Founded in 1996 as the Citizens for the Educational Advancement of Alaska’s Children (CEAAC), Coalition for Education Equity is a non-profit organization in Alaska focused on improving outcomes for at-risk students and struggling schools. Most known for our success in litigation and legislative activity, CEAAC advocated for education reform at the legislative level while also working for a decade
to address school inadequacies in rural Alaska through the courts, fighting and successfully settling the Kasayulie and Moore lawsuits by January 2012. These lawsuits focused on remedying unfair distribution of both physical (school buildings) and educational resources, so that all Alaska youth are provided a constitutionally protected right to an adequate education in Alaska. Following these settlements, our organization’s mission began to shift to include the development of innovative opportunities for success in rural and underserved schools while still protecting gains made through litigation. In 2015, our name changed to Coalition for Education Equity to recognize this shift and to reflect our continuing role in advocating for equity and adequacy in education across Alaska. Today, Coalition for Education Equity uses research, policy development and advocacy to help solve school performance issues in rural and urban areas of Alaska. We provide scholarships to students of member districts from a $100,000 fund and hold $550,000 in reserves, providing stable, long-term project support. In 2013-14, we successfully led an initiative to establish Residential Learning Centers that support village high schools by offering courses for their students that they were unable to offer. Our Educator Quality and Quantity project is working with stakeholders across the state to increase the number of Alaska teachers and administrators, improve teacher preparation, and increase teacher retention. And our Ed Connector program, launched in 2015, was developed with superintendent input and guidance to expand school district administrative capacity and increase leadership collaboration. Now, with more than 400 users representing nearly all of our state’s 53 school districts, school leaders are sharing promising practices, tools and resources, and are able to dialogue/problem-solve with peers across the state.
