This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with KYUK and NPR’s Station Investigations Team, which supports local investigative journalism. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.
Reporting Highlights
- Unwilling to Invest: Over the past 25 years, Alaska lawmakers have ignored hundreds of requests from rural school districts to fund repairs at their crumbling schools.
- Absent Landlord: Just under half of Alaska’s rural schools are owned by the state, which is required by law to pay for construction and maintenance projects.
- Continued Inequality: The students in Alaska’s rural schools are predominantly Alaska Native, a group that has historically been…