.
We also have to get back to valuing the profession of teaching. As in every profession, there are deadbeats and bad apples, but the vast majority of teachers work their butts off and go above and beyond the call of duty on a daily basis. They work many hours they're not paid for and sometimes even pay for classroom stuff out of their own pockets. I'm privy to conversations of teachers, and hear them discussing (on their own time sometimes), how to reach kids and better teach kids all the time. It seems to me the profession has been maligned since schools became secular, because SOME, not all, Christian people resent that public schools now cater to all religions, not just theirs. They're pissed we're not teaching creationism, and aren't leading kids in Christian prayer, and have turned the holiday season into a time when all/none religious holidays are recognized, not just Christmas. (Some even accuse the (necessary) secular entity of stealing Christmas!) Schools teach more than just readin' writin' and 'rithmetic. They teach kids from incredibly different backgrounds how to interact with respect. Old codgers like 1959tat2 seem to resent that schools need more resources than ever to teach our modern, sophisticated kids. "Back in MY day, all the teacher needed was some books and a whipping cane and we learned real good." A good education encompasses much more in the 21st century than it did in the 20th. Other nations are pulling ahead too, because their national attitudes toward education are better than America's. Learning is a chore here, not a joy, and we'd rather watch mindless drivel on the boob tube. Learning for the sake of learning is considered weird in our culture.
The hundreds of millions of dollars it would take to get the internet out to rural areas could pay for a LOT of students to come to town instead. Alaska is unique in the size of our vast wilderness, so it stands to reason that reaching rural students will present cost prohibitive issues.
As for the university, I'd venture to guess that cost is the major factor in not finishing. I've been working on a degree since 2002 as I can afford to pay for classes, but the tuition seems to go up every couple years or so, (even though my wages don't). It now costs nearly a thousand dollars for a ONE, four-credit core class. One degree costs thousands of dollars, so it's taking me a long time to complete it. I'm still plugging along though. I didn't start until I was nearly 50, so hope to graduate before I die of old age. I love the educational process though, so I guess I'm lucky there. I'll have to take some kind of remedial math though, because algebra wasn't required for graduation when I went to high school SO many decades ago. I'm not sure it was even invented then. :-)