Ever since the 1975 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, the situation for education of indians has improved. And it has gotten even better, with more separate tribal control, with the 1978 Educational Amendments Act and the Tribally Controlled Schools Act of 1988.
It was in this year Clinton issued the first Executive Order on American NDN and Alaska Native education, in order to address educational concerns. IN 2001, the budget for Indian Education as 861 million dollars, the highest appropriation ever received to that date.
As of the 2000 census, there were 674,585 indian kids in preschool, kindergarten, elementary or high school. In 2003, less than 10 percent of those attended BIA schools, of which there were 185 schools on 63 rezes in 23 states.
IN 2002 the BIA funded 54 boarding schools, 7 of which were off-rez schools. 3 of these off-rez schools are tribally operated.
Under the Johnson-O'Malley act of 1934, the BIA provides funding to public school districts actoss the nation to meet the special needs of, so far, more than 271,000 indian kids in those schools.
A lot of new trends in NDN education policy have been implemented - there have been bilingual programs instituted, and curriculum has changed to include indian history and culture. Course materials look more at "rez life" and less at "dick and jane". More NDN teachers and aides have been hired. And tribal elders have been brought in as outside EXPERTS. These efforts are supposed to help reverse the negative self-image of NDN kids, and have made a mark not just in BIA schools but in "mainstream" schools as well.
Still quite a ways to go before we can say NDN kids are receiving quality education, but inroads are being made. A full THIRD of the BIA budget in recent years has gone to education.
According to this 2000 census, 11% of all natives over age 25 have completed undergrad or professional degrees - compared with almost 25% of the US population as a whole. Nongovernmental funding for NDN students has skyrocketed over the past few years.
College - in 1978 congress passed the Tribally controlled Community College Assistance act and the BIA now provides grants to tribes for 26 such institutions... a total of 38 million dollars in 2002. The BIA also operates 2 post-secondary schools - the Haskell NDN Junior College in Kansas, and the Southwestern NDN Polytechnic Institute in New Mexico.
Throughout history, failures in NDN education have been aggravated by the placement if NDN children in non-ndn foster homes or adoptive homes by private non-ndn orgs or state agencies. The idea was that kids would allegedly do better in non-NDN homes. A lot of these institutions overreacted, and there was a pattern of "abusive" child-removal procedures, taking kids from homes where they were really doing fine. Because of this problem, major legislation was introduced in the form of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, which reconized primary jurisdiction over the matter belonged to tribal courts.... and there, there was no bias against perfectly good indian families.
Next time... NDN land and resources!
Again - if you have any comments or thoughts, email me at Taniquelle@gmail.com - like I said, right now I am getting through the preliminary info so we can get to the good stuff!
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