This paper examines the perceptions of educators, parents, and students in a rural Alaska town concerning educational quality and issues in their schools. A literature review provides background on the history of education in the region, the value of culturally congruent education for Native students, the importance of teacher background in…

Background: Public schools in the United States are still segregated along cultural and racial lines 50 years after the 1954 Supreme Court's ruling. For example, Orfield and Lee, 2004; and Orfield, 2001) indicated that White student in the United States attended schools that were 80 percent White. Ethnic minority children (children of color),…