49th Star: Alaska Statehood, New Flag Official 5th January 1959

June 30th marks the date the Senate voted to admit Alaska into statehood 50 years ago. The celebration begins tonight with activities downtown and ALASKA’S OPERATION GRATITUDE, a tribute to Alaska’s military personnel. Wynonna Judd will perform at Elmendorf Air Force Base  in a concert that will be webcast worldwide by AT&T and locally […]

Last Friday, DEED led a question-and-answer session held at the ASD Board Room. Leading the meeting were Interim Commissioner Barbara Thompson and Eddie Jeans. The larger districts in the state were represented along with charter schools.
A couple things stood out to me:

Most importantly for us, Commissioner Thompson stated that these proposed regulations are not a […]

We’ve gone through the proposed regs one by one and compiled our own analysis here. Narda’s done a great job making this concise commentary.
What could be the most troubling change is very tiny but very significant. 4 AAC 33.460 will be amended to say that “the department may monitor correspondence study programs to ensure compliance.” […]

AHEA has posted recordings of the State Board meeting last month in which the Board voted to post the proposal packet for public comment.  Be patient because the page with the recordings takes forever and ever to load. AHEA is dominated by statewide correspondence school affiliates and reflects their point of view which is inconsistent […]

Yesterday I wrote about the reasons usually heard for regulating correspondence schools. I made the case that statewide correspondence schools (SWC) require regulation because they have no statewide oversight. In-district schools have sufficient local oversight.
Here are the typical reasons given to not regulate the two different types of correspondence schools. As before, my opinions are […]

One of the frustrating aspects of the new proposed regulations is the notion underlying them that in-district schools are the same as statewide correspondence schools and should be treated and regulated the same. Admittedly, there are some similarities on the surface but there is a much bigger picture to look at than allotment amounts and […]

I’ve read through these proposed regulations, discussed them with colleagues and fellow homeschoolers and have a few beginning thoughts. We’ll be entering some of this in the comment session at tomorrow’s State DEED Board meeting in Juneau.
My perspective is as a co-founder of Frontier Charter School which enrolls Anchorage School District students. As such, we […]

The Alaska State Board of Education has asked for public comment to begin on proposed changes to regulations for schools classified for funding purposes as correspondence schools. Interim Commissioner Barbara Thompson has placed this as Agenda Item 20 at Friday’s meeting in Juneau.
The memorandum is here. There will be plenty more comment on these proposed […]

Here are the educational bills in progress as the 2008 legislative session starts in Juneau tomorrow, January 15th. Contact information about legislators can be found here.

Bill
Title
Sponsor
Status

HB 1
INCREASE AMT OF BASE STUDENT ALLOCATION
GATTO
(H) FIN 01/16/07

HB 2
VOCATIONAL EDUC ACCOUNT
NEUMAN
(S) FIN 05/02/07

HB 12
FULL FUNDING OF PERS/TRS
HAWKER
(H) STA 01/16/07

HB 66
REQUIRE CPR FOR HIGH SCHOOL […]