Alaska's bent learning curve

Alaska's bent learning curve: Education | adn.com

Alaska is:

• Eighth from the bottom among states in the number of ninth-graders graduating four years later.

• Fourth from the bottom in high school seniors going directly to college.

• Last in the number of college freshmen receiving a bachelor's degree within 150 percent of the normal program length.

Tough to read such statistics as a teacher who values education for its own sake. But the study acknowledges that the problem is cultural and tied to the economy of natural resource extraction.