[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 154 (Friday, November 18, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Page S13306]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   RURAL TEACHER HOUSING ACT OF 2005

  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I appreciate the indulgence of my 
colleagues this afternoon.
  I rise today to talk about a bill that I introduced last week that 
will have a profound effect on the retention of teachers, 
administrators, and other school staff in remote and rural areas of 
Alaska. This bill is the Rural Teacher Housing Act of 2005.
  In rural areas of Alaska, we have school districts that face enormous 
challenges of recruiting and retaining teachers, administrators, and 
other school staff. The challenges lie primarily in the lack of 
housing. In one particular year, in the Lower Kuskokwim School District 
in western Alaska, they hired one teacher for every six who decided not 
to accept job offers. Half of those applicants who did not accept a 
teaching position in that district indicated that their decision was 
related to the lack of housing. When we talk about lack of housing, it 
is not they cannot find an apartment that is to their suiting or to 
their liking, the fact of the matter is there is no housing available.
  In 2003, I had the opportunity to travel through rural Alaska with 
then-Secretary of Education Rod Paige. I took him there because I 
wanted him to see the challenges of educating children in such a remote 
and rural environment. We went to the village school in Savoonga. We 
met the principal there. Secretary Paige was overwhelmed when the 
principal showed him the broom closet in the school, not to show him 
the school supplies but to let him know that this is where the 
principal of the school lived, in the broom closet in the school. This 
was because there was no housing in Savoonga for the teachers.
  We met the special education teacher at the school, and she brought 
out the mattress that she sleeps on in her classroom every night. She 
does not have a home to go to. She does not have a space to call her 
own. Her classroom is her room, her house, her bed. The other teachers 
at the school shared housing in a single home.
  When one thinks about that in terms of what the teachers do, needless 
to say there is no place for their spouse, so these teachers who are 
married--the teachers might be married, but the spouse might be living 
in another part of the State or, in the principal's case, his wife 
lived out of State.
  Unfortunately, Savoonga is not an isolated example of the teacher 
housing situation in rural Alaska. Rural Alaska school districts 
experience a high rate of teacher turnover due primarily to the lack of 
housing. Turnover is as high as 30 percent each year in some of the 
rural areas with housing issues being a major factor.
  So the question is, How can we expect our kids to receive a quality 
education when we cannot get good teachers to stay? How can we meet the 
mandates of No Child Left Behind in such an educational environment?
  Clearly, the lack of teacher housing in rural Alaska is an issue that 
must be addressed in order to ensure that children in the rural parts 
of the State receive the same level of education as their peers in more 
urban settings.
  My bill authorizes the Department of Housing and Urban Development to 
provide teacher housing funds to the Alaska Housing Finance 
Corporation, which is the State of Alaska's public housing agency. In 
turn, the corporation is authorized to provide grant and loan funds to 
rural school districts in Alaska for teaching housing projects. This 
legislation will allow the school districts in rural Alaska to address 
the housing shortage in the following ways: They can construct housing 
units, purchase housing units, lease housing units, rehabilitate, 
purchase or lease property on which the units can be constructed. They 
can repay loans secured for teacher housing projects and conduct other 
activities normally related to the construction, purchase, and 
rehabilitation of the teacher housing projects.

  This also includes transporting construction equipment and materials 
to and from the communities in which these projects occur, which in the 
State is a particular concern because most of these communities are 
accessible only by air or water. Eligible school districts that accept 
funds under this legislation will be required to provide the housing to 
teachers, administrators, other school staffs, and members of their 
households. It is imperative that we address this important issue and 
allow the disbursement of funds to be handled at the State level. The 
quality of the education of our rural students is at stake.
  I thank my colleagues and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from New 
Mexico is recognized.

                          ____________________