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Students raced to sign up with Galena's new Web-supported correspondence school when it opened seven years ago. Lauded and lambasted for its innovations, the tiny school district along the Iditarod sled dog trail helped to start a revolution in distance education.

Crossing the Public School-Homeschool Divide

By Rhonda Barton

Galena, Alaska—Hard by the icy Yukon River, Galena seems an unlikely place for a $16 million educational empire. The Athabascan village—with fewer than 700 residents and no roads to connect it to the outside world—sits halfway between Fairbanks and Nome, at the midpoint of the famed Iditarod dogsled race route. It would have been easy, and understandable, for this isolated frontier outpost to accept its fate as just another struggling Native community in Alaska's vast interior. How then did Galena catapult itself to the forefront of Alaska's distance education system with a program serving more than 3,700 students in all corners of the state? Ask Galena's boosters—and even some of its detractors—that question and they'll point to a combination of online technology, bold entrepreneurialism, and unbridled vision. It's a mixture that's brought the district both praise as an educational innovator and criticism as a crass opportunist.

Driven By Necessity

According to the old adage, necessity is the mother of invention. That neatly sums up the situation Galena found itself in during the early 1990s. The Air Force base that served as the economic lifeblood of the community was on the verge of closing and packing up its 300 airmen. Village elders and business leaders considered their options for softening the blow. They came up with a plan to turn the soon-to-be-abandoned base into a residential vocational school, loosely modeled after the state-run Mt. Edgecumbe boarding school in Sitka. The sticking point, of course, was how to pay for such a facility. Figuring that out became the first priority of the new superintendent, Carl Knudsen.

Knudsen went to work gaining charter school status for what was dubbed PERS or Project Education Residential School. Using the charter authorization as a bargaining chip, he got the Air Force to agree to let the school district occupy the base, buying some of the buildings and leasing others. Looking for a revenue stream for the school, Knudsen—who had created a successful computer-based distance learning program in Montana—stumbled onto a revolutionary idea: Why not use online technology to tap into a market that no one else in public education was serving—the homeschool student? IDEA—for Interior Distance Education of Alaska—was born.

The idea behind IDEA was to entice homeschoolers with a package that included computer equipment, access to instructional resources, assistance from certificated teachers, and guidance from a network of field representatives who are also homeschool parents. Under Alaska's educational funding system, IDEA was able to do that with public funds that are student-based rather than place-based. In other words, Galena could sign up students living anywhere in the state and receive a stipend equaling 80 percent of the basic rate paid for students in their own district. They could grow from a district of 120 students to one of thousands, stretching from the Arctic Circle to the Aleutian Islands.

Chris Reitan, one of the first teachers at PERS and now principal of Galena's K-12 City School, recalls the uncertain expectations that surrounded the launching of IDEA. "The first director of IDEA was based out of Fairbanks, and Carl worked out an agreement with him: He'd start without a salary and if he could attract so many people to the program, then there'd be a [paid] position. I remember they were looking at a couple of hundred people [as the target], but it really mushroomed," says Reitan.

With 3,712 students last year, IDEA served more than 44 percent of all the students who enrolled in distance education programs in Alaska; its closest competitor—Nenana—claimed fewer than 1,200. In addition to the original field office in Fairbanks, IDEA now has satellites in Anchorage, Soldotna, Wasilla, and Juneau. And, there's even an independent international branch that serves 1,000 children of military families in the Pacific Rim under a Department of Defense contract. Tiny Galena has become an educational Goliath.

Filling A Niche

In an industrial area of South Fairbanks, rubbing elbows with machine shops and battery outlets, IDEA occupies a sizable dark blue metal-clad warehouse. Entering through the back door, the visitor is greeted by towering stacks of Dell computers and Hewlett Packard copier/printer/fax machines, fresh from the manufacturer and ready to be shipped out to IDEA families. Come in the front door and you'll find a suite of offices and a brightly lit, carpeted resource library crammed with everything from math manipulatives to sample textbooks, games, tapes, and kits designed for unit studies.

Alyssa Rogers picks up a book, studies it, and then reaches for another. She's checking out materials for her six-year-old son, Joseph, whom she teaches in a specially outfitted den in her home at the Ft. Wainwright Army base in Fairbanks. Last year Joseph attended kindergarten at the base school, but Rogers opted to homeschool him this year after spending six months doing research and agonizing over the decision.

"I had been brought up with the thought that you send your kid to school—that was the way it was," she explains. "But I knew he wasn't going to get individualized attention... that if there was something he didn't get, then the teacher couldn't stop the whole class for him to catch up. But with home school, I can customize the instruction.

"IDEA made my decision so much easier," she continues. "They provide resources and encouragement that you can educate your child as well as or better than a public school because you know your child better." IDEA's promotional materials—posted on the Web at www.IDEAfamilies.org—describe its program as a partnership "offering educational support while honoring parental choice in curricular materials and methodology based upon the needs of each individual child."

In addition to supplying each family with one computer for every four children enrolled, dial-up Internet access, and a multifunction office machine, IDEA also pays the subscription for premium online educational services such as World Book Online, INET, Lightspan, Enchanted Learning, and the Alaska Career Information System. Most important, the program gives the family an allotment that can be used for curricular materials as well as art, music, and sports lessons. That allotment, from state public school funds, amounts to $1,400 per student for kindergarten through third grade, $1,600 for grades 4-8, and $1,800 for grades 9-12.

The rules are clear, though, on what that money can buy: While parents are free to teach any curricula they want, they're barred from using their allotment for faith-based materials. Rogers centers her lessons on Alpha Omega Christian materials, which she pays for out of her own pocket. She spends her public fund allotment on art supplies and coaching in archery and basketball. Next year she anticipates purchasing secular curricula, continuing on the educational path she's chosen for her son. "I was there for his first step and his first word," she says with fervor. "I want to be there the first time he reads a book."

Tightening Up Rules

Growing concern over potential—and real—abuses by distance learning programs prompted Alaska to tighten regulations and funding guidelines in 2004. Galena superintendent Jim Smith, a transplant from Montana who favors jeans and plaid shirts, emphatically states that Galena wasn't in the state's crosshairs when calls came for increased scrutiny.

"On numerous occasions we were told that we weren't the target. We were an example of proper operations," says Smith. "Remember, there are about 10,000 kids out there who are involved in correspondence schooling of some kind and we have 3,700. Our operations are high profile and we've been responsive to any audits, any questions. The regs changed some things but we'll embrace that because they're educationally sound."

Under the new Alaska Department of Education and Early Development rules for "correspondence" or distance education programs, the district must work with the parent to jointly develop an individual learning plan (ILP) for each student. The plan must include ongoing assessment and each student must be monitored by a certificated teacher. Teacher-student or teacher-parent contact is required on at least a monthly basis with quarterly reviews of the student's work or progress in the individual learning plan.

The state also reined in how families could spend their allotments: Reimbursement for family travel, family memberships to sports facilities, paid services to a student by a family member, clothing, pets, and furniture is expressly prohibited. The rules specify that the total amount spent on tutoring or lessons in art, music, and physical education can't exceed 15 percent of the student's allocation, and all expenditures must be tied to the individual learning plan. In addition, a correspondent student must take at least half of his or her coursework in core subjects.

Harry Gamble, the public information officer for Alaska's education department, explains the rules were prompted by "letter-writing by concerned Alaskans, the legislature asking questions, and us taking a look around." Gamble says there were stories of abuses, including private school students enrolling full time in correspondence programs and using their allotments for things like scuba lessons, trips to Disneyland, family gym memberships, and horseback riding.

Gamble notes that while charter schools have governing laws, there aren't similar laws guiding correspondence programs. "These regulations are a compromise between the legislature and the state board," he says. "Those (correspondence) schools have their supporters and detractors, but they obviously meet the needs of some parents. What we try to do is provide the best programs for kids, make sure there's a quality program, and that it's not just a money-making venture for the school districts."

A Teacher Without A Classroom

The tightened regulations have made Candi Ahiers's life more difficult. Her phone at the Fairbanks IDEA headquarters has been ringing off the hook: eight calls in the last 90 minutes from parents trying to finalize their ILPs before the deadline. Ahiers, a certificated elementary school teacher and librarian, juggles the needs of 150 children—primarily by telephone and e-mail with an occasional face-to-face office meeting and infrequent home visits. Under the new rules, Ahiers is required to sign off on all 150 individual learning plans.

"The state regulations have increased my job tremendously, paperwork-wise," she sighs. "I don't think they were necessary for our place; we've always been cognizant that the money follows the ILP. But more and more programs have grown up behind us and the state's intent was to standardize things. From that perspective it was a good thing."

Ahiers, a bubbly blonde grandmother, joined IDEA seven years ago. "It was education out-of-the-box big time," she remembers. "It was very exciting, energizing." At the outset, most families selected structured, "boxed" curriculum, all from the same publisher. Today, though, parents use an à la carte approach, and Ahiers is there—if needed—to help them pick and choose materials. The way families structure their instruction is also all over the map: Some do four days a week year-round, while others go five days and take the summers off.

"When we started, we had families that were a hidden population: Some had been in the public education system and some had not," says Ahiers. "They came out of the woodwork and were thrilled to have a solid educational umbrella or foundation. There wasn't a program like ours, so they were doing it all on their own in the kitchen. Now, the families tend to be parents of kindergartners or first graders who've made the choice to begin their education in the home."

A Trip To The North Pole

One of Ahiers's families is the Phillips clan, seven adorable youngsters who could serve as poster children for the homeschool movement. In a log house surrounded by birch trees in North Pole, a town 20 miles from Fairbanks that is permanently in Christmas mode, Betty Phillips takes multitasking to new heights.

She alternates making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and checking math problems for fifth-grader Stephan and fourth-grader Julie; hustling up art supplies for third-grader Nathan and first-grader Joseph; and occasionally glancing over the shoulder of her ninth-grader, Shasta, who's working on a history assignment at the computer. Rebekah, a seventh-grader who recently won a regional essay contest, plays the piano while five-year-old Victor dips into a basket of plastic animals and practices his lion roars. In the small open-plan kitchen/living/dining room, it's enough to make a visitor's head spin, but Betty Phillips maintains great equanimity.

Phillips is an old-timer when it comes to homeschooling. She started about a decade ago when Shasta was four years old. "I actually made the decision to homeschool before Shasta was born," she confides. "We were living in southern California (where) I went to a high school that was locked-down with iron bars on the windows. I didn't want my kids going to school in that environment."

When Phillips began teaching her oldest daughter, she says the choices were public school or independent study programs where the curriculum was predetermined. "I wanted to pick my own stuff, so I began asking other homeschoolers what they were using," she recalls.

Two or three years into the experience, after she and her husband moved to Alaska, they heard about IDEA. "I was nervous about the program because I wondered will they tell me what to do? Was it legitimate? Where are the funds coming from? Will the state stop funding it after we get started?"

Putting aside those fears, the Phillipses signed up. They simply told IDEA what their children's names and ages were, and were handed an allotment of $750 per semester for each child with the caution that they couldn't spend it on faith-based materials. Now the intake process is considerably more formalized with a teacher or field representative interviewing the family, holding orientation sessions, and proffering forms: They make it clear that IDEA is operated by a public school district and that one parent is required to be home with the child during homeschool hours.

Assessing Results

Phillips turns to Ahiers when she stumbles on a roadblock, like grading. "It would be a problem for me if I didn't have someone like Candi to talk to," says Phillips. "My first two girls are such good students, I think everything they do is wonderful. But, at the same time, I know what my kids can do, so they can't fool me: I know when they put their best in (an assignment) or when they didn't care. When we got past elementary school, I asked Candi for advice on grades and she told me there's something called a 'rubric.' She e-mailed me several types of rubrics so I could decide what to use."

In order to make homeschooling work for her seven offspring, Phillips prepares a weekly schedule for each child with everyone concentrating on the same themes. For example, all the Phillips children are studying biology as their science topic this year: while Shasta is dissecting animals with a kit provided by IDEA, Rebekah is putting together a paper skeleton, Julie and Nathan are writing a paragraph incorporating scientific vocabulary, and Stephan is doing a three-paragraph essay with diagrams.

Ahiers points to standardized test results to back up her claim that families like the Phillipses are doing a solid job. Last year, 97 percent of IDEA's students turned out for state-mandated tests held at 72 sites. On the Alaska high school graduation exam, 82 percent of IDEA's 10th-graders passed the reading portion, 90 percent passed writing, and 67 percent passed math. On the state's benchmark proficiency tests, sixth- and eighth-graders scored in the 80 percent range in reading and writing and slightly above the 60 percent mark in math; third-graders scored lower, posting a 72 percent in writing, 63 percent in math, and 47 percent in writing. In most cases, IDEA's test results were the same as or better than state averages.

Tim Cline, the director of both IDEA and its international operation, says matching core curricula to state standards is one of his main goals this year. "We're putting a lot of belief in the curriculum guidelines we've put in place for parents; we've started aligning all curricula, including faith-based, to the standards," he notes, adding that IDEA has 200 names on its approved list of educational vendors.

While the district has developed its own series of courses on CD-ROM—called GOLD for Galena On-Line Delivery—it's shied away from offering online instruction that is the hallmark of a true cyberschool. Cline, a former middle school principal and Milken Foundation award winner, scoffs that such instruction "would never be as cheap as ordering from vendors," including what he calls high-quality providers such as the firm K-12 Inc., founded by former Education Secretary William Bennett. Besides, adds Cline, what makes IDEA work is its ability to honor the parent as the primary instructor. "Once we have to prescribe what goes on," he says," we won't be as successful."

IDEA's success has indeed prompted other districts to launch their own correspondence programs—most as online programs—rather than see their students and dollars flow to Galena. Carl Knudsen, now retired in Montana but working on an IDEA network in the Lower 48, admits that the funding issue created "animosity" toward IDEA. At the same time, though, it's forced educators to confront the fact that school is no longer confined to brick-and-mortar buildings.

"The important thing is educators and school administrators have to realize people are going to homeschool anyway. Instead of weeding them out, this brings them back into the fold: It lets them do their own thing in a way where progress is noted," he says.

Back Home Again

In Galena, the vocational boarding school that spawned IDEA proudly shows off its aviation, automotive, culinary arts, and cosmetology programs. About 82 teenagers from almost three dozen communities—almost all of whom are Alaska Native—live and go to school here. For some, says Superintendent Smith, the Project Education Residential School offers a chance to pursue a career pathway as well as find a "safe harbor" away from family problems such as alcoholism and poverty.

PERS may have started out as IDEA's raison d'être, but that's no longer true today. The school has been able to attract high-powered corporate sponsors like the Doyon Regional Native Corporation and Frontier Airlines. Meanwhile, IDEA is pumping more and more of its funding back into its own programs. According to Cline, only about 5 percent of IDEA's revenue returns to the Galena School District for administrative support. That 5 percent, though, continues to provide employment to village residents and benefits for children in Galena's elementary and secondary school.

Perhaps the biggest benefit has been the money Galena is able to invest in professional development. The district has embraced Spencer Rogers's "PEAK" model of Performance Excellence for All Kids, which focuses on the content, context, and process of teaching. Both Smith and Principal Reitan credit Rogers and the district's staff development efforts for the fact that Galena achieved adequate yearly progress in all 34 areas of interest for NCLB. Those results—especially notable for rural Alaska Native students—made Galena elementary and junior/senior high "Schools of Choice."

Smith, who replaced the visionary and often controversial Carl Knudsen, says he's not interested in expanding to new frontiers like his predecessor. He'd rather concentrate on "managing the district's affairs in a more accountable fashion." Yet he recognizes that this small community in Interior Alaska has taught the big-city folk an important lesson. "It's easy to become complacent if you have a captive audience," Smith observes. "Whether it's distance learning or the option for students to leave your district, No Child Left Behind has come forward strongly mandating school choice ... . You can't be afraid of change. You've got to reach outside your comfort zone."