>> we have danny, this is a bummer: >> and henn henry makes an interesting point about homeschool, if you have a dial-up connection. what would you do if the only school in your town closed it's doors forever?

that's the reality forever in alaska, where schools are being forced to shut down. funding is restricted to smaller schools, and the state said it's too costally to keep them open. but it's not just for alaska. rural schools across the country face similar challenges. is this the end of rural education some and what happens to the communities left behind? joining us from rural alaska, ann taught at a school that closed in july, and darius is a parent and small business owner. they're both from teneky springs. they are able to join us because we use google plus and skype to reach out to people who wouldn't be able to join us in the show. we think it's worth the risk. and also, he's an alaskan and educator who is considered one of the leading voices on the shy. and on skype, hollowing out the

middle. the rural drain and america. ethan, why this law that closes schools? >> i think it's a response by the legislature and the government to deal with ever increasing costs in education in alaska. we had boarding schools up until the 1970s, in which the case went to the supreme court and it was decided that the state had the responsibility to educate every child in alaska, and so high schools popped up in all of our villages, and now the state has enabled it so that if the population drops under 10, your school goes into closure over a four-year period. and lessens the budget thing because oftentimes the money is spread out throughout the district. but i think it's a response to save money because the state is

not increasing dollars for education, especially in alaska. the costs keep rising consistently. our oil costs go up, and people need to put this all in perspective. they think we can go from one town to another and bus 50 minutes away. no, my community, i'm in average registerinanchorage. and the only way i can get there is to fly in an airplane, which costs me $1,008 round trip. >> it's tough, and there are a lot of issues that come into play here. and ethan just raised an interesting point. he was saying this is not like everyone where else, right? you can't just get bussed down the street in 20 minutes. give people the sense of what this number 10 means. because i think a lot of our viewers watching in the lower 48 are saying, are you kidding me? of course you close the school with just ten kids, but that's

not that uncommon, is it? >> no, in fact, i was just reading an article that stated in the last 15 years, 32 schools have closed down, and i can't give you the number, but there are many rural communities in alaska that have 10 to 15, and sometimes less than that students. >> you're right on the 32 schools, and that means 32 towns where people have nowhere to send their kids. there are 41 additional schools on the chopping block right now in alaska. ann, your school closed in july. do these kids in the small schools have a tendency to do more poorly on a test? is there evidence that they would do better in a larger setting? >> we have a 100% graduation rate. and our students for many years are in the top 10% of the country, i believe. and they almost always pass the standardized tests, so our

students are thriving in this situation. >> the community is responding to this: >> and heidi is a teacher from alaska: a lot of people don't see the domino effect. the school closes, and lead us through what happens to the town when the school shuts down. >> when you're talking about school closures, you have to realize, the analogy that i have to make, when you're a doctor and you go to somebody on their deathbed for the first time and

you say, what seems to be the problem? and you're a little bit late in the game, right? so the death for a town is when you lose your school. because there's no real option then to entice people to live there. because you're not going to move to a place that doesn't have a school for your children. so really, in terms of towns that have lost their -- not just their institutional center, but their heart and soul, the school closure is the last nail in the coffin. so in terms of rural development, when we get to that point, you're really almost past the point of no return. so it's really important. >> let's get to that for a moment. the schools in alaska are very much like those in smaller communities in the lower 48. which means that they do much more in the community than just a place enter education. and talk about the wider impacts

when they close. >> for us speaking specifically, the school really is the center of the community in many ways. we have not only events around the school, and the students, which bring, in our case, the whole town will come see a student perform or the whole town will come to a child's birthday. so these are central events to the community. sometimes we have dancing contests, and open volleyball and basketball, this is our only gym facility. so it's a place for activities that strengthen our social bonds and our opportunities to be with one another, as well as support the citizens of our community. >> hey, ethan, when the schools close, is there a disproportional effect on the native communities in. >> when you look at rural

alaska, it's predominantly native communities, but many are not. and when your school closes, it's the heartbeat of your community, and it's where all of your social functions are held. and when that happens, it doesn't matter which culture you come from, it's a serious deterioration of the community. >> that's true, but where i was going with this, you think about the native communities in alaska, these are not folks who have been there for 10, 20 years, but you're asking folks to shut down their town that have been part of their culture and community. >> you're very right. and i'm a perfect example of that. my family's community is on an island, the oldest continuously inhabited community in all of north america. it's between 8 and 12,000 years old and now the school was shut down in 2009, and the community is shriveling up. the families are leaving because

they need their kids in school, and yes, it's the -- patrick is right. it's the death nell of the village. >> speaking of that, the communities make a parallel between school and urban: >> the geography plays a huge role. i spent three weeks up there with reporting and you have to understand the distance involved. >> and i think that people don't appreciate that. >> can i add to that distance issue? the community where i raised my children, in the allutian

islands, the closest school is 100 miles away, but in order to get there, you have to either charter a plane out of alaska, which costs between 5 and $6,000, or you hop on a plane and fly and hundred miles into anchorage and fly there, which costs $2,000. >> not a practical solution to commuting to school. coming up, the length that teachers and students try to go to to stay in the classroom. and how the state derailed their plans.

>> we're talking when the challenge that's families face when rural schools are shut down. and there'sum a lot of control. >> a lot of people don't know about this. and we're talking about it. and the tweets come rolling in:

>> we'll talk about some of those options in a minute, but ann, your school closed in ul, and prior ta that, parents and you worked hard to keep it open. and what happened some. >> we have a very strong advisory school board, and they were very much in meetings with the community and the parents. we have a the community, most rural communities have a really devoted group of people. they looked outside of the box and they advertised on craigs list, and just trying to get the word out. we had the articles written, and interviewed for local newspapers and magazines, and we worked together to try to come up with a bare bones budget and to be able to provide the kids with

funding. >> i think we're having just a little bit of trouble with her connection, but the whole thing with the craigs list, they were trying to get additional kids into the district so they could get the number up to 10 or more. >> right. and lisa, a lot of schools have been real creative in trying to do that. my district for years were creative in making that happen for one of the villages, but at a point, it becomes almost difficult, especially as the state starts catching onto different things. it may not be illegal or out of compliance with them, but there are things that they obviously don't like. they force us in the rural communities to think outside of the box like that and find creative ways to get kids into these villages, especially for the account days. only for a certain amount of

days, so if you have the population for that many days, it's magic for the school. >> the community has said: so pat prick, we're going to do to you. in 2007, only 50% of them had wireless internet. and is this the future for the rural schools in alaska. >> it could be. one of the big issues is access. and you could think of ways to creatively come up with solutions to the education crisis in america, using broadband, until you have the

access and you can't get past go on that. but the other issue, getting access to healthcare, and generally, some of the experiments have been tried in places like south dakota, using virtual doctors. and they have been very successful in maintaining clinics in rural areas, where you don't have the doctor, and you don't have basically a skype access with a doctor at a major hospital. and these are definitely ways to think about until you have broadband access. and that's 50%, clearly, that's not going to do it. >> so patrick, we talked about it earlier. it's not just alaska facing this, but it's montana and nebraska and south dakota. in your book, you talk about the consolidation of schools, and when that happens, there's always a winner and there's always a loser. what's happening 1, 2, 5 years down the road to the towns on the losing end of that deal? >> the towns on the losing end

of the dal, som deal, some of tl media comments, if you lose your school, the parents with school-aged children have to leave or find alternatives, most of them leave, it's going to erode your tax base, and your average age is going to increase. and that's one of the issues in america, losing population, and more deaths than births, and the age goes up. so there's a cascading affect, with a balanced population, with enough young people who are raising families can't survive. and without the schools, there's no reason to stay. so there's always a winner and always a loser when there's consolidation. and the losers are maybe a decade, and maybe a little bit more from not being a town anymore. >> darius, you actually moved

your family from los angeles to alaska. what were you anticipating when you got there, and wha what areu going to do now that this is happening to your community? >> . >> well, that's one of the reasons we came here, the small school, and the small rural environment. but also, the contact, this intergenerational contact. our daughter can grow up speaking, her friends and peers and people of all different ages, and that kind of daily interaction. when my daughter leaves this town, she asks, who is that? and we don't know everyone, but she knows everyone in the town, so we brought her into an environment that was safe and secure and interacting, and we made that choice to leave los angeles to be in an environment for that. and the school was part of that. and to lose that, and other families in the community. they will leave if our school is

truly shut down. and suddenly she loses peers. even the cooperative homeschooling becomes limited if there are less of that to do that as well. and it's broad and personal for each family. >> the community echoes the sentiment: >> are we forcing americans to be more urbanized? is that a good thing? we'll talk about it after the break, but first, here are the stories that are following.

>> welcome back, we're talking about the loss of rural schools across america and particularly in alaska, and how this relates to urbanization. a lot of people forget about that. we depend on rural perk for our food. >> family farmers. is the u.s. moving to a more urbanized society? >> i think it has been, if you go back far enough, 100 years, the trend has been away from non-metro america. and right now, you have 46 million people, 15% of the population that live in non-metropolitan america. so that has been a trend that

has been there for quite awhile. but i don't think it's necessarily a good thing. i think one of the things that seems to be pretty obvious is that america's best when it's a diverse place, and having a strong, vibrant america is better for the country. >> but why? i think a lot of the people might be out there saying, the trajectory is clear, and we're just getting past that point in the culture, but talk about what happens when rural towns go away. >> the point is made. >> the point is made.

>> good evening, everyone. welcome to al jazeera america. i'm al seigenthaler in new york. another school shooting just miles from column bine the day before the anniversary. school security spending millions to try to protect students. will panic buttons and secure ids make a difference? snowstorm. the northeast braces for another wintry hit. get ready for up to a foot of snow. and whale wars. he is a wanted man on three continents tonight we will talk about the captain about his passion for protecting whales and his extreme