Cultivated Ground: Effective Teaching Practices for Native Students in a Public High School

In the spring of 2013, the authors participated in a class at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education that connects students who act as consultants to native communities who want students to work on specific projects. Dr. Dawn Mackety of the National Indian Education Association submitted a project request to this class. This project was to assess the effective teaching practices being used in one or more superiorly performing United States public high schools that had a high number of American Indian/Alaskan Native students. Research on effective teaching practices for American Indian/Alaskan Native students has occurred primarily in tribally owned or charter schools and have identified culturally based education and language-based curriculum as effective for native students. In a similar vein, research in these schools and public schools has also identified culturally responsive teaching as effective for this population as well. We identified schools using testing data and demographic and socioeconomic variables; we only considered schools whose native students performed very well on state assessments. As part of the literature review, we conducted a phone interview with administrators, teachers and students at a public high school in Alaska. Using a case study research design, we visited a public high school in southern North Carolina. We interviewed administrators, staff, teachers, and students, conducted classroom observations, and visited the Indian Education Resource Center. A number of factors were cited by members of the school community as essential to the academic success of the native students; many of these fit under the arc of culturally responsive teaching. This research confirms the data in the literature that the inclusion of cultural curriculum is an element that is associated with positive academic outcomes for American Indian/Alaskan Native students. PUBLIC SCHOOLS SERVING NATIVE STUDENTS DORER AND FETTER 4 Introduction Project Request This project is the result of a research proposal prepared for the Harvard University Native American Program and the Native American Nation Building Course by Dr. Dawn Mackety, Director of Research, Data, and Policy at the National Indian Education Association (National Indian Education Association, 2013). The research proposal serves as an expansion upon previous work creating a compilation of promising teaching practices for American Indian/Alaskan Native students done by Dr. Mackety and other researchers (The Regional Educational Laboratory, 2011). This project also follows the work of previous graduate students who did a case study of best practices in charter schools serving American Indian/Alaskan Native students (Ewing & Ferrick, 2012). Client: National Indian Education Association This research took place in accordance with the NIEA’s mission to advance excellence for Native students utilizing advocacy, research, and capacity-building. The NIEA is a non-profit organization that strives to fill the gaps for the 90% of Native students going to school outside the umbrella of the Bureau of Indian Education. The NIEA’s mission is to “advance comprehensive educational opportunities for American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians throughout the United States,” (National Indian Education Association, 2013). Context Dr. Mackety outlined the need for further study into the effective teaching practices taking place in public schools that are serving AI/AN students. Native students currently represent approximately . 7% of the K-12 grade public school population, some 378,000 PUBLIC SCHOOLS SERVING NATIVE STUDENTS DORER AND FETTER 5 students during the 2010-2011 school years (National Indian Education Association, 2013). This figure is likely underestimated; students of more than one race are identified as multiracial and only students that identify as AI/AN alone are marked as AI/AN, beginning in 2006-2007 (National Indian Education Association, 2013). AI/AN students have disproportionate rates of academic failure. According to the 2009 National Status Dropout Rate data, Native dropout rates between the ages of 16-24 are at 15% compared to the general population’s dropout rate of 8% (National Indian Education Association, 2013). Graduation rates further illustrate this achievement gap, as AI/AN students from ages 16-24 graduate at a rate of 84% compared to 90% of all students (National Indian Education Association, 2013). The number of AI/AN students currently enrolled in public school and the disproportionate number of AI/AN students struggling academically illustrate the need for further research and action. Thus, Dr. Mackety’s requested a project “to identify promising practices for the effective teaching of Native students, and provide case study examples of how they are being used successfully in classrooms,” (Mackety, personal communication, 2012). In her project request, Dr. Mackety noted that the research on the effective teaching of native students focuses on Culturally Based Education (CBE) as a means of fostering academic success (Mackety, personal communication, 2012). CBE has been found most often in tribally owned charter schools serving native students (Ewing & Ferrick, 2012). The literature is silent on whether CBE exists within public schools. Additionally, current literature has a dearth of recommendations for teachers working with native students on best pedagogical strategies (Demmert, 2001). We therefore asked the following research question; what are the effective teaching practices being utilized in public schools that are successfully serving their native students? PUBLIC SCHOOLS SERVING NATIVE STUDENTS DORER AND FETTER 6 Effective Teaching Practices American Indian/Alaska Native students have a complex history with the United States’ public school system. American Indian students still maintain a presence in America’s public schools. In fact, the majority of Native American youth still attend public schools, with only 49,152 students attending tribally owned charter schools (National Indian Education Association, 2013). In addition, 31% of these AI/AN students attended a public school that was ranked as high-poverty, compared to 6% of white students in 2010-2011 (National Indian Education Association, 2013). In the past decade, the federal government has become increasingly aware of this achievement and opportunity gap for AI/AN students in public schools. In 2001, the No Child Left Behind initiative was incorporated into the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). This included a provision called Title VII. Essentially, Title VII set out to narrow the achievement gap between American Indian/Alaska Native/Hawaiian students and recognize the “special educational and culturally related academic needs of Indian students,” (20 U.S.C. § 7402(a)). Title VII provided federal financial support to districts, schools funded under the Bureau of Indian Education, and other tribally owned schools. Under Title VII, schools receiving funding has to incorporate culturally relevant education into their curriculum (20 U.S.C. § 7402(a)). Most public schools serving native students receive Title VII funding, as most public schools receive federal funding (Tyack & Cuban, 1997). However, the reality remains that 40% of Native students during the 2008-09 school year attended a school that did not meet AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) standards laid out under the 2001 reauthorization of ESEA, compared to 33% of White students (National Indian Education Association, 2013). The most recent research on AI/AN education has revolved around culturally based education (CBE). Culturally based education is strongly advocated by researchers studying the PUBLIC SCHOOLS SERVING NATIVE STUDENTS DORER AND FETTER 7 school achievement of native students; they have found a connection between low achievement and low cultural relevance for native students (Demmert, 2001). This has also been hypothesized and studied for non-white students in general with similar results (Warikoo & Carter, 2009; Hilliard, 2003). Agbo (2001) argues that culturally based education is not enough, and that in order for native students to achieve academically, educators need to focus on where the curriculum comes to life, namely in the classroom. This is especially relevant in public school classrooms, in which only 16% of teachers interacting with AI/AN youth are native themselves (National Indian Education Association, 2013). Cultural mismatch between teachers and students may contribute to academic underperformance of non-white students (Warikoo & Carter, 2009). Culture in education is thus seen as an important factor in the academic success of native students, as their own subgroup and as part of the larger group of non-white students in the United States. The exact nature of this relationship remains unclear for both groups (Lipka, 2002). The effectiveness of these measures was also outlined in a case study project highlighting charter schools serving AI/AN students (Ewing & Ferrick, 2012). These models for native student education are particularly pertinent to tribally owned, private, or charter schools that are characterized by relative flexibility, autonomy, and cultural homogeneity in their schools. This allows them to base their curriculum in both culture and language. A significant portion of the research done specifically with native students has been devoted to the use of indigenous languages in the classroom. There is ample evidence that bilingual or immersion language education is beneficial in public school settings (Demmert, 2001). Teaching indigenous language in school is one part of the CBE paradigm. Research has highlighted the importance of language immersion education as well as culture-based curriculum for this population (Lipka, PUBLIC SCHOOLS SERVING NATIVE STUDENTS DORER AND FETTER 8 2002; Yazzie; 1999, Demmert, 2001; & Redmond & Wiethaus, 2009). The