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On June 13, 1988, after decades of Cold War tensions in the Bering Strait, Alaska Airlines’ “Friendship Flight” flew from Nome to Provideniya, in what was then the USSR. That historic flight reunited long-separated Native peoples of Alaska and Russia and helped end the Cold War. David Ramseur, a former visiting scholar of public policy at ISER and author of the book, Melting the Ice Curtain, was on that flight. At a free lecture at the Anchorage Museum, he will talk about the flight and lead a panel discussion among others who were also aboard, including Gunnar Knapp, a former ISER director. The panelists will recall that day, and discuss how it prescribes a course for U.S.-Russia relations today.

Where: Anchorage Museum, 625 C St
When: Thursday, May 31, 6:30 p.m.
Note: Use the museum’s 7th Avenue entrance.

Researchers at ISER's Center for Alaska Education Policy Research (CAEPR) have recently published two articles examining issues important to Alaska's teachers.

• It’s more than just dollars: Problematizing salary as the sole mechanism for recruiting and retaining teachers in rural Alaska, by Dayna DeFeo, Diane Hirshberg, and Lexi Hill. This article, published in the Alaska Native Studies Journal, argues that improving teacher retention in Alaska’s rural schools will require both adequate pay and attention to working conditions. Full text available for download.

• Statute and implementation: How phantom policies affect tenure value and support, by Dayna DeFeo, Matt Berman, and Diane Hirshberg.  This article, published in Educational Policy, discusses how teachers and principals understand, inflate, or underestimate tenure protections, and how those interpretations affect the perceived value and effectiveness of the tenure policy itself. Abstract available for download, full text available for purchase.

A recent article in the journal World Development, by Matthew Berman, professor of economics at ISER, examines how the Permanent Fund dividend (PFD) has reduced poverty among the 60,000 or so Alaska Natives living in small, isolated communities far off the road system. PFDs are cash payments the state government makes to virtually all Alaska residents every year. Rural Alaska Natives are much more likely than other Alaskans to be poor, mostly because jobs are scarce in remote areas. The author found:

The Partnerships for Success Project is a five-year project intended to prevent and reduce non-medical use of prescription opioids, as well as use of heroin, among Alaskans ages 12 to 25. The state’s Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) is carrying out the project, working with community coalitions that develop local prevention strategies.

DHSS contracted with ISER’s Center for Behavioral Health Research and Services to evaluate the project. Bridget Hanson, the evaluation director, and Jodi Barnett, the lead project evaluator, talk about their work so far, to establish a baseline for measuring the project’s success over time.