New American Indian and Alaska Native Initiative focused on Early Childhood Education at Mississippi State University

Many involved with American Indian and Alaska Native education are just becoming aware of the work of the National Center for Rural Early Childhood Learning Initiatives at Mississippi State University http://ruralec.msstate.edu/index.htm.

The Center has developed a Rural Early Childhood American Indian and Alaska Native Initiative. http://ruralec.msstate.edu/initiatives/native.htm. Northern woodland Indian, Nicole Thompson (Menominee/Mohican) an Assistant professor at Mississippi State University is serving as coordinator of this American Indian and Alaska Native initiative. The goal of the initiative is to “uncover gaps in services to Native young children and helping Native educators develop culturally appropriate early childhood curricula that will foster preservation of Native languages and culture

As an enduring legacy of President Clinton’s Executive Order on American Indian-Alaska Native Education of 1998 (EO 13096) and the research agenda that was developed in reliance of the Executive Order, the first project of the initiative was to convene at the William J. Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock Arkansas, http://www.clintonfoundation.org/index.htm, the nation’s leading experts in American Indian and Alaska Native education, July 28-29 2005 to discuss the research agenda developed through the executive order. The forum was held in cooperation with Pennsylvania State University.

Many in Indian education know John Tippeconnic who is now a professor at Penn State and we are all becoming more familiar with the work of Susan Faircloth, a former student of Dr. Tippeconnic and now an assistant professor also at Penn State. John Tippeconnic had worked with the National Indian Education Association (NIEA) to help craft the “Proposed Federal Indian Education Policy Statement” in the years following President Clinton’s historic meeting with tribal leaders at the White House. This document which became known as the “Red Book” was presented to the White House and included many of the ideas that were later incorporated into the Executive Order 13096. Susan Faircloth one of the organizers of the fourm is one of the editors of the proceedings of “Rural Early Childhood Forum On American Indian and Alaska Native Education” just published by Rural Early Childhood Center at Mississippi State.

Research and policy development in early education focused on American Indian and Alaska Native is vital to our efforts in Native education. As an aspect of the Research Agenda the Office Indian Education at the Department of education during the years when President Clinton's Executive Order was being implemented following 1998 utilized funds from the national activities account to initiate American Indian and Alaska Native participation in the National Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort. Because the American Indian-Alaska Native population is small it is necessary to often pay for the cost of over sampling so as to include this population in national studies. It was estimated that the cost of Including American Indians and Alaska Natives in this study was 9 million dollars.

The Education Commission of the States maintains an American Indian Alaska Native Issues Page or their web site http://www.ecs.org/ecsmain.asp?page=/html/issues.asp and has a research and readings section at http://www.ecs.org/ecsmain.asp?page=/html/issues.aspThis page includes a downloadable PDF file of the report American Indian and Alaska Native Children: Findings from the Base Year of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort -

A downloadable PDF file of the Rural Early Childhood Forum On American Indian and Alaska Native Education proceedings is here http://ruralec.msstate.edu/reports/AI-AN-report.pdf and at the http://ruralec.msstate.edu/reports/default.htm which has other reports of the Center.

The American Indian Alaska Native Initiative has an interesting video on the proceedings as well at http://ruralec.msstate.edu/initiatives/native.htmVideo An Historic Ingathering: The Rural Early Childhood Forum on American Indian and Alaska Native Early LearningView video (please allow a few moments for the movie to begin playing).

Relevant Links
National Center for Rural Early Childhood Learning Initiatives at Mississippi State Universityhttp://ruralec.msstate.edu/index.htm.

Rural Early Childhood American Indian and Alaska Native Initiative http://ruralec.msstate.edu/initiatives/native.htm.

William J. Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock Arkansas, http://www.clintonfoundation.org/index.htm,

Education Commission of the States
http://www.ecs.org/

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