Education Week - February 8, 2017 - 25

KEVIN KUMASHIRO stepped down as the dean of the University of San Francisco
School of Education last month after serving in the position since July 2013. He is the
founder of Education Deans for Justice and Equity and is the author of Bad Teacher!
How Blaming Teachers Distorts the Bigger Picture (Teachers College Press, 2008).

space to understand the other? How can we
protect free speech and expression in schools
and society without allowing for hate speech
to proliferate?
There are no easy answers to these questions. As educators, we should strive to avoid
partisanship in the classroom and presuming
one worldview is absolutely true while others are invalid. I want students to navigate
through ambiguity rather than becoming
absolutist in their thinking. I seek to provide
learning spaces that allow students to think
critically rather than being reliant on an educator to tell them what is right and wrong.
The current political rhetoric I find so
disturbing tells people what is right and
wrong in an uncritical fashion. How can
educators challenge many of the Trump administration's subjective assertions without
also presuming that alternative visions for
America produced by their own positions in
society are not conditional?
Resorting to easy answers fails to grapple
with the challenges inherent in opening up
learning spaces to multiple perspectives.
This is the challenge of teaching today: not
allowing one narrative to dominate, while
also not allowing hatred to infiltrate the
classroom and inform perceptions of others.
This is not a paradox. This is the work that
lies ahead for teachers. n
DANIEL OSBORN works at Facing History and
Ourselves, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit
organization that provides resources to teach
students about the historical effects of racism. He is
an instructor at Dean College in Franklin, Mass.

How should
educators
invite
multiple
viewpoints
into the
classroom
without
inadvertently
condoning
hate
speech?"

Let's Not Forget Our Native Students

By Ahniwake Rose
t's more than a little upsetting that in more
than three hours of testimony before Congress on her nomination to be the new U.S.
secretary of education, neither Betsy DeVos
nor the members of Congress grilling her
said anything-not a single word-about a
cohort of more than a half-million American
students who will fall under the Department of Education's remit.
That group? Native American students.
The challenges facing Native students in America
today are known, although hardly ever discussed
outside of Native communities. According to
national statistics, our students are more likely
to be labeled as having special needs and experience higher rates of suspension and expulsion than
white students. Just 67 percent of Native students
graduate from high school-a figure well below the
national average.
This is in part due to a tribal education system
that has been imposed on us by the federal government for 150 years. But contrary to what many
think, education in Indian Country is not in need of
a solution imposed by others who know little about
our communities. Solutions already lie within.
Created in the 19th century, the federal system
responsible for educating American Indian students
and funding Indian schools is a direct result of
treaties entered into by our sovereign tribal nations
and the federal government. At its inception, this
education system had a stated policy of forcing the
assimilation of Indian people by eradicating tribal
culture. Students were intentionally taken away
from their families and placed in boarding schools,
where many endured physical and mental abuse.
Slowly, the federal government moved away from
these devastating policies, but the system that remains today for Native students is underfunded and
inadequately staffed. The buildings our students
study in are plagued with infrastructure problems,
yet federal money, which should be guaranteed in
accordance with long-standing treaties, has not
been made available to fix them.
The story of the Havasupai Elementary School
in Arizona, at the heart of a recently filed lawsuit,
is an example of how our federal education system
has failed Native students. Nine students from
the school are suing the Bureau of Indian Education for "knowingly failing to provide basic general
education." These are problems seen not just in this
school, but in many other BIE schools across Indian
Country. The failure to fully fund school construction, renovations, and repairs, coupled with the
current federal hiring freeze (which could prevent
teacher vacancies from being filled), does not set our
students up for success.
Still, many outside of Indian Country have offered
several "answers" to repair the failing, broken system our children and their families endure. There
have been calls to privatize schools through vouchers, to move responsibility from the federal government to state control, or to close some BIE schools
entirely. Every one of these so-called solutions, while
well-meaning, has a common thread: Tribes and
Native people were not involved in the development
of any of them. This means, unfortunately for us all,
they are unlikely to work.
Simply put, lasting solutions must be developed
in partnership with Native communities, and there
are examples across Indian Country that show
how tribal innovation and leadership can lead to
programs and services that meet communitywide
needs. Through local control and direct community
engagement, tribes have redesigned their courts,
health-care systems, and workforce.
For example, in Alaska, innovative approaches
to dental health have made significant headway in
improving youths' oral health at a fraction of the
standard cost. In Montana, the Confederated Tribes

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discrimination in the Bilingual Education Act, and the needs of students with disabilities in the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act, to name a few. Such laws are not perfect and have not always
been applied equally, but they reflect core democratic ideals that the
federal government must continue to advance.
Third, develop and implement policies, laws, and reform
initiatives by building on a democratic vision for public education and sound educational research. We need leaders to be
informed and judicious, but during her Jan. 17 confirmation hearing,
DeVos displayed a stunning lack of knowledge about key federal laws,
including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. She came
up cold when the questioning turned to policy debates and learning
assessments. She also failed to discuss in detail her perspectives on
such issues as institutional accountability and protections against
fraudulent use of federal funds, or her own track record in Detroit
public schools-an expensive experiment that even some supporters
of choice say has failed. Our children deserve a much higher standard
for decisionmaking.
Fourth, support and partner with colleges and schools of
education to advance these goals. We should be wary when policies are developed with goals other than the learning and wellness
of our children. According to the Center for Media and Democracy,
DeVos funded and chaired the foundation American Federation for
Children, which exerts significant but undisclosed influence (also
known as "dark money") on elections, and sponsors and partners
with the American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC is perhaps
best known for developing "stand your ground" gun laws and voterID laws. ALEC has also long shaped education laws, from providing
vouchers and school choice-related tax credits, to undermining the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, to weakening teacher
protections, to denying climate change in curriculum.
The federal government and education leaders have many other potential partners with whom to work collectively to build a successful
educational system: students and parents, community organizations
and businesses, and educators and education scholars. Schools cannot
improve unless all are working together.
Current and former education deans are working to improve schools
with these principles as our guides, as we imagine that many others
across the country are doing. We hope that our federal leaders share
this vision and join our movement. n

The system that remains today for
Native students is underfunded
and inadequately staffed."
of Salish and Kootenai have transformed workforcedevelopment programs and cut their unemployment rate by 20 percentage points. In Washington
state, the Tulalip Tribe has developed a world-class,
culturally sensitive tribal court system that has
reduced recidivism rates among tribal offenders.
Programs like these show that a win-win situation
is possible when federal funds are spent in accordance with what the community wants and needs.
And, today, we have a new opportunity to ensure
these same successes in education.
The education system promised by the trust
responsibility to our tribes must be honored, not
dismantled with vouchers or a hand-off of control
to a state or local government body. The solutions
lie within our communities. Everyone-tribes, the
federal government, and other partners-must
work together to ensure that the schools where our
children are educated have the flexibility to create
innovative approaches to meet the unique educational and cultural needs of Indian students. This
can only be done through a tribal-led system.
The work needed to transform the lasting
hallmarks of a failed federal system cannot be
done overnight or in isolation. Before more money
is thrown into another well-meaning but poorly
crafted solution, our existing schools should be
given every opportunity to thrive, regardless of who
leads the Department of Education. Native students
absolutely need new culturally based approaches to
providing the world-class education they deserve.
To get there, we need committed partners who
understand that traditional knowledge and culturebased education are key to producing engaged,
successful learners. And we need partners who understand that tribes and Native communities must
not only have a voice, they must lead the way. n
AHNIWAKE ROSE is the executive director of the Washington-based
Native Indian Education Association. She is a citizen of the Cherokee
Nation and of Muskogee/Creek descent.

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Education Week - February 8, 2017

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