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Baby It’s Cold Outside: Perspectives on Teacher Retention and Student
Achievement in Arctic Schools
Dr. Ute Kaden
Nationally, 30% of new teachers leave the profession within five years. The turnover rate
can be considerably higher in high-poverty schools as compared to more affluent ones (Ingersoll,
2001; Ronfeldt, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2013). Teacher turnover rates also tend to be higher in rural
and low performing schools (Eppley, 2009; Mueller, Carr-Stewart, Steeves, & Marshall, 2013).
Recent research confirms that a stable and quality teacher workforce positively impacts student
achievement (Darling-Hammond, Newton, & Wei, 2013; Henry, Bastian, & Fortner, 2011;
Winters & Cowen, 2013). Retaining quality teachers is a complex task especially for rural
schools. As the importance of well-qualified teachers for student achievement has become
increasingly clear, this source of inequality has become increasingly difficult to justify and
ignore, especially in rural Alaska.
Alaska is a highly unique area that is comprised of diverse landscapes and is populated
with a wide variety of life forms and peoples (Nordic Council of Ministers, 2010). Arctic Alaska
can be loosely defined as the northern region of Alaska that is on or close to the Arctic Ocean.
Four distinct geographic regions comprise the area: the arctic coastal plain, the Brooks Range,
the Bering Strait, and northern portions of the boreal forest (Ritter, 2009). Alaska Native people
have thrived in the regions of Arctic Alaska for millennia. With the arrival of a larger influx of
Western cultures in the late 1800s, which continues to grow even today, Alaska is now a merging
of ethnicities and backgrounds where the Alaska Native groups are the majority in that region yet
a minority within the state (Barnhardt, 2014). Many Arctic Alaska Native communities are off
the road system and only accessible by planes or boats.
One critical challenge facing Arctic Alaska is teacher retention and accessing quality
education for those who reside in the region (Kaden, Patterson, & Healy, 2014). This includes a
stable workforce and academic curricula that promotes indigenous cultures, languages, and ways
of thinking and behaving (Eppley & Corbett, 2012; Faircloth, 2009; White, 2008). Teaching
students in ways that allow them to keep their cultural identity is important for motivation,
curriculum relevance, and ultimately student achievement (Eppley & Corbett, 2012). More than
70% percent of newly hired teachers are not from Alaska (Hill & Hirshberg, 2014). Often they
learn about the local cultures, Arctic lifestyles, and local curriculum only to leave after a year or
two (Munsch & Boylan, 2008). The limited research currently available in Alaska may restrict
the ability to intervene in this phenomenon in a strategic manner.
The objective of this study is to identify factors that can be linked to teacher retention and
student achievement. The guiding research question for this paper is: What are factors linked to
teacher retention in Arctic Alaska school districts and to what extent are these trends related to