By MICHAEL TAVOLIERO
As a result of my July 2 article on financial literacy, I received a powerful and emotionally charged testimony (if you read the comments, you will find it) that directly underscores why my proposed Alaska Education Reform and Local Control Act (AERLCA) is not just a bureaucratic restructuring, but a moral and cultural imperative, particularly for rural and Alaska Native communities.
The commentator asked and answered: “There is no housing development, and if the regional housing authority builds housing, eligibility is based on poverty level to live in those homes. How is an Alaska Statewide Educational System supposed to teach financial survival to students in communities where financial opportunities, infrastructure, and concepts do not even exist? If the schools want to start instilling financial savvy into the curriculum, start by educating the kids about the value of minerals that their families own as shareholders of Alaska Native Corporations.”
The central question is “How can schools teach financial literacy in villages with no banks, no markets, and no infrastructure?” These and other questions posed are exactly the kind of question that a top-down, one-size-fits-all state education system cannot answer. The current Department of Education and Early Development, through uniform mandates and disconnected curriculum standards, fails to reflect the real economic, cultural, and land-based realities of Alaska’s rural students.
The AERLCA addresses this by returning curriculum design and spending decisions to the local level, enabling communities to teach what matters most in their unique context: land ownership, subsistence rights, resource stewardship, and economic self-determination. These are lessons that no bureaucrat in Juneau can design nor shouldn’t try to.
Under the current system, financial education is often reduced to vague, urban-centered abstractions, credit scores, mortgages, job interviews, while ignoring the fact that many of Alaska’s youth are shareholders in the largest blocks of private indigenous land on Earth. The value of that land, minerals, resources, and sovereignty, is almost never taught. Why? Because centralized curricula don’t see these children as landowners, only as data points in a failing system.
The AERLCA empowers regional and local authorities to teach these truths. Imagine a curriculum designed by and for Alaska Native educators that includes:
- Mapping out Native Corporation land holdings;
- Understanding shareholder rights and dividend structures;
- Teaching negotiation, land lease valuation, and mineral rights;
- Challenging dependency narratives with ownership narratives.
This is not just financial literacy. This is generational economic empowerment rooted in sovereignty.
The speaker’s frustration with “outside people making decisions for us” cuts to the heart of the colonial-style governance embedded in Alaska’s education system today. When administrators and DEED bureaucrats operate from afar, with no cultural context and no skin in the game, the result is a system designed to preserve dependency rather than foster independence.
AERLCA reorients power by letting local communities govern their own schools, control their own education dollars, and choose the voices that teach their children. It is the antidote to the very dynamic this testimony decries: the “puffing up” of non-profit executives and consultants who profit off community dysfunction.
One of the most striking insights is the idea that children are being raised with a false cultural lesson that confrontation is wrong, “that they are worth less than the tundra.” The current education system, dominated by ideological conformity and centralized control, does not foster emotional intelligence or assertiveness. It teaches compliance, submission, and silence, especially in Native communities that are viewed through a lens of paternalism.
By breaking up monopolistic school districts and empowering indigenous community-based schools and curriculum, AERLCA can help teach students how to confront respectfully, advocate effectively, and take pride in their heritage, not just as a culture to be preserved, but as a foundation for sovereignty and prosperity.
This testimony is a call to action: “I cannot believe this is all our ancestors hoped and prayed for us to experience.”
Neither can I. The Alaska Education Reform and Local Control Act is the legislative vehicle for restoring what was lost. It is not just education quality, but dignity, agency, and self-governance.
It does not impose values. It returns the tools for communities to define their own.
And that is not just reform.
It is redemption.
The fact of the matter is their are too many tiny communities in Alaska, especially in the YK region, being 100% supported by federal and state money. There is ZERO economic base in the region that is not bases on “government” money, which is actually the money of those that work in the real world.
I remember reading a comment about a teacher and that teacher’s 401k. The teacher didn’t understand how it worked. That person was all for the pension plan idea (which would be even worse for educators and the state).
Educators could use some education, I think, and I don’t mean that to be an insult. Just an observation.
‘https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/ruleof72.asp
Free learning site
‘https://www.intuit.com/solutions/education/?cid=ppc_G_p_US_.I4E_US_BNG_NonBrand_Search._free%20financial%20literacy%20course_txt&&cid=ppc_YB_p_US_.I4E_US_BNG_NonBrand_Search._free%20financial%20literacy%20course_txt&msclkid=73e28ee1b9e71f07e7d2e68d98c71a6f&gclid=73e28ee1b9e71f07e7d2e68d98c71a6f&gclsrc=3p.ds&gad_source=7
You obviously have never lived in a village.
I’m not sure what the answer is for education in the bush. To those in control of many of the local school boards they don’t really want anyone leaving the village and certainly don’t care if they can function outside of it. The North Slope district wants to teach in their native language. If they want to add this as something to strengthen their culture then fine but there has to be some basics for students to be able to become contributing members of society and have the tools to succeed if they want opportunities for a different life outside of the villages. At the end of the day the public money corrupts the system. People taking responsibility for their kid’s education is the only solution. There is little tradition of that however.
This is what financial illiteracy looks like in real time.
A Canadian-owned company—Graphite One—received a $37.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense. That’s right: zero equity risk, all public funding. Meanwhile, Bering Straits Native Corporation (BSNC) invested shareholder money—$2 million of it—into this foreign entity.
What was negotiated in return?
Not royalties.
Not profit multipliers.
Not enforceable performance milestones tied to our investment.
No. Instead, BSNC “secured” a seat on an advisory committee, the option to invest another $10+ million later, and a vague promise of donations to a scholarship fund. Spoiler: those donations are likely a tax-deductible PR move for Graphite One anyway. That’s not a negotiation win. That’s free marketing for them.
Let me be clear: this was a capital investment made with shareholder funds. It should have been tied to contractual returns—measurable ROI, profit-sharing, milestone-based disbursements, or equity protection clauses. Instead, it was positioned as a goodwill gesture. But we already had the right to be consulted since this project is funded by a U.S. grant, and the local tribal governments can exercise their government-to-government consultation rights. Why did our Regional For-Profit Corporation pay for rights we already possessed?
BSNC’s elected board of directors had the authority—and the responsibility—to negotiate on behalf of shareholder wealth. Instead, they offered up millions in exchange for symbolic gestures and optional promises.
Graphite One got $37.5 million in public funding, and BSNC gave them $2 million more, with no skin in the game from Graphite One, and no binding return for us.
I’m beyond frustrated. I’m furious—because this isn’t just bad business. It’s a failure of fiduciary duty and financial stewardship.
Wow, I thought I was the only one to see this. My relatives from the villages who have jobs are often employed by these non-profits which rely on government handouts. And some of these organizations seem to do little of value- just provide make-work jobs. Even some native corporations showcase youth who aspire to be lawyers (who will fight for more government money) rather than business people, who will provide an economic base.