National Indian Education Study: Part II: The Educational Experiences of Fourth- and Eighth-Grade American Indian and Alaska Native Students

Stancavage, F.B., Mitchell, J.H., Bandeira de Mello, V.P., Gaertner, F.E., Spain, A.K., and Rahal, M.L., (2006). National Indian Education Study: Part II: The Educational Experiences of Fourth- and Eighth-Grade American Indian and Alaska Native Students (NCES 2007–454). U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
The complete The National Indian Education Study: Part II PDF (2605K PDF)

Executive Summary: Section 1
This report presents results from a national survey, conducted in 2005, that examined the educational experiences of American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) students in grades 4 and 8, with particular emphasis on the integration of native language and culture into school and classroom activities. Students, teachers, and school principals all participated in the survey, which constituted Part II of the National Indian Education Study (NIES). NIES was a two-part study conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), with the support of the Office of Indian Education (OIE), for the U.S. Department of Education. Part I of NIES collected information on the academic performance of AI/AN students, as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
AI/AN students represent about 1 percent of the total student population in the United States. In 2005, this represented approximately 46,000 students at grade 4 and 45,000 at grade 8 who were identified as AI/AN in official school records. A nationally representative sample of about 14,500 of these students (combined grades 4 and 8 in reading and mathematics) was selected to participate in NIES Part I. A smaller sample of those students (approximately 5,600) was selected to participate in NIES Part II. The Part I as well as the Part II samples included students attending public, private, and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) schools. The NIES Part II teacher sample was made up of the mathematics and reading/language arts teachers of the sampled students, while the school principal sample consisted of the principals at the schools these students attended. Questionnaires for the Part II survey were developed with the guidance of a technical review panel assembled to advise NIES.
This report describes important aspects of the educational experiences of AI/AN students in grades 4 and 8. Although the central focus of the report is AI/AN students, information is also provided about non-AI/AN students, where available, so that the reader can compare the characteristics of AI/AN students with their peers from different backgrounds. The source of the information on non-AI/AN students is NAEP, which included a survey component to collect limited demographic information about all students who participated in 2005. The NAEP survey, however, did not collect information on the role of AI/AN culture or language in education—topics which are the central focus of NIES. The NIES Part II report also provides comparisons between AI/AN students at high density and low density schools. High density schools are defined by the OIE as schools in which at least 25 percent of the students are American Indian or Alaska Native. All other schools are classified as low density.
All comparisons are based on statistical tests of significance that used Student’s t statistics. Only differences that have been determined to be statistically significant at the .05 level after controlling for multiple comparisons are discussed in this report.
Findings are presented in four broad areas: characteristics of AI/AN students, their schools, their teachers, and their curriculum. The Technical Notes section provides information about sampling, interpreting statistical significance, and other technical features. The Data Appendix provides tables that support the findings provided in this report.
AI/AN students
More than one-half of American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) students at both grades 4 and 8 were located in the Mountain or South Central regions of the country. By comparison, over one-half of non-AI/AN students at each grade level were located in the Atlantic and North Central regions, and non-AI/AN students were relatively infrequent in the regions where AI/AN students are concentrated. (Definitions of regions, community types, and other classification terms used in the Executive Summary are given in the Technical Notes.)
AI/AN students were about equally divided between schools located in small towns/rural communities and schools in more urban areas (i.e., urban fringe/large town and central city). Non-AI/AN students, in comparison, were more concentrated at schools in urban fringe communities/large towns and central cities; about three-quarters of non-AI/AN students attended schools in such localities.
Among AI/AN students, 50 percent at grade 4 and 45 percent at grade 8 attended high density schools. Compared to fourth-grade AI/AN students at low density schools, more fourth-grade students at high density schools were located in the Mountain or South Central regions and in small town/rural communities. At eighth grade, AI/AN students at high density schools were more concentrated in the Mountain region and in small town/rural communities.
More than 60 percent of AI/AN students at each grade level qualified for free or reduced-price school lunch under the National School Lunch Program. This was greater than in the non-AI/AN population, where 41 percent of fourth-grade students and 36 percent of eighth-grade students qualified. Also, among AI/AN students, more students at high density schools than at low density schools qualified.
A higher percentage of AI/AN students than non-AI/AN students was classified as English language learners (ELL) by their schools. Fourteen percent of AI/AN students in grade 4 and 13 percent in grade 8 held this classification. Moreover, for AI/AN students attending high density schools, the ELL classification rates were 26 percent at grade 4 and 24 percent at grade 8, significantly higher than the rates at low density schools.
Seventeen percent of AI/AN students in grade 4 and 15 percent in grade 8 were classified by their schools as students with disabilities (SD). A smaller percentage of non-AI/AN students—9 percent at each grade level—was classified as SD. Differences by school density were also apparent at grade 4; at this grade level, a higher percentage of AI/AN students at low density schools than at high density schools was SD.About two-thirds of the AI/AN students in grade 4 and about three-quarters of the AI/AN students in grade 8 said they would probably go to college. One percent of the AI/AN students at each grade level thought that they probably would not graduate from high school. Some students at each grade (28 percent at grade 4 and 10 percent at grade 8) reported that they did not know their educational goals.
Section 2 will follow in tomorrows post