During the Bush administration it became apparent that the innovations of our efforts in statute from the 1970’s to NCLB that provided for language and culture in the education American Indian students as well as that which recognized Indian education as an aspect of the federal trustee relationship with American Indian tribes and the provision that enabled the possibility of greater tribal control in education of Indian students in tribal schools through tribal standards and assessment systems were applied in a limited fashion and were all very vulnerable. These provisions appeared by 2004 to be primarily statutory lip service or appendages that could be easily eliminated without any visible educational impact upon schools.
The Bush administration began through the Department of Education to eliminate the possibility of language and culture in efforts funded by the Indian Education Act despite the clear intentions of the Act and the President’s own Executive order on American Indian education. The ability to develop tribal education standards and assessment systems were ended by administrative action on the part of BIA through returning Department of Education funds to facilitate the process of developing tribal assessment systems and then negotiated MOAs with state education authorities for the use of state standards and assessment systems for all federally funded schools.
Tribal schools funded by the Bureau of Indian Education are now all offering educational programs that utilize the standards and assessment systems of the state governments in whose jurisdiction they are located. The expression that “if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks, it must be a duck” certainly should apply to describing tribal schools. If a school is located on a reservation has significant amounts of federal funding and follows state standards and assessment systems it must be a state public school district receiving federal Impact Aid. The only problem here is that though it looks and walks like a duck, it doesn’t quack, at least not just yet.
The same is true for Indian Education Act programs and though the Bush administration relaxed its policy of aggressively seeking to eliminate language and culture programs in the formula grant programs because of the efforts of NIEA in 2005-2006, Indian Education efforts then as now often seek to add time to the basic instructional program through tutorial, homework assistance and before and after school efforts to beef up failing approaches in the main instruction program.. These programs with very limited revenue at approximately $300 per Indian student have been increasingly utilized for efforts that could just as easily be accomplished by Title I in ESEA and consequently not allowing for efforts that add language and culture to a program among other possibilities. The Indian Education Act “duck” looks and walks very much like Title I but it also doesn’t quack… not yet.
Added to this reality was the recognition that the entire of structure of Indian and tribal input into schools and education programs for American Indians was and is advisory in character. It appeared that school officials known to rarely if ever heed advisory notions about what should be the goals, objectives and approaches for the education programs provided for American Indians also lost significant authority due to the mandates of NCLB.
And now the US Department of Education has proposed placing the Indian Education Act programs in a new Title proposed for ESEA Reauthorization, Title II Diverse Learners. This proposed new Title of ESEA would lump together a motley collection of ESEA titles, including Impact Aid, Rural, N & D, Homeless, Migrant, English Learners, Alaska, Hawaiian and American Indian. The Indian Education Act, Alaska Native Education Act and Native Hawaiian Education Act currently lumped together in Title VII of NCLB has already sufficiently buried the unique recognition that education of American Indians and Alaska Natives is an aspect of the federal governments trustee relationship with American Indian tribal governments as well as the unique purposes of the Indian Education Act within NCLB that these purposes have little or no influence on school programs for American Indians and remain vulnerable to elimination.
If the recognition that American Indian Tribes are governments and that education is an aspect of the trustee relationship of federal government with American Indian tribal governments and that inclusion of language and culture within education programs for American Indians were buried before within NCLB, we will never find them among the new American diversity title proposed within ESEA
The real issue is to have a viable structure for tribal control of education within tribal jurisdictions and for tribal governments to significantly influence the nature of the federal interest in the education of American Indians in school settings outside of tribal jurisdictions typically aligned with the intentions and purposes of federal funds for American Indians.
How do we give a real voice to the intention that language and culture is not only important in its own right to be included in the education programs for American Indians but to recognize that education for all people is social and linguistic in character, that cultural and language is the way through which everyone is educated. To deny the American Indians an educational environment and process which connects them socially and linguistically with who they are denies them the very means to accomplish the academic goals provided for them
How do we give a real voice to the educational needs of tribes and American Indian communities as tribal societies and communities as being important for schools and educational institutions to serve and not define for American Indian students? How do we enable tribes to determine the purposes of education for their own tribes and communities which connects to their children and youth
The trustee relationship of the federal government to American Indian tribes is not solely the federal governments to define. The trustee relationship is after all a relationship between two governments that emanates from treaties between the United States government and American Indian tribes It was the changes to Title VII accomplished through NCLB that finally stated that education was an aspect of the federal trustee relationship. The specifics of the statute are detailed in a letter I wrote to Representative Betty McCollum of the 4th Congressional District MN at the time Bush Secretary of Education Spellings threatened language and culture in education programs for American Indians. (See articles in this blog for August 7-8-9 2006 for description of controversy and complete copy of letter) The broad purpose of Title VII (section 7101) is stated as follows “It is the policy of the United States to fulfill the Federal Government's unique and continuing trust relationship with and responsibility to the Indian people for the education of Indian children. The Federal Government will continue to work with local educational agencies, Indian tribes and organizations, postsecondary institutions, and other entities toward the goal of ensuring that programs that serve Indian children are of the highest quality and provide for not only the basic elementary and secondary educational needs, but also the unique educational and culturally related academic needs of these children.
In reliance of section 7101 there are two educational purposes “ensuring that programs that serve Indian children are of the highest quality and provide for not only the basic elementary and secondary educational needs, but also the unique educational and culturally related academic needs of these children.”
The Indian Education Act not only seeks to assist schools to improve achievement of Indian students in academic subjects and in ways that uniquely involve culturally based approaches and the expansion of educational opportunities but it also seeks to ensure that schools with Indian students reflect the cultural heritage of those students. Though the goal of improving the academic achievement of American Indian students is not the sole responsibility of Title VII and is shared by the other titles of NCLB, meeting the unique language and cultural needs of American Indian students is the sole responsibility of Title VII.
Within NCLB are sections that pertain to schools funded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) now Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) “The Secretary of the Interior shall define adequate yearly progress for the schools funded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on a regional or tribal basis, as appropriate, taking into account the unique circumstances and needs of such schools and the students served by such schools,…may use the definition of adequate yearly progress that the State in which the school that is funded by the Bureau is located uses. “ The tribal governing body or school board of a school funded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs may waive, in part or in whole, the definition of adequate yearly progress established ( by the Secretary of Interior) where such definition is determined by such body or school board to be inappropriate. And shall submit to the Secretary of Interior a proposal for an alternative definition of adequate yearly progress …… that takes into account the unique circumstances and needs of such school or schools and the students served and shall provide technical assistance, upon request, to a tribal governing body or school board of a school funded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs that seeks to develop an alternative definition of adequate yearly progress.
Considering what is all ready stated in statute how to we give voice to these essential aspects for the development of education programs for American Indians in school settings.. Certainly we must unbury these provisions from within the current and proposed ESEA titles that gives short shrift to them in every school and programmatic effort for Indian students. How can the trustee relationship of the Federal government with American Indian Tribes become a viable federal tribal government relationship that works for American Indian tribes, communities and students?
Despite good statutory language that relationship not only doesn’t work to accomplish the basic intentions of the statutes but fails to produce results. A danger exists that because the statutes are worded as they are that some policy makers may be led to believe that the lack of results are because of them not because they have never been truly contained within viable vehicles to accomplish the objectives at hand. We don’t need new purposes or objects but to utilize the trustee relationship and tribal government authority to accomplish them within an enduring framework that provides the time to develop effective schools for American Indians
We need a new Indian Education Act which brings to life the role of tribal government and the trustee relationship for education. We can no longer bury Indian education in the lack of real accomplishment or within other titles of ESEA to have little or no real effective vehicle to accomplish it purposes. We need a new federal tribal vehicle for Indian education that produces results in the interest of children and youth and the tribes and communities in which they live. The results of existing efforts in terms of achievement levels, dropout rates, the general level of failure and generally poor wellbeing of Indian children and youth beg attention to find a better way.
Part II Tribal/State government compacts for education
© 2009-2010 David Beaulieu All Rights Reserved to Big River Man News-American Indian Education
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