A History of the Northern Marianas Educational System: Implications for Teacher Education

This study first provides a comprehensive history of formal education in the Northern Mariana Islands (which voted in 1987 to become a Commonwealth of the United States) since the time of European contact. Included is a short introduction to the geography, migration patterns, and linguistic history of the main cultural groups inhabiting these islands. The data and analysis presented here achieve significant detail for the period beginning with the U.S. occupation of the islands at the end of World War II and continuing through the time of the study itself, 1991. A detailed history of institutional education in the Northern Marianas is developed for the Spanish, German, Japanese, and U.S. colonial regimes, each of which has left a significant imprint. Certain important characteristics of the contemporary educational environment may be clearly traced to these colonial sources. This historical survey is then employed to assess the recently and as yet incompletely implemented program of teacher training and certification in the Commonwealth, the Territorial Teacher Training and Assistance Program, or TTTAP, a U.S. federal program in operation since 1980. Particular attention is given to bicultural and bilingual issues of teacher education. Based on the historical study, and on the examination of TTTAP, strong recommendations are made for a careful re-examination of the educational system’s goals, and specifically for the system-wide implementation of testing and other systems of accountability to determine whether these goals are being achieved.