Education Week - October 28, 2015 - 17

State Chiefs Look to Montana
For Ways to Meet the Needs
Of Native American Students
Interventions at district level crucial
By Corey Mitchell
The Council of Chief State School
Officers is looking to a small-scale
Montana program for help in reversing the fortunes of hundreds of thousands of American Indian children.
Despite federal attempts to raise
the profile of the challenges that Native American students face, they are
often an afterthought, said William
Mendoza, the executive director of the
White House Initiative on American
Indian and Alaska Native Education.
"They're underrepresented, underserved, and darn-near invisible,"
Mendoza said.
While Congress and the Obama
administration have pressed the Bureau of Indian Education to overhaul
operations at the schools it oversees
on or near American Indian reservations, more than 90 percent of the
950,000 American Indian children
attend traditional public schools run
by local districts.
That makes district- and state-level
intervention crucial.
To that end, CCSSO leaders took
a fact-finding trip to Montana this
month to observe the state's Schools
of Promise program, an effort to
raise standards and expectations-
and provide the additional support
needed to meet them-in the state's
poorest-performing schools.
Established in 2009 by state schools
Superintendent Denise Juneau, the
initiative uses federal school improvement grants to fuel a partnership among administrators, teachers'
union leaders, and school board members to focus on the academic and
social-emotional needs of struggling
students in struggling schools. The affected schools, most on or near a reservation in remote parts of the state,
have overwhelmingly served American Indian children from families
beset by deep, generational poverty.
The grant money pays for mentalhealth support services for students
and instructional coaches for teachers, administrators, and school board
members.
Juneau describes the academic
results as a "mixed bag." In some
schools, graduation rates have risen
and test scores have improved only
to regress once the federal funding
ran dry.
But it may be the latest best way
of addressing problems that have
lingered for decades because it offers
"sheer hope," Mendoza said.

Problems Persist
Across the nation, Native American
students are less likely to graduate
from high school than any other racial or ethnic group, and the schools
they attend are often not equipped to
serve them.
Participants in a cross-country listening tour conducted in fall 2014 by
the U.S. Department of Education's
office for civil rights and the White

House Initiative on American Indian
Education highlighted the hurdles to
progress: disproportionate discipline,
a complex process for filing federal
civil rights complaints, and a lack of
accurate portrayals of Native American culture and history in school lessons, among them.
"The listening tour revealed too
many stories of school environments
that, rather than building on the
strengths of Native youth, are stifling
their potential," Mendoza said.
A report based on feedback gathered during the nine-stop, sevenstate tour is part of an initiative the
Obama administration launched in
2011 to support expanding opportunities and improving education
outcomes for American Indian and
Alaska Native students.
Another is the ongoing overhaul of
the Bureau of Indian Education, the
federal agency responsible for the education of roughly 50,000 American
Indian children.
The central goal of the reorganization, known as the Blueprint for Reform, is to shift the agency's role from
provider to partner, paving the way
for tribes to eventually run their own
schools.
Opposed at the outset by some
tribal leaders, the overhaul has hit
snags and missed deadlines, but BIE
Director Charles "Monty" Roessel remains optimistic.
"It's given us an opportunity to engage with tribes more," Roessel said.
"Our system is broken, and we need
to fix it."

Trampling on Rights?
Not everyone agrees with the proposed fix, though.
A lawsuit filed by the Cheyenne
River Sioux Tribe in South Dakota
this month alleges that the U.S. Department of the Interior and Bureau
of Indian Education are trampling on
tribal rights.
The complaint alleges that the
changes would reduce staff at reservation education offices that provide
federal oversight and resources-
such as grant money and special education-to tribal schools.
The suit also argues that the federal government did not properly consult tribes about the reforms.
"Since litigation is pending on that
issue, we are unable to comment directly on this matter at this time,"
Interior Department spokeswoman
Jessica Kershaw said.
The BIE is overseen by the Bureau
of Indian Affairs, which is housed
within the Interior Department.
The Great Plains Tribal Chairmen's Association, which represents
tribal leaders in Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota also opposes
the plan.
Roessel maintains that the process
is designed to be collaborative, not
combative.
"Ultimately, and most importantly,

the decision is up to each tribe," Kershaw said. "Whatever a tribe decides,
we are committed to providing better
support to all of our schools and honoring our relationship with tribes."

Looking Ahead
A visit to Montana may have
played a role in the Obama administration's focus on American Indian
education.
Montana was one of U.S. Secretary
of Education Arne Duncan's first
stops during his "listening and learning" tour in 2009, his first year on the
job. Back then, the state's Schools of
Promise effort was in its infancy.
Duncan met with students, parents, and school leaders and heard
concerns that would crop up years
later in the 2014 listening tour.
President Barack Obama's June
2014 visit to the Standing Rock
Sioux reservation also helped generate momentum for state-level work
to aid American Indian students,
said Lucy Fredericks, the director of
Indian and multicultural education
for the North Dakota education department.
"There has been a greater emphasis, definitely," Fredericks said.
But more than a year has passed
since the president's visit to Indian
country, and states with significant
American Indian populations are
still struggling in their search for solutions.
The problems hit close to home for
Juneau, the Montana superintendent. She's a member of the Mandan
and Hidatsa tribes, who grew up on
her father's reservation.
"When you see these communities,
and you see the struggles and challenges, ... you also see the promise
that exists," Juneau said. "We have
a serious obligation to do as much as
we can."
Mirroring Montana's undertaking
to target high-poverty schools, North
Dakota has focused its push on lowering dropout rates and boosting
parental involvement. The state also
conducted a survey in schools with
significant American Indian populations to assess the needs of students
and families, inside the classroom
and beyond the wall of schoolhouses.
Acknowledging that many of the
problems are deep-rooted, Fredericks said state leaders are expecting
gradual improvement, not rapid turnaround.
American Indian students are the
largest student subgroups in Montana and North Dakota, but the problems exist from coast to coast. The
federal listening tour, which drew
more than 1,000 people, made stops
from New York to California and up
to Alaska.
"Schools need to be the hubs in
many of these communities," said
Chris Minnich, the CCSSO's executive director.
Minnich, who made the trip to
Montana, plans to take his findings
to the council's members when they
meet for their annual policy forum
next month.
One of the challenges they will face
is helping students self-identify their
ancestry and districts better identify
American Indian students, possibly
increasing the flow of federal funding
to districts that serve them.
Minnich hopes the membership,

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which includes Roessel, the Bu- ginalized student subgroups such
reau of Indian Education director, as English-language learners.
will find ways to improve outcomes
"This is part of an agenda for chiland education for any number of dren who need more than what we're
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