Volume IX Spring/Summer 1998 Number 4
Tribal colleges reach out to future students, pre-K through 12
by Marjane Ambler
For the last 100 years, education in the Indian community has been both its salvation and its scandal. "-Gerald Wilkinson, National Indian Youth Council, 1989.At public meetings, government and foundation representatives often exhort tribal college presidents to get involved in educating younger children in their communities. Few people outside of the tribal college community seem to be aware of the extent of tribal colleges' efforts on behalf of pre-K-12 education. Tribal colleges train teachers and Head Start instructors; they create cultural curriculum; they sponsor pre-college orientation programs; and they create school to work programs. Some of these programs have long histories; United Tribes Technical College's elementary school celebrated its 25th anniversary this year. A few of the colleges' efforts are described in this issue.
Why would the tribal colleges direct their resources at younger students when they are chronically underfunded for their college programs? These are their children and grandchildren, their community, their future, and they are in serious trouble. Despite significant improvements in the last 25 years, Indian students continue to suffer from low expectations, high drop-out rates, and low academic achievement Statistically, Indian students come in last in almost every area. For example, 30.4 percent of the eighth grade Native students dropped out by the end of their senior year in a study published this year by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics. (This compared with a dropout rate of 10.8 percent for the total 19,000 students sampled in this study.) While this was a nationwide study, other studies confirm that students at reservation schools are no exception to the alarming statistics. The current educational system often fails to prepare students for being good citizens of their tribe or the nation.
Administrators of tribal colleges cannot ignore problems of K-12 schools. They understand that children who today attend Head Start will tomorrow be crossing the threshold of their college. The tribal colleges invest valuable resources in cleaning up after the shortcomings of the existing K-12 schools by providing high school graduate equivalency training, remedial classes, and sometimes by providing alternative schools. Tribal colleges, however, receive their core funding for college students, not for providing Adult Basic Education. According to a recent Carnegie Foundation survey of tribal colleges, 20 percent of the students questioned had completed a GED program before beginning formal classes at a tribal college. Several colleges report that GED students represent one-third or more of the students they are serving. Reasons for the problems are many.
As Dorreen Youngbird says in her article in this issue, the dismal statistics are partially a legacy of the 1700s and 1800s when tribal nations were torn apart, disrupting the healthy, traditional parenting and community interactions. Karen Swisher agrees that tribal and family disorganization affect today's education. Swisher, a noted Standing Rock Sioux scholar and director of the Haskell Indian Nations University teacher education program, says that historic experiences with education alienated Indian parents from the education of their children. In an interview with Teaching Tolerance (Southern Poverty Law Center) magazine, she said Indian children also suffer from the same barriers as other rural children: geographic distance, teacher turnover, lack of resources, limited access to technology. It is beyond the scope of this issue to look in detail at the analyses of K-12 problems and the good models that address them.
The guide to literature in this issue will lead readers to more detailed accounts. For example, Thomas D. Peacock's and Linda Miller Cleary's book, Collected Wisdom, provides insights from teachers across the country about both the reasons for the problems and which teaching approaches work with Indian students.
At the Theodore Jamerson School on the United Tribes Technical College campus, teacher Barbara Frey makes thumbprint books with students Trevor Red Bird, Otto Flye, Samantha Write, and Jeni Star.
One of the most important studies on Indian education was the 1991 Indian Nations at Risk Task Force Report. The U.S. Department of Education chartered the group of educators to identify problems and to propose an educational strategy to transform Native education by the year 2000. Their report to the Secretary of Education was based on extensive testimony by citizens and educators, school site visits, and commissioned papers. They identified 10 education goals that they wanted the nation to meet by the year 2000. While progress has been made in some places, many problems continue seven years later.
Addressing the task force goals
To improve education, the 31 tribally controlled colleges and universities in the American Indian Higher Education Consortium are building models--models that could be part of the best practices literature of tomorrow. A few examples of their efforts are described below within the context of the Indian Nations at Risk Task Force goals. Many of these examples are described more fully in the "On Campus" section or elsewhere in this issue:
Goal 1: Readiness for school. Several colleges have child care and Head Start programs themselves, and many others provide training and certification for early childhood education instructors. Dorreen Yellowbird's article describes the nationally recognized Early Head Start program at Cankdeska Cikana Community College. Red Crow Community College in Alberta, Canada, hosts the tribe's Blackfoot language immersion classes for 4-year olds.
GOAL 2: Maintain Native languages and cultures. Tribal colleges often create cultural curricula for K-12 schools on their reservations that make other subjects relevant to Native students, such as the Cheyenne math curriculum being developed at Dull Knife Memorial College. Students at the Shiprock, N.M., campus of Diné College interview their elders about geographical place names, producing Navajo language tape modules for K-12 students.
GOAL 3: Literacy. In response to the America Reads Challenge proposed by President Clinton, the Elementary Education Department at Sitting Bull College has created the Making Reading Meaningful and Memorable (M&M) Club. Welfare recipient students at Little Big Horn College devote their volunteer hours to tutoring grade school children.
GOAL 4: Student Academic Achievement. Several colleges participate with local high schools in dual enrollment programs. For example, the College of the Menominee Nation offers physics and advanced math to high school students who receive both high school and college credits. Others offer pre-college introductory courses, such as the Circle of Learning program at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College.
GOAL 5: HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION. As mentioned above, tribal colleges all offer extensive Adult Basic Education programs to assure Indian students earn GEDs. In addition, some (such as Bay Mills Community College, Sinte Gleska University, and Red Crow Community College in Canada) participate in alternative schools for students who aren't being adequately served by other schools.
GOAL 6: HIGH QUALITY Native and non-native school personnel. Properly preparing teachers may be the most important role that tribal colleges play in preK-12 education. Teacher education classes are certainly among the most popular. All 30 of the tribal colleges in the United States benefit from Philip Morris American Indian Teacher Initiative Training Grants provided through the American Indian College Fund. To create even better Native teachers, the training programs at Diné College and Red Crow Community College focus upon keeping the prospective teachers rooted in their cultures.
GOAL 7: safe and alcohol-free and drug-free schools. To help communities throughout North Dakota deal more effectively with troubled youth, United Tribes Technical College's Sacred Child program uses an innovative "wrap-around intervention" process, which is centered on the strengths of the child and family.
GOAL 8: adult education and lifelong learning. Cankdeska Cikana Community College's Early Head Start program and Fort Peck Community College's immersion Montessori schools emphasize educating the parents along with the children. Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa Community College's agricultural extension program provides education for all ages in the Wisconsin reservation community, including 4-H, nutrition, and agriculture classes.
Goal 9: restructuring schools. Several tribal colleges are moving their institutions toward student-centered learning, as described by Diné College Vice President James McNeley in his book review. The High Plains Rural Systemic Initiative is a collaborative effort administered by Turtle Mountain Community College to use tribal colleges to address systemic change in how science, math, engineering, and technology are taught at K-12 schools. On the Standing Rock Reservation, it has resulted in the first ever meetings amongst all the area high school superintendents. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the initiative also removes educational barriers for rural children.
GOAL 10: Parental, Community, And Tribal Partnerships. Whether schools are public, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), or tribal, they depend upon involvement by the community. Successful schools address not just the student but also the tribal and family disorganization referred to by Dr. Swisher. In this issue, Carolyn Fiscus in Nebraska and Cheryl Crazy Bull and Sherrry Red Owl in South Dakota outline procedures for building community involvement in designing educational systems.
Looking toward the future
With their nations at risk, some Indian educators are especially motivated to restructure their schools. Yet they know as well as anyone that there are no formulas guaranteeing student success. Indian control is important; the tribal colleges' own history illustrates the potential of education controlled by Indian people. In the 25 years since the Indian-controlled school movement began in K-12 schools, however, it has not made the fundamental changes necessary in the infrastructure of Indian education, according to Dr. Loretta DeLong in her commentary in this issue. Restructuring must be combined with partnerships.
Tribal sovereignty is not a way to escape accountability to outside accreditation boards. Rather, sovereignty over education requires the community and parents to carefully consider the educational needs of students and to negotiate with other governments, a process that can take many years, as outlined by Crazy Bull and Red Owl.
Despite the obstacles, the tribal colleges are discovering methods and approaches that work. They know they are succeeding when students hitchhike 50 miles each day to attend early childhood education classes. When no one ever misses an education class even though the students are juggling families, work, and college classes. When students who have been pushed out of other colleges show up each day eager to learn. When high school students begin to dream of themselves as pharmacists, lawyers, engineers, and history teachers.
Tribal colleges have a responsibility to not only create good models for lifelong learning but also to document them and to disseminate the results of their research. The problems of Indian education are too big for the Indian community to address alone, however, without resources, research, and technical assistance. American Indians represent less than 1 percent of the population of the United States. Because of their relatively small numbers, Native students are often ignored in reports about education, as noted in the task force report and in a recent report by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. Even more important than statistics on drop out rates is the need for more research on best practices--what works to keep Indian students motivated and in school.
Tribal colleges are vitally interested in their children. They are the future. The president of Little Big Horn College, Dr. Janine Pease-Pretty on Top, was once asked, "Why are you so concerned about the future of your tribe when there are only 7,000 Crow people in the whole world?" To the outside world's researchers, thousands of Indian students seem too insignificant to properly sample. To the family and the community, however, even one student forced out of a viable future is one too many.
Marjane Ambler is editor of the Tribal College Journal.