State of Alaska secondary Archives: on Education

Les Gara: Republican education cuts have hurt workers, state economy

Lisa Murkowski: Require high school exit exams

Murkowski supports the following principles regarding education:
• Support teacher testing and reward teachers with merit pay.
• Require public schools to administer high school exit exams.

Lisa Murkowski: Support NCLB but need room to adapt NCLB to local needs

KNOWLES: The federal No Child Left Behind law turned our education dream into a nightmare. Alaska's Quality Schools Initiative was working-raising student scores and teacher standards-until the federal government imposed its one-size-fits-all approach that doesn't fit Alaska. We need to repeal these 1,200 pages of micro-management and return education decisions to our teachers, parents and school boards.

MURKOWSKI: Alaska needs flexibility from burdensome federal regulations that do nothing to improve education and threaten local control of schools. I support the goals of NCLB, but states need room to adapt NCLB to local needs-to consider growth-based models to measure yearly progress, to appropriately include disabled students in education, and flexibility in implementing the "highly qualified" teacher provisions.