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S. HRG. 109–115

INDIAN EDUCATION

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

ON

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON THE STATUS OF INDIAN EDUCATION

JUNE 16, 2005

WASHINGTON, DC

(
COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS

JOHN McCAIN, Arizona, Chairman

BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota, Vice Chairman

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico

CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming

GORDON SMITH, Oregon

LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska

MICHAEL D. CRAPO, Idaho

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina

TOM COBURN, M.D., Oklahoma

DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii

KENT CONRAD, North Dakota

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii

TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota

MARIA CANTWELL, Washington

JEANNE BUMPUS, Majority Staff Director

SARA G. GARLAND, Minority Staff Director

(II)
(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Statements:

Beaulieu, David, president, National Indian Education Association ........... 20

Bordeaux, Roger, superintendent, Tiospa Zina Tribal School; executive

director, Association of Community Tribal Schools, Inc. ........................... 25

Cason, Jim, associate deputy secretary, Department of the Interior ........... 3

Dorgan, Hon. Byron L., U.S. Senator from North Dakota, vice chairman,

Committee on Indian Affairs ....................................................................... 1

Johnson, Hon. Tim, U.S. Senator from South Dakota .................................. 13

Lowery, Nick, acting chairman, National Fund For Excellence In American Indian Education, Inc. .......................................................................... 17

McCain, Hon. John, U.S. Senator from Arizona, chairman, Committee

on Indian Affairs ........................................................................................... 1

McDonald, Joe, president, Salish Kootenai College, representing the

American Indian Higher Education Consortium ........................................ 22

Parisian, acting director, Office of Indian Education Programs, Department of the Interior ...................................................................................... 3

Thomas, Hon. Craig, U.S. Senator from Wyoming ........................................ 11

Vasques, Victoria, director, Office of Indian Education, Department of

Education ....................................................................................................... 4

APPENDIX

Prepared statements:

Beaulieu, David ................................................................................................ 35

Bordeaux, Roger (with attachment) ................................................................ 53

Cason, Jim ......................................................................................................... 74

Inouye, Hon. Daniel K., U.S. Senator from Hawaii ....................................... 112

McDonald, Joe (with attachment) ................................................................... 87

Leonard, Leland, director, Division of Dine’ Education, Navajo Nation ...... 33

Lowery, Nick (with attachment) ...................................................................... 80

Vasques, Victoria (with attachment) .............................................................. 99

(1)

INDIAN EDUCATION

THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 2005

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS, Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m. in room 485

Senate Russell Building, Hon. John McCain (chairman of the committee), presiding.

Present: Senators McCain, Dorgan, Johnson, and Thomas.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN MCCAIN, U.S. SENATOR FROM

ARIZONA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS

The CHAIRMAN. Good morning.

This oversight hearing will focus on Indian education. Exactly 1

year ago today, this committee held an oversight hearing on the No

Child Left Behind Act. It is timely to have an update on the implementation of that Act and other education issues.

As we all know, education is critical to preparing children for future leadership and productive employment and to strengthening

Indian economies. The committee’s hearing yesterday on Indian

youth suicide reminds us, however, that there are many challenges

facing Indian youth which limit educational achievement.

We must overcome this. We know that the Federal Government

has a special historic responsibility for Indian education. Indian

tribes also have a responsibility for their children’s education.

The committee is deeply concerned about the academic performance levels and dropout rates of American Indians and Alaska Native students. So we are particularly interested in hearing how

Federal agencies and Indian tribes are working together to improve

Indian education, particularly in areas such as academic achievement, safe schools and post-secondary graduation rates.

I would like to welcome the witnesses here today and look forward to their testimony, especially any recommendations for improving Indian education. Your entire statements will be made part

of the record.

Senator Dorgan.

STATEMENT OF HON. BYRON L. DORGAN, U.S. SENATOR FROM

NORTH DAKOTA, VICE CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON INDIAN

AFFAIRS

Senator DORGAN. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Thanks

for holding this hearing. I think education is one of the critical
2

pieces of trying to improve the situation on reservations in this

country.

I thought, with your permission, instead of an opening statement, I just want to read a 2-page letter which I think describes

better than I possibly could the urgency of dealing with education

issues. It is from a young woman. She starts in her letter, she

wrote to me:

I grew up poor, considered backwards by non-Indians. My home was a two-room

log house in a placed called The Bush on North Dakota’s Turtle Mountain Reservation. I stuttered. I was painfully shy. My clothes were hand-me-downs. I was like

thousands of other Indian kids growing up on reservations across America.

When I went to elementary school, I felt alone and different. I could not speak

for myself. My teachers had no appreciation of Indian culture. I will never forget

that it was the lighter-skinned kids who were treated better. They were usually

from families better off than mine. My teachers called me ‘‘savage.’’ Even as a young

child I wondered what does it take to be noticed and looked upon the way these

other children are.

By the time I reached 7th grade, I realized if my life was going to change for the

better, I was going to have to do it. Nobody could do it for me. That is when the

dream began. I thought of ways to change things for the better, not only for myself,

but for my people. I dreamed of growing up, of being a teacher, where every child

was treated sacred and viewed positively, even if they were poor and dirty. I did

not want any child to be made to feel like I did, but I did not know how hard it

would be to reach the realization of my dreams.

I almost did not make it. By the time I was 17, I had dropped out of school, moved

to California, had a child. I thought my life was over. But when I moved back to

the reservation, I made a discovery that literally helped me put my life back together. My sisters were attending Turtle Mountain Tribal College which had just

started on the reservation. I thought it was something I could do, too, so I enrolled.

In those days, we did not even have a campus. There was no building. Some classes met at a local alcohol rehabilitation center, an old hospital building that had been

condemned. To me, it did not matter. I was just amazed I could go to college. It

was life-changing.

My college friends and professors were like family, and for the first time in my

life I learned about the language, history, and culture of my people in a formal setting. I felt honor and pride begin to well-up inside me.

Her letter goes on, and she said:

I loved college so much that I could not stop. I had a dream to fulfill or perhaps

an obsession.

It turns out, this young women is now a Ph.D. involved in Indian

education and the administration of a number of different schools.

What a remarkable story that she sent to me in her letter. Her

name is Loretta. I have known Loretta for some while.

This letter describes from the standpoint of a young girl and now

a grown woman who has her Ph.D. It describes the importance of

education. Yes, in her life, but I think also in a broader scale the

importance of education in lifting people out of poverty, lifting people from hopelessness and helplessness to opportunity.

I wanted to read this letter. I have read it once before, but it so

well describes, I think better than any of us can, the importance

of education in the lives of young Indian children. It is why we

must focus on education in a way that puts together the kind of

success stories that we know can happen and will happen if we

make the right kind of decisions with respect to education policy.

Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for letting me do that.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Dorgan. It is

compelling testimony.

Our first panel is Jim Cason, who is the associate deputy secretary for Indian Affairs. He is accompanied by Ed Parisian, who
3

is the acting director of the Office of Indian Education Programs.

Victoria Vasques is the director of the Office of Indian Education

of the Department of Education.

Welcome, Mr. Cason. Why don’t we begin with you.

STATEMENT OF JIM CASON, ASSOCIATE DEPUTY SECRETARY,

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ACCOMPANIED BY

ED PARISIAN, ACTING DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF INDIAN

EDUCATION PROGRAMS

Mr. Cason. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice Chairman. I

really appreciate the opportunity to be here to discuss Indian education and the status of the program.

I am sitting in here as associate deputy secretary with the duties

and responsibilities of the assistant secretary, pending a search for

same. I am accompanied here with Ed Parisian, who is the deputy

director, basically leading the Indian education program.

We have been going through a process, Mr. Chairman, over the

last 3 months taking a look at Indian education and the results we

produce and the funds flow we get through the program to try and

improve our results. What we are finding basically is that our

school system is not producing the results that are acceptable. Out

of the 184 schools that we have, only one-third of them are meeting

AYP targets right now, the adequate yearly progress goals of No

Child Left Behind. That is clearly not sufficient.

So we have a big job ahead of us to figure out why it is that we

are only producing those kind of results, and do the job to take care

of it.

There are a couple of things that we have started with that I

would like to just share with the committee, and we can discuss at

whatever length you would like to. The first is, we are seeing this

as a job where we have to buckle down, roll up our sleeves, and

get results in this program that we do not have right now. What

we are trying to do at this point is to partner with the Department

of Education to make sure that we are clear about what actions

need to be taken and what results we need to get on an item-byitem basis so that we have a clear plan and a concerted effort on

the part of the Administration to get results.

We are working closely with the Department of Education now

on reviewing our program, developing an action plan that includes

the elements that are important to meet our statutory requirements, and to make sure we are in concert on the most important

items that need to be addressed first.

So with that, I appreciate Vickie Vasques being here. She is part

of the team in trying to improve the performance we have in the

program.

Second, we are developing an action plan in concert with DOE.

The action plan is broad and includes a lot of elements. That action

plan was initially developed by the Department of the Interior and

has been shared with the Department of Education. They are very

graciously sharing it with their senior staff to give us suggestions

on how to improve that.

We are going through a process now of mapping out and flowcharting all of the funds flow that goes through our education program. We have identified about 50 different streams of funding
4

that go through the program. We are mapping out what all the requirements are for those streams and what performance is expected from them. And then we are looking at school construction

to see what we can do to accelerate the pace of school construction

to effectively and efficiently use up the unobligated balances that

we have and actually get results of bricks and mortar buildings

that are available for schools.

We have an assignment going on right now with our education

line officers. We have them all in this week and we are going

through the process of trying to get ahead of the curve right now

for 2005–06 education school year. We have provided to our education line officers all the accountability workbooks on a State-byState basis where our schools are located so that they become very

clear very early in the process of what standards they have to meet

in order to pass our schools through the AYP goal line.

They have an assignment to go back to each school that they

have a relationship with to share the accountability workbook

standards, to be clear about what is expected on a school-by-school

basis, to examine where we are currently, do the gap analysis between our current performance and what performance is acceptable, and develop a school-by-school action plan as to how we can

drive that school across the goal line.

That assignment needs to be done in about the next 2 months

before we start the 2005–06 school year. I am looking forward to

seeing the results from that so that we can be a proactive element

in improving performance.

Last, Mr. Chairman, I would like to share that this is a commitment from the Secretary on down. We had Secretary Norton in

with our education line officers yesterday so that she could tell

them personally that this is an important thing for us to get done;

that educating these Indian kids is an important thing and that is

a mission we need to do better at.

With that, we would be happy to work with the committee in the

future and I appreciate the opportunity to be here.

[Prepared statement of Mr. Cason appears in appendix.]

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Ms. Vasques.

STATEMENT OF VICTORIA VASQUES, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF

INDIAN EDUCATION, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Ms. VASQUES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. On behalf of Secretary Spellings, let me thank you for this

opportunity to appear before you to discuss the current status of

Indian education.

I serve as the assistant deputy secretary and director for the Office of Indian Education. I am also from the San Pasqual Band of

Mission Indians in Southern California. I am here, as you mentioned, with my colleagues Darla Marburger and Tom Corwin.

Today, I will provide an overview on the educational performance

of American Indian and Alaska Native students from their early

childhood years, for elementary and secondary education, and

through the post-secondary education level. Collecting accurate

data on the American Indian and Alaska Native population has

been a long-term challenge for the department. Indian students are
5

a highly diverse group. There are over 560 federally recognized

tribes in the United States.

Indian students, though, constitute a very small portion of the

overall student population, and many Indian families reside in

small towns and rural areas. For these reasons, it is difficult for

any study to include a sufficient number of Indian students to yield

accurate, high-quality data.

I am pleased that the department in recent years has taken

major action to collect, analyze and report useful high-quality data

on the education status and needs of our Indian students. Our efforts have covered the schools operated or funded by the BIA, other

schools that have high concentrations of Indian students, and Indian children and adults more generally.

One example of this activity is our over-sampling of American Indian students in the national assessment of educational programs,

NAEP, in order to generate adequate representation of Indian students in the NAEP. This will give us reliable national-level data on

Indian students’ performance in reading and math, adding a whole

new subgroup of students to the Nation’s report card.

Indian students constitute about 1 percent of all students enrolled in public schools and often attend rural schools. Over onehalf of all Indian students attend schools in small towns and rural

areas. In 2002, there were approximately 628,000 American Indian

and Alaska Native students in public elementary and secondary

schools, including BIA schools. Approximately 582,000, over 90 percent, attended public schools, and 46,000 attended schools administered by the BIA.

Department of Education programs contribute a significant

amount of funding to the BIA for the education of Indian students

who attend BIA schools. The department has a longstanding partnership with the BIA over the administration of these programs.

We expect to sign a new MOA, memorandum of agreement with

the BIA covering No Child Left Behind issues very soon.

My written statement provides many of the key statistics on various aspects of the educational status of American Indians and

Alaska Natives. I will highlight just a few of them.

First, the overall data from NAEP on Indian students show that

their performance continues to lag below the national average on

reading, math and science assessments. This is true for both 4th

and 8th grade assessments. It is clear we have our work cut out

for us in closing the achievements gaps. It is important to note,

however, that before 2002 NAEP did not consistently assess

enough Indian students to provide reliable information about their

performance. The department has embarked on an effort to ensure

that NAEP produces more reliable national-level data on the performance of Indian students. We now have a benchmark to measure Indian students’ academic progress through the years.

Our work also supports the department’s accountability efforts.

Disaggregated data are a key tenet of the accountability embedded

in the No Child Left Behind Act. We will use NAEP data to measure the performance of Indian students and the programs that

serve them over time.
6

Second, I am pleased to report that in some States, including Arizona and North Dakota, we are seeing meaningful gains in

achievement by Indian students.

Third, high school dropout rates for Indian students continue to

be too high. In addition, Indian students often have higher rates

of absenteeism, suspension and expulsion than others.

Fourth, with respect to higher education, the number of Indian

students enrolling in colleges and universities has more than doubled in the last 25 years or so. The number of degrees awarded to

Indian students increased dramatically between 1976 and 2002.

Mr. Chairman, the department is making a serious effort to

produce up to date, high-quality data about Indian students. We

have been working to collect and release data on this population

so that we know how Indian students are doing and can adjust

policies and provide resources to address the needs that the data

show are most critical. We plan to publish four important documents on American Indian and Alaska Native students by the end

of the year. One report will contain an overview of demographic

characteristics of Indian students and further analysis of Indian

student performance along a number of key indicators.

Another will address the demographic and family characteristics

and early mental and physical development of 9-month-old American Indian and Alaska Native children. Two other reports, one on

post-secondary education and Indian students, and another consisting of a special analysis of decennial census data on the Indian

population are planned for release later in the year.

Next year, we will release special NAEP reports that will provide

information about the educational experience of American Indian

and Alaska Native students and the role of their Indian culture in

their education.

Before I conclude, I would like to take 1 minute to talk about

how NCLB holds great promise for improving the education and

academic achievement of Indian students. Its emphasis on stronger

accountability for all students and the use of desegregated data ensure that schools address the needs of all their students, including

those of Indian students. NCLB’s emphasis on teacher quality will

require that all students, including Indian students, are taught by

highly qualified teachers who are certified, hold a bachelor’s degree, and have demonstrated knowledge of their subject matter.

President Bush’s Executive order which recognizes the unique

educational and culturally related academic needs of Indian students will assist us in implementing NCLB. My office has taken a

lead role in the implementation of that order. The department, in

partnership with the Department of the Interior, just convened a

national conference this past April which brought together representatives from Federal agencies, State educational agencies,

tribal educational agencies and local officials. At the conference, we

discussed how to implement NCLB in a manner that is consistent

with tribal traditions, culture and language.

It identified five key areas: Closing the achievement gap and appropriate assessment of Indian students; training and developing

American Indian and Alaska Native teachers; promoting continuity

of tribal traditions, language and culture; scientifically based research on Indian education and the training of American Indian
7

and Alaska Native researchers; local, tribal, State, and Federal collaboration.

The department’s work in the immediate future will focus on developing solutions, strategies, resources and technical assistance in

the areas for agencies that serve Indian children. There are significant achievement gaps between the American Indian and Alaska

Native student population and the general population. Although

Indian students have made some progress in recent decades and

score higher than some other major ethnic and racial groups on

some indicators, the Indian student population continues to be subject to significant risk factors that threaten their ability to improve

their academic achievement and their general well being.

Strategies to improve their education will need to take into account these risk factors, as well as the challenges of educating a

culturally diverse population in rural and remote areas. Our efforts

to collect reliable data on the Indian population have yielded a

number of useful data sources that can be used to hold educational

agencies that serve these students, and us, accountable for the performance of Indian students across this Nation.

In closing, I applaud you, Mr. Chairman, and the other members

of this committee for steadfastly confronting the challenges facing

Indian education. I look forward to working with you, Mr. Cason

and our tribal leadership as we reach a solution or solutions to ensure that future generations of our Indian students are not left behind.

I thank you for this opportunity and I welcome your questions.

[Prepared statement of Ms. Vasques appears in appendix.]

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Mr. Cason, on September 4, 2003 the GAO delivered its report

to Congress as required by the No Child Left Behind Act, noting

that BIA schools have certain characteristics that make them more

costly to operate than the average public school. I certainly accept

that thesis. The GAO noted, quote, ‘‘the agency has little financial

data to use in forming the budget that Interior proposes to the

Congress.’’ The GAO concluded the BIA has no formal mechanisms

such as a needs assessment for determining how much funding is

needed for instruction or transportation. Have you addressed those

issues, Mr. Cason?

Mr. Cason. Mr. Chairman, I do not know how completely they

have been addressed. I will have Ed comment on that as well. He

is probably more familiar with it. One thing that we are doing,

though, Mr. Chairman, to make sure we get a comprehensive look

at the evaluations that have been made about the education program is we are going through a process of pulling all the GAO reports, IG reports from the Department of the Interior, IG reports

from the Department of Education and any other external evaluation that has been done. We are going through a process of cataloging all the funding recommendations from all those reports to actually give a definitive answer on what steps have been taken to implement responses to all of them.

So I know we have that effort ongoing. I have seen a draft of

that. I do not know in this particular case what has been done.

So Ed, could you comment on that?
8

The CHAIRMAN. That is a pretty fundamental and important

issue that we do not have a needs assessment for determining how

much funding is needed for instruction or transportation.

Mr. Parisian, do you want to comment?

Mr. PARISIAN. Yes; good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of

the panel.

What we are doing presently is putting together a data system

nationally where we can collect that information. We do not have

that currently available. We have a contract out. We hope to have

that up by July 2006. Part of that GAO report had to do with getting information from our tribal grant schools. We need to work

with them more closely to get accurate information that we can put

into our data system so that we have it across the board, not just

for our bureau-operated schools, but for the tribal grant schools

that we also provide service to.

The CHAIRMAN. You have 64 schools operated by the BIA?

Mr. PARISIAN. Sir, 62 bureau-operated schools and 122 grant and

contract schools.

The CHAIRMAN. And it is going to take you until July 2006 to

find out what the instruction and transportation needs are for

these schools? Please.

Ms. Vasques, it is interesting that you were testifying to all the

things that you are going to do to comply with NCLB. It was

signed into law three-and-a-half years ago by the President of the

United States. What have you done so far to implement NCLB?

Ms. VASQUES. Sir, we have gone out and met with all of our——

The CHAIRMAN. So you have had meetings. Good.

Ms. VASQUES. Well, we have also been working with the BIA on

their No Child Left Behind negotiated rulemaking. We have been

working with the States.

The CHAIRMAN. Have they completed that rulemaking?

Ms. VASQUES. Yes, sir; it was just finalized 1 week ago.

Mr. Cason. Sir, the final regulations came into effect May 31,

2005.

Ms. VASQUES. We have also been working very closely with the

Counsel of Chief State School Officers, which are the State Chiefs

that oversee the public education systems. They have now formed

a Native American task force to work with us where we have highly populated areas of Indian students in their particular States. I

think that was an area, in all honesty, that was missing in these

discussions with No Child Left Behind.

We see a lot of progress going from the State Chiefs and many

Governors that are working with us on the challenges of No Child

Left Behind, especially in those communities where the public——

The CHAIRMAN. You are working with Governors to determine

the needs on Indian reservations?

Ms. VASQUES. No; the Chief State Schools are working with their

Governors because they are working for the State.

The CHAIRMAN. What role does the State play in the administration of a BIA school?

Ms. VASQUES. I am speaking for the public schools, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. The purpose of this hearing is to discuss the

state of Indian education.
9

Ms. VASQUES. Yes, sir; 90-some percent of our Indian students

attend the public schools.

The CHAIRMAN. I understand that. We are talking about BIA

schools.

Ms. VASQUES. We are working very closely with Jim Cason on

the issues that he reported to you earlier on helping assist them

with their action plan. He sat in a meeting with us with our seniorlevel officials and allowed us to be brutally honest on the issues

that the Department of Education has with the BIA on their highrisk areas. For example, we are working with him on their program

performance, their program outcomes, helping them with their

human capital. We see a lot of issues with high turnover, teacher

quality, management, the accountability assessment.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the average salary of a teacher at a BIAadministered school, Ms. Vasques? An entry-level salary?

Ms. VASQUES. I do not know that answer.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you familiar with an Office of Inspector General report that says the central office of the Office of Indian Education has not adequately managed its administrative funds, resulting in a failure to maximize monies available for distribution

to Indian schools? Are you familiar with that report?

Ms. VASQUES. Somewhat, I am.

The CHAIRMAN. Has any action been taken?

Ms. VASQUES. Several of our program offices are working very

closely with the BIA to make sure that there is corrective action

taking place with several fiscal years of funding.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Dorgan.

Senator DORGAN. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

I am trying to understand this. I have heard the testimony here,

Mr. Cason and Ms. Vasques. Some of it does not sound to me like

it is in English. You are talking about all these acronyms and these

programs and the coordination. I know money is not everything,

but I do not understand what is happening with respect to funding.

You do not have a needs assessment yet. I have been to many of

these schools, as have my colleagues. We understand the shape

they are in. We have GAO reports and Inspector General’s reports

that describe the desperate need to bring these BIA schools up to

standards.

Yet, let me go through the recommendations. Let me start with

the tribal colleges. The President suggested we cut tribal colleges

by $10 million. Is that a step forward or a step backward? What

is the basis for saying we ought to cut funding for tribal colleges?

Mr. Cason. Is that 2006 spending, Senator, that you are talking

about?

Senator DORGAN. Yes; the President’s budget recommends cutting $10 million from the previously appropriated level of funding

for tribal colleges. How does that advance Indian education?

Mr. Cason. Taken in microcosm, I think you would say it probably does not. But as you know, Senator, when we go through the

budgeting process, there are lots of considerations that enter into

the decisions about where you place money, what the priorities are.

The budgeting process with Indian country ends up being one that

starts with a BIA tribal budget committee meeting. There is lots

of discussion about what the relative priorities are there.
10

There are discussions within the Department of the Interior, balancing the BIA budget against all the other budgets in the department. It goes to OMB and it comes up to Congress. There are lots

of people that have a role in the process.

Senator DORGAN. I understand that process.

Mr. Cason. So if you just look at it in a microcosm and that is

the only consideration in developing a budget, you would have, say,

1 dozen. Within the broader context of all the priorities we have,

I am not sure who influenced the process to arrive at that conclusion in the past budget.

Senator DORGAN. It sounds to me like you are saying do not take

a close look. ‘‘Microcosm’’ is a close look.

Mr. Cason. No; it needs a close look.

Senator DORGAN. Well, a close look would suggest that the President’s budget cut funding for tribal colleges by $10 million; cut

funding for replacement school construction from $105 million to

$43 million; and cut funding for facilities and improvement repair.

I do not understand this. How can you come and talk about a commitment to education when you look at these cuts, yet we know the

needs are so great. And then you say, well, you can’t look at it that

way. You are taking a close look. You are looking it in microcosm.

All I know is that Donald Trump is going to get another big tax

cut if the priorities that exist through the process you described

somehow prevail.

With tribal colleges, for example, or facilities improvement repair

of these schools that are in desperate need of repair, and you know

what the GAO and the IGs have said, all I know is that if you take

a close look, and that is what we are trying to do this morning, this

does not meet the test of commonsense. I am just asking the question, who makes these decisions and why? And do you support the

decisions?

Mr. Cason. Well, Senator, on this particular issue about the

school construction, as I recall you and I had that discussion when

I testified on the budget, that for 2006 the underlying rationale for

the cuts in that program were associated with the pace at which

we are getting school construction done. Within that, we had a very

large unobligated balance in the school construction fund. So basically, we were looking at trying to get caught up in getting these

schools constructed we already had funding for which we had not

been able to get done.

If you go back and look at it historically, the President has

placed a huge amount of emphasis on additional school construction. If I recall the figures correctly, we have invested somewhere

on the order of $1.5 billion new dollars into the process or asked

for and Congress has been gracious enough to give us about $1.5

billion over the last four years for new school construction. That

was a substantial increase over the amount of monies that were

available in the prior 8 years.

We have been attempting to increase our ability or capacity to

build schools much faster and get those dollars used effectively.

That is exactly what we are doing right now, to be able to use the

unobligated balances during 2006.

Senator DORGAN. Well, all I know is that this does not add up.

Mr. Chairman, I am the Ranking Member on the Interior Appro-
11

priations Subcommittee. We just marked up that bill. We are

spending $500 million less than we spent last year. This is not a

cut in the rate of growth. We had $500 million less than we had

the previous year. We have a fiscal policy that is just off the tracks.

So what happens? Indian children who go to these schools are

going to pay the price for it because we are not willing to own up

to the needs. I think the chairman sitting next to me seemed to express some concern, perhaps that is too mild a word, at the fact

that we do not have a needs assessment. A needs assessment ought

to be the first criteria here. This is a needs assessment for the welfare of children. These are little kids that we send to these schools.

I have seen these schools. I have been to these schools. I have

talked on the floor of the Senate about a school with 150 kids, one

water fountain, two bathrooms, desks an inch apart. The fact is, we

have to do better. I am not very impressed with the priorities. I do

look at this in a microcosm, but if you are trying to run a tribal

college system to give hope for people to get up and out of poverty

and get training and skills and education, and then you see a recommendation saying let’s cut it by $10 million, what kind of commitment is that to that system?

I happen to think tribal colleges are enormously important because they allow people to go to college who otherwise could not go,

because in their communities where they have extended families

and can get child care and the other things, this system works. It

allows people to go to college who otherwise would not get a college

education.

So I am just expressing some frustration that all the nice sounds

you are making this morning are not matched by the commitment

to fund that which we need to fund, in my judgment.

Mr. Cason. Thank you, Senator. I think we both agree there is

an important mission for us to serve in Indian Affairs at the Department of Education in getting Indian kids educated. That is an

important mission and clearly, as I said in my opening statement,

we are not doing enough to get the results that we need in that

program.

So we are going back to basically look at what is it that are the

causal factors for why we are not being successful. If funding is one

of those issues, that will be something on the plate with the Secretary and I to talk about.

Senator DORGAN. Mr. Chairman, let me ask consent that a statement from Senator Inouye be entered in the record at the start of

the hearing.

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection.

Senator Thomas, welcome.

STATEMENT OF HON. CRAIG THOMAS, U.S. SENATOR FROM

WYOMING

Senator THOMAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Sorry I was a little late and did not hear it all. We had some energy things going on, as you know, but I am very much interested

in Indian education, of course.

We have one BIA school on our reservations. I think 90 percent

of our Indian kids go to the other kind of schools, as a matter of

fact. I am a little surprised to hear a little bit. I did not know that
12

some of these things had an impact so much on it. I understand

that there has been a $3.6 billion increase since 2001 for Indian

education. In our State, we spend about $8,000 per pupil and the

Indian schools spend over $9,000. Of course, spending is easy, but

I did not know Bill Gates had anything to do with it, Frankly.

Senator DORGAN. It is Donald Trump.

Senator THOMAS. Oh, Donald Trump. I am sorry. I got confused.

Senator DORGAN. I could mention Bill Gates, though. [Laughter.]

Senator THOMAS. You mentioned trying to find some solutions.

Just in broad terms, what do you think are the basic problems facing us in terms of Native American education? Just shortly form

all three of you, very quickly, what are the major problems facing

us?

Ms. VASQUES. It is important, and I apologize, Mr. Chairman, to

not focus just on the BIA schools. It is important to note that the

Department of Education provides almost 25 percent of the Office

of Indian Education program dollars for their education efforts. We

also have seen major increases in the past few years in their special education and title I dollars.

On the question that you ask——

Senator THOMAS. What do you think are the basic challenges facing you?

Ms. VASQUES. For us, I would have to say making education the

number one priority for not only this committee, but our tribal

leadership. Whenever I go out and speak, my number one challenge

to those that will listen is to challenge our tribal leaders to put

education on their agenda. Many times, I am asked to speak and

I am at a sub-level meeting and not the General Assembly. Education, as you all have said so eloquently, should be number one

on our agenda, on everyone’s agenda. It is the answer to our economic prosperity.

Senator THOMAS. I am assuming you are saying it is not.

Ms. VASQUES. I think it is our number one agenda. I know it is

our number one agenda, but I do not know if I feel that it is the

number on agenda out there when I am working in the field.

Senator THOMAS. Mr. Cason.

Mr. Cason. Senator, I have maybe a little different view within

the Department of the Interior for the Indian education program.

I think, first, there is not a clear set of expectations about roles and

responsibilities to get the results that we need. We have a fairly

complicated environment. Some of the schools are run by BIA directly and 122 of our schools are run through tribal grants where

the tribe is essentially responsible for running the school.

It is not entirely clear throughout the organization and with the

tribes as to what the roles and responsibilities are to give performance results; what is acceptable; what is not acceptable; and having

any clear mechanisms to do something about the unacceptable. So

that is something we need to develop.

Second, I think profile is part of the issue, that currently the

education program resides within BIA, but it has not been the

principal focus of BIA as opposed to other issues like trust, providing welfare services and general assistance. It is certainly an important program, but it has not had the profile that maybe it
13

needs. That is one of the issues that we are taking a look at changing.

Third, I think that local socio-economic considerations are a driver; that as this committee probably knows, Indian country in general is one of our poorest sub-populations. I was speaking with the

director of BIA this morning. He had just gotten back from Pine

Ridge and he told me that the unemployment rate on Pine Ridge

is 89 percent. That is a terrible situation for us and it is a terrible

situation from which you can send children to get them educated

and have the kind of family support that they really need to participate in educational programs.

Family support is a key issue, that there has to be an expectation on the role of parents to encourage their children to be in

school, to participate in school, to excel at school. I know I have to

do that with mine and it takes parents everywhere to be active

participants in the process. In some cases where you do not have

parents doing that, it becomes a problem.

I think another area that is important for us is the leadership

of the program within Interior. Right now, we are sitting in a position that Ed represents the only SES person in the Indian Education Program. We have about 5,000 employees there, and Ed is

the SES person. So that is one of the issues that we are taking a

look at, to add some leadership capability into the organization.

That is not completely defined yet, but that is one of the things

that we need to get done.

Senator THOMAS. Thank you. I have taken more than my time.

Sorry.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Senator Johnson.

STATEMENT OF HON. TIM JOHNSON, U.S. SENATOR FROM

SOUTH DAKOTA

Senator JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to

you and Senator Dorgan for holding this hearing.

A special welcome to Dr. Roger Bordeaux, who is superintendent

at Tiospa Zina School located on our Sisseton-Wahpeton Reservation. I look forward to his testimony.

I have competing obligations and will not be able to stay for the

entire hearing, but there are a couple of points I want to raise and

questions I have today.

First, obviously, we must retain the appropriate area and agency

technical support of our BIA schools. We have to be assured that

the AYP does not realign or reduce the regional line officers in our

region. If realignment is deemed necessary, I think this has to be

done with true consultation with our affected tribal parties.

Second, we continue to have financial problems and disagreements in South Dakota. Currently, the St. Francis and the Enemy

Swim Schools have reached the construction stage, but we continue

to have conflicts with the BIA over square-footage issues. We are

at great risk of building new schools that will be inadequate from

day one because of the square-footage issues. I know Enemy Swim

in particular had an agreement with BIA and then the BIA seems

to have reneged on its agreement about the square-footage being
14

involved. I may submit written questions to you for a response to

that.

Another more immediate problem that is of great urgency has to

do with our Crow Creek School on the Crow Creek Reservation.

The dormitory for the Crow Creek School literally burnt to the

ground. It is gone. The BIA has said that they can have some

money that they have held back for gymnasium reconstruction,

which is a separate matter. They have provided a modest amount

of money, most of which will go for tearing down the burnt-out facility and taking care of the damage there. A small amount will be

left for emergency dormitory space that they will have to put in

this summer.

However, the BIA has come up $4 million short for what is necessary for that temporary dormitory space. As a consequence, a

good share of the students who attend Crow Creek will not longer

be able to attend Crow Creek. That means that their budget falls

off, the funding drops off, which means that they are going to have

to fire faculty and staff because they are not going to have the

budget for this fall.

I am immensely frustrated that in an emergency situation like

this, that reprogrammed or some sort of money could not be made

available in order to at least accommodate the dormitory needs at

Crow Creek so that they can open school this fall. Time is running.

If we start now, it is going to be difficult to get all of this done.

There is a South Dakota corporation working with the Governor

that has volunteered to put Crow Creek at the head of the line for

the temporary housing space, but I see just utter inaction on the

part of the BIA at this point about what are you going to do about

the Crow Creek School with the crisis that they have right now,

if they are going to in fact be up and running this summer.

Now, Crow Creek is number nine on the facilities list, so ultimately I am certain they will get a new proper school, but what

do you do between now and the fall? This is a matter of great urgent crisis that frankly the BIA has not been responsive about. I

find this enormously frustrating.

Let me ask Mr. Cason, what should we do? What should the people of Crow Creek do and what should their children do?

Mr. CASON. Well, Senator, I am pleased that you brought that

up. That is an issue that I dealt with personally so I have a substantially different view of the circumstances than you have just

expressed. In fact, the BIA started working on providing assistance

immediately after the fire. Our SES staff person in charge of facilities, a guy named Jack Reiver was in contact with the tribe immediately thereafter to assess what their needs were.

We had extensive discussions with a person for the tribe. I talked

to the tribal chairman myself. I talked to the guy for the tribe that

actually works on the schools, that is in charge of the schools. I

talked to the Governor’s staff person, I think it was his chief of

staff, that was working on this issue.

Basically, what we tried to work out was a partnering relationship, who could contribute what, to get them back up. The objective

shared by all was to ensure that they could be back in operation

August of this year, so that they could have a complete school year.

That basically entailed providing a replacement temporary dining
15

facility and kitchen, which the BIA is contributing. It also involved

dormitory space, as you mentioned.

The issue on the dormitory space is we very carefully looked at

what the need was in light of being a temporary solution. What we

found is that at the beginning of the last school year, there were

approximately 200 students that were dormed; that at the time of

the fire there were approximately 120 students that were dormed;

that in the aftermath of the fire, the tribe managed to house the

approximately 40 to 50 students who were brought in off-reservation from other reservations at a local hotel facility, and that they

were able to successfully employ a busing program to bus all the

other students that had been living in the dorm, but actually lived

on the reservation.

So we had some flexibility in how we addressed the issue. The

critical mass was basically the 40 or 50 students from off the reservation. We definitely needed space for them. We needed space for

another amount of students that lived on the reservation, could

have been bused, but maybe were not in housing situations that

were optimal.

What we worked out with the tribe is that we could basically provide approximately $600,000 to build temporary dorm space, the

equivalent to about 120 students. We also worked out with the

tribe that if the Governor’s office could come through with another

$300,000 on environmental assessment, we would move our

$300,000 that we had dedicated for that into dormitory space. It is

my understanding at this point that that is what we are doing.

So we have not attempted to replicate in toto temporary dormitory space equivalent to the maximum number of students that

had been in the dorm, but we tried to give a lot of flexibility to the

tribe by providing temporary dorm space that would accommodate

all of the off-reservation students and a large number of on-reservation students who needed better housing.

Senator JOHNSON. We will follow-up with you on that. I appreciate that you have been in communication with the tribe.

One of the questions that was raised to me while I was there,

and I do not know if this is conveyed to me correctly or not, but

the school indicated and the tribe indicated to me that previously

the tribe had insured the school facility, that they were directed by

the BIA to drop their insurance. They did maintain insurance on

the contents, but not of the building itself. Is that correct? Is that

BIA policy to tell tribes not to insure school facilities and BIA facilities?

Mr. Cason. I asked that same question, sir, and I do not believe

it is BIA policy, but we were trying to determine who exactly told

them that. We have not gotten a name on that yet, so we tried to

follow up on that because it is not our policy to say, no, do not insure your buildings. Actually, we recommend that they do insure

their buildings.

Senator JOHNSON. I would appreciate your getting to the bottom

of this a little bit. It sounded sort of counterintuitive, but I did

want to see if you are pursuing in fact what occurred in that situation.

Mr. Cason. We are. And Senator, would you mind if I just followup on a couple of other things.
16

You had mentioned the name of a school that there was a

square-foot problem in. What is the name of that?

Senator JOHNSON. Yes; we have two schools. One is at St.

Francis and the other is at Enemy Swim. Enemy Swim is on the

Sisseton–Wahpeton Reservation and St. Francis is on the Rosebud.

Mr. Cason. So it is ‘‘enemy’’ as in a person I do not like? Enemy

Swim?

Senator JOHNSON. Yes; Enemy Swim.

Mr. Cason. Okay. We will follow-up on that.

Senator JOHNSON. I appreciate your following up on that.

My last comment, and I know that the committee needs to move

on, I really do think that, and I do not lay this blame at the feet

of the BIA particularly, but I am enormously frustrated about our

national priorities. The level of poverty on our Indian reservations

in South Dakota is simply immense. It is breathtaking, the multiplicity of problems that these people face and there is no silver

bullet out there. I know that.

But I do believe that education is one of the keys, from early

Head Start all the way through our tribal college programs. We

need a larger pool of Native American teachers and nurses and

managers and entrepreneurs who become role models for other

young people. We need more of a private sector economic activity

going on, and only education and job skills can make that happen.

I share Senator Dorgan’s concern about overall levels of funding

and priorities. He and I have worked on the college funding issue,

a $10 million recommendation for reduction in funding. When you

come back from Pine Ridge, Oglala Lakota College is the college

that happens to be on the Pine Ridge. We have several. They are

accredited. They are doing great work. They are creating a new

generation of leaders, but they are operating on a per capita per

student funding level of about half of what a community college

anywhere else in the country would be expected to have.

It seems to me at a time when the Administration is talking about a $10-million cut there, at the same time, and I know some

people do not like it when some of us bring this up, but the cost

of the extension of tax cuts given to people who make over $1 million per year, not millionaires, people who make over $1 million a

year, the cost to the Treasury in fiscal year 2006 will be $32 billion

drained out of the Treasury. And then we say, well, we do not have

$10 million for Indian kids to get a college education.

I just find that mind-boggling as a priority for this, the richest

Nation on Earth, to be essentially pulling up the ladder for academic success for a new generation of young people who we are in

dire need of to provide leadership on these reservations. It is so

penny-wise and pound-foolish and a distortion of what I think really are values as Americans ought to be. I share Senator Dorgan’s

distress about that. I know I am talking into the wind here, but

I simply cannot conclude my remarks without making reference to

the priorities and the values that Senator Dorgan and I share.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Johnson.

I thank the witnesses. I would like to just comment as you depart that you are in a process, according to your testimony, in making various assessments, completing studies and plans of action.
17

We probably will have another hearing perhaps in the fall to and

maybe you can give us some more definitive results at that time.

It might be appropriate then.

Mr. Cason. That would be great, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. I thank the witnesses.

Ms. VASQUES. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. The next panel is Nick Lowery. He is the acting

chairman of the National Fund for Excellence in American Indian

Education; David Beaulieu, who is the president of the National Indian Education Association; Joe McDonald, who is the president of

the Salish Kootenai College in Pablo, MT. He is representing the

American Indian Higher Education Consortium. And Roger Bordeaux, who is the superintendent of Tiospa Zina Tribal School and

executive director of the Association of Community Tribal Schools

in Sisseton, SD.

I welcome the witnesses. All of your complete written statements

will be made part of the record. We will begin with you, Mr. Lowery.

STATEMENT OF NICK LOWERY, ACTING CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL

FUND FOR EXCELLENCE IN AMERICAN INDIAN EDUCATION,

INC.

Mr. LOWERY. Good morning, Senator McCain. It is a true honor

to be here and to represent the outstanding board of directors of

the National Fund, one of whom is next to me.

I ask that a copy of my written testimony, along with the attached proposed draft amendment language be accepted in the

record of this hearing.

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection.

Mr. LOWERY. Thank you.

I represent the National Fund for Excellence in American Indian

Education, known as the National Fund. The National Fund is a

charitable foundation first authorized by Federal statute almost 5

years ago and initially known as the American Indian Education

Foundation. I am here today to provide you with a brief progress

report, as well as to discuss certain changes to our statutory charter that would provide the National Fund with some essential administrative flexibility and better safeguard its funding base and

its purpose.

The National Fund was authorized by Public Law 107–568, the

Omnibus Indian Advancement Act of 2000. The primary purpose of

the National Fund is to encourage, accept and administer donations to support the mission of the Office of Indian Education Programs. There are currently an estimated 49,000 students in 184

schools, as you heard earlier. In addition, perhaps as many as

900,000, if you believe the census, American Indian students are

educated in public schools in 50 States, enrolled in about 10,000

school districts.

Like those in BIA schools, many often exist below the radar

screen of society. Most confront high rates of apathy, alienation, alcoholism, teenage suicide, teenage pregnancy, and gang violence.

No one here, I believe, denies that more must be done to reach,

train, mentor and inspire our most precious resource, and no one
18

here, I believe, denies that we must do more to help Native American youth embrace a robust self-determination and higher destiny.

The history of our formation efforts have been problematic, to say

the least. When the foundation was authorized in late 2000, Congress directed the Secretary of the Interior to appoint its board and

provide it with financial support. There are several models for the

foundation in the sense that they were initially created by Congress, given birth within an agency such as Interior, with the intent and the eventual result that they would become fully independent entities. Two of those, the National Park Foundation and

the Fish and Wildlife Foundation are exemplified to my right.

The board was sworn in in March 2003. Since that time, we have

met on four occasions to set priorities and plan for the future independence and effectiveness and impact of the foundation. First, the

name change. The initial obstacle in incorporating into filing the

necessary application for nonprofit tax-exempt status was the discovery in November 2002 that another organization held prior and

superior legal rights to the same name, the American Indian Education Foundation, given our foundation by Congress in late 2000.

It took us a full year, Mr. Chairman, to change our name, which

is now the National Fund. We are grateful to former Chairman Ben

Nighthorse Campbell and other members of this committee, as well

as Representative Rick Renzi for assistance in securing the name

change. It should be noted that during this time, there was nominal support from the Department of the Interior for the name

change.

The National Fund was incorporated in the District of Columbia

in July 2004. Subsequent to that, as soon as its name change statute was signed and shortly thereafter, we filed our application for

nonprofit tax-exempt status. In November 2004, we received our

determination letter from the Internal Revenue Service.

Let me just go briefly over the obstacles we need to remove to

allow us to achieve effectiveness and impact on some of those

issues that were addressed earlier today. At this point, the board

of directors of the National Fund has identified several obstacles.

What follows is our description.

First of all, redesignation of the chief operating officer. The authorizing statute oddly requires the chief operating officer of the

foundation, who is Dave Beaulieu, actually, that he must be a

board member who is secretary to the board of directors.

A second is adjustment to the ceiling set on administrative costs.

As you see from this chart, neither the National Park Foundation,

the Fish and Wildlife Foundation, indeed we know of no similar restrictions being placed upon other similar fundraising organizations that need to spend money in order to raise money.

We might suggest that the most efficient way to do this would

be to extend the section 501(l) of the original legislation, which is

a waiver, and extend that through fiscal year 2007. Any number

of articles, including an article from the Center for Philanthropy at

Indiana State mention the importance of setting up effective infrastructure at the beginning of an organization to make it achieve its

mission.

Second, repeal of reimbursement requirements. Once again, this

is something that is not required of the National Park Foundation
19

or the Fish and Wildlife Foundation. We would like to see this also

repealed because fundamentally, we need to maximize the dollars

available, as you just talked about, for the classroom and the

hearts and minds of Native American students, not simply to reimburse the Secretary of the Interior.

Finally, requests for oversight assistance to transfer donated

funds. We met with Jim Cason yesterday and are trying to work

out transfer of funds. We hope this will be followed-through on. We

are optimistic that it will, but it has been quite a problematic process. In addition to releasing these funds in short order, which

amount to only $200,000 at this point, we will ask the committee

and the Congress to work with us to authorize and fund an endowment appropriation by which we can begin to operate the National

Fund and raise private contributions and offer the program services that were in our initial charter.

In conclusion, the National Fund’s board of directors desires this

committee to know that despite all of the obstacles identified along

the way, we are proceeding as best we can, given that we have no

accessible resources. The actual process of putting the organization

together highlights new challenges, all of which were unanticipated

by the National Fund’s originators and sponsors. Without any

funding, the foundation board and staff have begun to identify private sources of support and are drafting grant fund proposals that

will generate some revenue.

Our testimony reflects a summary of the concerns and accomplishments of the board of directors of the National Fund for Excellence in American Indian Education. The board took an oath, Mr.

Chairman, to serve the best interests of American Indian education. We request the committee’s help in modifying the statute,

as well as providing some assistance in gaining greater financial

support for the fund.

We have attached proposed draft legislation on the statutory

amendments. An estimated 60 percent of the 49,000 students in

the 184 BIA schools are dropping out. Approximately three-fourths

of schools in the system are failing the No Child Left Behind annual yearly progress standards. This does not include the up to

900,000 potential Native students at non-BIA schools. The time is

now to do all we can to build as much sense of urgency, leadership,

vision and capacity into the system as we can.

Mr. Chairman, I will conclude by simply saying we have an outstanding board of directors. David Beaulieu, his track record

speaks for itself, as a former president. He is now the current

president of the National Indian Education Association. He was the

former director of Human Resources for the State of Minnesota.

Sharon Darling is a founder and president of the National Center

for Family Literacy. She is an internationally recognized leader in

the field of family literacy and has raised $80 million for family literacy. John Guevremont is the COO of the Mashantucket Pequot

Tribe, of which he is a member and which is taking a more national role in pursuing Indian education benefits and improvements.

Regis Pecos is currently the chief of staff to the New Mexico

Speaker of the House. He is a Princeton graduate and is the first

American Indian appointed to the Board of Regents of Princeton.
20

Jo-Anne Stately is a member of the White Earth Ojibway Tribe.

She currently serves as president of the Native Americans in Philanthropy and is overseeing millions of dollars of grants for Native

American projects. Linda Sue Warner currently works as associate

vice chancellor for the Tennessee Board of Regents. She is a member of the Comanche Tribe of Oklahoma.

And finally, Gwen Shunatona, who currently works as director of

the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation Education Office. Myself, I

worked in the Office of National Service for President Bush and

President Clinton. I was cofounder of Native Vision, which is beginning today, actually, in New Mexico with 800 young athletes from

30 tribes. I am founder of Nation Building for Native Youth, which

is a leadership and self-governance program in keeping with the vision of recently departed Secretary of Indian Affairs Dave Anderson. I also happened to play almost 20 years in the National Football League, which I think actually has helped me see the impact

that role models can have on young people if they are given the opportunity.

Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the board of directors, I wish to extend to you and the members of the committee our gratitude for

this opportunity to testify at the hearing, and thank you for the

time and attention you have given us and our concerns.

Thank you.

[Prepared statement of Mr. Lowery appears in appendix.]

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Mr. Beaulieu.

STATEMENT OF DAVID BEAULIEU, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL

INDIAN EDUCATION ASSOCIATION

Mr. BEAULIEU. Chairman McCain, members of the committee,

my name is David Beaulieu. I am a member of the Minnesota

Chippewa Tribe from the White Earth Reservation, and president

of the National Indian Education Association.

The National Indian Education Association has within the last

year begun to focus, and we encourage the committee to also focus

comprehensively on the needs of Native children in light of the long

and growing health and overall needs of Native children. Mental

health issues, including high levels of substance abuse, suicide

rates, poor housing and health conditions all impact the capacity

of Native children to learn and schools to be responsive to their

principal education purposes. We must comprehensively develop

strategies that engage families, communities and tribes in every

aspect of the care and education of Native children.

Although the National Indian Education Association supports the

broad-based principles of accountability and documented results of

No Child Left Behind, there is widespread and growing concern

about the many obstacles that the NCLB presents to Indian communities who often live in remote, isolated and economically disadvantaged communities. Specifically as detailed in our written

testimony, we have identified many factors that we think are important to note, specifically financial resources. We believe that

schools serving Native students receive inadequate levels of funding. As noted in the September 2003 GAO report on BIA schools,
21

the student population is characterized by factors that are generally associated with higher costs in education.

We simply need monies to invest in Indian education. This lack

of investment, combined with the shortened time frame for results

and the focus on attempting to meet tests that often are incompatible with actually documented results that are being accomplished,

are causing in a sense a train wreck. Our schools are often feeling

in crisis. Many positive and wonderful aspects of the educational

programs are being eliminated to focus on tests and driving performance to test results, without considering the broad-based quality of educational programs serving Indian children.

Many of our school officials and others are reporting, or parents

and tribal leaders are reporting that students often bear the responsibility of schools not being able to accomplish results and are

being identified as the reason why. There appears to be a growing

incongruence between the purposes of title VII within No Child

Left Behind and the general operating principles, and consequently

the implementation of NCLB by States and the BIA for schools

with Native students.

Title VII, which expresses a purpose of meeting the unique education and culturally related needs of Native students so that they

can achieve the same high standard as other students is not sustained or supported in the general operating provisions of the statute in a way that will allow for the development of congruent educational programs and services consistent with the purposes of title

VII. Instead, the approach appears to be increasingly focused on

providing extra time for practice in teaching to the test.

In 1997, the GAO issued a report that documented an inventory of repair needs for educational facilities totaling $754 million. Since

then, the backlog for construction and repair is reported to have

grown to $942 million. Completing construction of a high school

since 2001, while progress, is not enough. The need for additional

school construction dollars is so great that there should be no slowdown in appropriations. Instead, there should be an increased effort to get tribes and the BIA to work more efficiently on completing school construction projects, recognizing that schools take time

to plan and build.

On an average, the BIA education buildings are 60 years old; 65

percent of BIA school administrators report one or more school

buildings in inadequate physical condition. NIEA strongly opposes

the realignment and restructuring of the Office of Indian Education

Programs within the BIA that will cut the total number of education line officers from 23 to 11 and cut the funding of these offices by 18 percent. Since the function of these offices has significantly increased due to the passage of NCLB, NIEA believes the

offices should be expanded, rather than reduced, to ensure timely

service to BIA schools.

The National Indian Education Association opposes a proposal by

the Department of the Interior to decrease the educational line officers and encourages the Department of the Interior to work both

with BIA-operated and tribal grant schools on school improvement

and efforts in training.

In addition, the NIEA requests the committee to probe the Department of the Interior as to why the Office of the Director of the
22

Office of Indian Education Programs has remained vacant for almost a full year. We understand there is an effort at the BIA to

elevate the director’s position and I hope the position will remain

an Indian preference.

NIEA has been holding its own field hearings in Indian country

on the No Child Left Behind, and will publish a report in October

that outlines the information gathered at these hearings and provides recommendations for legislative amendments to existing law.

We have held hearings at Window Rock in the Navajo Nation; Tacoma in the Northwest; Montana; Green Bay with the National

Congress of American Indians; and in Albuquerque. And we intend

to hold hearings in Oklahoma and in South Dakota as well.

Our constituency is becoming ever more alarmed. We are now receiving testimony from tribal chairs and council people, as well as

educators, about their concerns with the statute and what is happening to Indian education generally.

The National Indian Education Association encourages the committee to conduct field hearings on NCLB and Indian education in

Indian country, and suggests that the committee consider holding

their own field hearings and include it at the National Indian Education Association convention in October, between the 6th and 9th,

in Denver, CO.

In closing, true success in Native education will come only when

Native students are receiving high-quality education that not only

prepares them for the demands of contemporary society, but also

thoroughly grounds them in their own history, culture and language.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[Prepared statement of Mr. Beaulieu appears in appendix.]

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Dr. McDonald, welcome.

STATEMENT OF JOE MCDONALD, PRESIDENT, SALISH

KOOTENAI COLLEGE, REPRESENTING THE AMERICAN

INDIAN HIGHER EDUCATION CONSORTIUM

Mr. MCDONALD. Thank you, Chairman McCain and distinguished members of the committee.

On behalf of the 35 tribal colleges and universities which make

up the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, I thank you

for this opportunity to testify.

My name is Joe McDonald. I am a member of the Confederated

Salish Kootenai Tribe and president of Salish Kootenai College,

which is located on the Flathead Indian Reservation. Our college

was chartered in 1977 for the simple reason of the near-complete

failure of higher education in the United States for American Indians.

In 1935, there were 570 American Indians in college. After World

War II, in 1957, there were 5,700 American Indians in college. In

1968, we had 181 American Indians graduate from college in the

whole United States. There was a horrendous report from GAO in

1976 on the condition of American Indians and higher education.

That led a lot to the formation of the tribal colleges.

Our college has grown from a very small college to relatively

large among the tribal colleges. We offer 6 bachelor degrees, 14 as-
23

sociate degrees, and 70 certificate programs. Last Saturday at

graduation, we awarded 161 degrees to American Indians from 40

different tribes.

Over the past 30 years, the idea of tribal institutions of education has spread throughout Indian country. Today, despite severe

budget cuts and inequities in Federal budgets, there are 35 tribal

colleges and universities in 13 States, and we have upwards of

30,000 students attending from 250 federally recognized tribes.

I have some key issues I would like to discuss this morning. One

is general core funding. Despite trust responsibilities and treaty obligations, the Government has over the years not considered funding of American Indian higher education a priority. For the past 24

years since the initial funding of the Tribal College Act, we have

been chronically underfunded.

To illustrate the degree of inadequate funding, the current au- thorized level for tribal college operations, which is $6,000 per Indian student, has the same buying power, when you consider inflation, as the initial fiscal year 1981 appropriation which was $2,800

per student. Despite the much-appreciated increases that Congress

has appropriated over the last several years, we are still receiving

only about 75 percent of the authorized level.

What we would like to talk about is forward-funding. If the tribal

colleges’ accounts were to be forward-funded when appropriations

are not completed by October 1 of any year, which has become

more the norm than an exception, we would not have to identify

emergency lines of credit. It is really creating cash-flow problems

at many of the tribal colleges, and they have to borrow money then

to continue until the money comes to them. The delayed appropriations, or even less than timely distribution of funds after appropriations are completed, make it really difficult to plan and project operating funding needs. It hamstrings us in many ways.

In short, when funds are not available on October 1, tribal colleges many of them are forced into, a borrowing status. It is a crisis

of confidence with faculty, staff, with everyone. So forward-funding

would go a long ways for us.

The HEA title III is a very important program on us. It affords

us the ability to fulfill a vital role in providing access to higher

education. We would like to have formula funding for title III. Tribal colleges would clearly benefit from formula funding this program. Right now, they are competitive grants and at the end of

each competitive grant, we have to realign ourselves and do something different. In the 5 years, you get something going, it is going

well, then you have to drop it and go to something else. It is competitive and it may not even be awarded if you are not successful

competitively.

So if we could get that changed so TCU-title III became formulafunded, it would be much better. Section 102 of S. 2539, a bipartisan bill introduced in the 108th Congress and referred to this committee includes language that would accomplish this recommendation.

The National Science Foundation TCU initiative was created to

help our institutions develop and expand high-quality science, technology, engineering and mathematics called STEM. We have had

great success with STEM. We have encouraged a lot of young In-
24

dian people to go into science and mathematics fields. Colleges

have increased their math participation greatly as a result of

STEM. Currently, the United States is trending toward a shortage

of scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and researchers, and all of

the Nation’s institutions of higher education must begin graduating

more students in science, engineering and mathematics or STEM

fields, or we will not have the workforce needed to stay competitive.

To help remedy this, we propose the creation of a new section

under HEA Title III, Part A, to establish programs that will allow

for more efficient and effective application and administration of

STEM-related programs. So Mr. Chairman, because NSF has committed increasingly more of its resources towards expanding basic

scientific research and strengthening graduate programs, we believe the program should be moved to the Department of Education, Office of Post-Secondary Education, in conjunction with the

tribal colleges’ title III program.

Equally as important as institutional development programs are

programs that focus on student development and capacity. The Department of Education’s TRIO student support service program is

critical to tribal colleges. However, the fiscal year 2005 program

competition resulted in 25 percent of the tribal colleges that had

student support service grants losing their program funding. The

grant-scoring cutoff for institutions that would receive an award

was 99.33, which is very, very competitive.

In September 2003, the department recognized that many of our

institutions face any number of challenges to operating high-quality accountable TRIO projects and awarded supplemental grants to

each of the tribal colleges that were administering a student support services grant.

Simultaneously, the TRIO Training Institute at my institution,

Salish Kootenai College, received additional funds to support the

collective efforts of these colleges to improve their TRIO–SSS

projects. So we did this and we did this very, very successfully. We

worked with AIHEC. We worked with the Council for Opportunity

in Education. We used the successful TRIO program officers

throughout universities and colleges in America. In a short time,

the project had made tremendous progress we really made a lot of

improvement in these programs. So we would like Congress to encourage the Department of Education to extend for a minimum of

2 years the funding of these programs.

I know that Mr. Parisian talked about data. We have been collecting our own data under a program called American Indian

Measures of Success [AIMS]. We are very excited about it because

it not only takes into consideration the data that the BIA requires,

but also takes into consideration what IPEDS wants. We think that

we are on to something. We have not seen the final product, but

we think that it contains all the data that we would need. We encourage Congress to consider that AIMS data collections be adopted

as a primary mechanism for data collection for all TCU Federal

programs.

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. McDonald, you are far exceeding your time,

but please proceed.

Mr. MCDONALD. Okay, really quickly.
25

Technical assistance contracts, we would like to make sure that

when a technical assistance contract is awarded by a Federal department to help an Indian program, that it be awarded to an Indian organization or somebody that understands Indians.

I am sorry for exceeding my time, Senator. Thank you.

[Prepared statement of Mr. McDonald appears in appendix.]

The CHAIRMAN. Not at all, Doctor. Your complete statement is

made part of the record. I did have a chance to read it last night

and I thank you for not only your testimony, but your outstanding

efforts on behalf of Native American education.

Dr. Bordeaux.

STATEMENT OF ROGER BORDEAUX, SUPERINTENDENT OF

TIOSPA ZINA TRIBAL SCHOOL AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

OF THE ASSOCIATION OF COMMUNITY TRIBAL SCHOOLS,

INC.

Mr. BORDEAUX. Mr. Chairman, thank you for giving me the opportunity to come into town today and testify. I am a Si Tanka

Lakota from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota and currently working for the Sisseton-Wahpeton up in North and South

Dakota, in the northeastern part.

I would like to first respond to something that you said and

something that Mr. Cason said. You talked about academic

achievement for Indian kids. On the second page of my testimony

is one source of achievement data from our school, which identifies

anywhere from 50 to 75 percent of our students are proficient or

advanced according to the bureau’s definition in different areas.

One of the problems that we see with the No Child Left Behind

is when you have to desegregate data and look at the disaggregated

data that is a good thing. But when you determine a whole school’s

academic achievement or making adequate yearly progress based

on sometimes one or two children, and in our case children with

handicapped conditions, one or two children could put the whole

school in jeopardy just because of the way the thing is structure.

So this clearly outlines the difference between looking at the

total population and then looking at the population without the

special education students. So I just wanted to make sure that you

get a chance to look at that data.

Another thing that kind of disturbed me when Mr. Cason was

talking this morning. Their solution for improving schools and improving academics of Indian children appears to be adding more

SES positions and high-level management positions within the bureau, which is going to solve the problem. I would almost venture

to guess that I would be willing to bet part of my salary that that

is not going to make a difference over time. As a matter of fact,

they presented a PowerPoint earlier in the week which I would like

to present as part of the record.

It looks like at least there are seven SES positions in their plan

for education, and probably 10 to 15 GS-15’s or higher. All of those

positions probably get anywhere from let’s say $110,000 to

$150,000 a year in salary, plus fringe and everything else. So if

they are going to spend $2 million or $3 million, I would suggest

that they spend it at the school-level in the classrooms instead at

senior management-level positions.
26

I know that that is the case because I would also like to present

and put as part of the record part of their internal documents for

fiscal year 2007. Part of their budget request discussion includes

taking $3.4 million from ISEP and using that money for that senior

management stuff. So they are directly taking money from children

and trying to set up this system. I do not think that is going to

work and I do not think it will make that much of a difference.

And then one other thing I would like to present, which is at the

end of my testimony, is a letter from Senator Dole to Senator Cochran that deals with a food service program in trying to fund a pilot

program within the Child Nutrition Program to allow for schools,

for their free and reduced lunch meal, to set up a program so they

can use the WIC criteria instead of the other criteria, which would

allow more children not to have to pay for lunches, especially since

Senator Johnson talked specifically about 90 percent unemployment rate on the reservation in Pine Ridge. That would be something that could really help them.

So I would like to present that and make it part of the record.

A couple of other things that I would like to do before I get done

is talk about three things. One is I think over the last 3 to 5 years

the bureau itself and the structure has allowed the misuse or misappropriation of available resources. I know for sure that there is

special education money that comes from the Department of Education that goes to the BIA. Upward of 20 percent to 30 percent

is kept at levels and never gets to the schools. I think that needs

to change because the money that you should be spending is stuff

that happens in the classroom and no where else.

Even at my level at the Superintendency, it is necessary to have

leadership, but where you really make differences is to allocate

your resources in the classroom. I think earlier you said that one

of the GAO reports said that bureau-funded schools are spending

about $10,000 per student. If you look at that, even Ms. Vasques

said that 25 percent of the money in the bureau comes from the

Department of Education. If you add that 25 percent plus the other

discretionary dollars that schools have to go out and hustle for, I

would contend that about 40 percent of the total funding at the

school level is discretionary funds that could theoretically be gone

next year if people decided not to fund certain things.

So then you get down to the base amount, which might be somewhere between $4,000 and $6,000. Of that $4,000 or $6,000

amount, which is ISEP, transportation, administrative costs and

operations and maintenance funds for bureau-funded schools, those

four levels, if you look at the amount of revenue they have received

over the last 4 or 5 years, some of them have actually decreased

in revenue over the last 3 or 4 years, and some of them they may

have increased $3 million, but when you spread $3 million over

50,000 children, that does not make a lot of impact at the school

level.

So I think you really have to take a look at the base funding for

the schools. Even though some of the discretionary funding has increased, the base money has not made a lot of impact. So I think

that in looking at what needs to be done for schools, what has to

happen is things inside the classrooms. We are required at the

school level to have a comprehensive school reform plan. The bu-
27

reau has encouraged us to look at data to make decisions on what

is best for children in the classroom.

I heard this morning that they are just now starting to do a

needs assessment to figure out what is going on. If they are making us do this, and we have done it for, well, I have done it myself

for at least 15 or 20 years, but the schools that are doing it well

have done it for a lot of times, looking at data, disaggregating data

to find out what is going on. If they are just now starting to look

at it, there is some kind of disconnect that is going on.

So I think if you look at the stuff that I have submitted in written testimony, the stuff that I am providing today. I am willing to

talk to any of the staff on the Committee on some real specific

issues that I think are hampering schools in making differences for

children. I would be more than willing to do that.

Thank you for your time.

[Prepared statement of Mr. Bordeaux appears in appendix.]

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Doctor.

Mr. Lowery, what is the justification for increasing the cap on

administrative costs from 10 percent to over 20 percent?

Mr. LOWERY. We are looking for that in the first 2 years of the

foundation, Mr. Chairman. As I refer to in the research we have

done, the ability to establish effective infrastructure with proper

staffing is essential to long-term efficiency. We are simply looking

at this for the first 2 years.

If you look at the numbers, no numbers that I saw in my research, for instance even the United Way, which is essentially overhead of overhead with the Combined Federal Program for themselves, is at 12.7 percent. The Better Business Bureau looks at 30

percent. The Federal guidelines for the Combined Federal Campaign is 25 percent. So we still remain within those figures and we

hope that we will reduce it even further, but that gives us some

flexibility given the difficulty we have had the first several years

of our existence.

The CHAIRMAN. Tell me again what is the status on getting funds

released from the Office of Special Trustee.

Mr. LOWERY. We had a meeting yesterday with Mr. Cason. It is

the first time we have actually been able to talk in person on this

subject. We are supposed to have a follow-up meeting on July 6.

It is our understanding that he is going to do all he can to release

these $200,000 in unrestricted funds. Unfortunately, the other $1.4

million are very specifically restricted.

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Beaulieu, what is the percentage of teachers

in BIA and tribal schools that are not highly qualified, roughly?

Mr. BEAULIEU. I do not know the exact number, Senator.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you have a rough estimate?

Mr. BEAULIEU. No I do not. I am sorry.

The CHAIRMAN. One-half? Are one-half the teachers, to your

knowledge, designed, quote, ‘‘highly qualified’’?

Mr. BEAULIEU. I believe that there is a significant issue of being

highly qualified in the BIA system in terms of being subject-matter

qualified for the courses they teach, which is also a condition in

rural schools as well, just generally.

The CHAIRMAN. Maybe you can provide that for the record for us.

Mr Beaulieu. Yes.
28

The CHAIRMAN. I think that is one of the challenges of complying

with NCLB is this issue of teachers that are, quote, ‘‘highly qualified.’’

Mr. BEAULIEU. Senator, I might add we also are concerned about

the highly qualified in terms of expanding the definition a bit to

include competence in the ability to teach culturally unique children, so that we would emphasize greater professional development

of the staff in schools with Indian children.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Would you send copies of the field

hearing report you mentioned in your testimony to the committee?

Mr. BEAULIEU. Yes; we will.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. We would be interested.

Dr. McDonald, what is the status of your American Indian Measures of Success initiative and when are the reports due out?

Mr. MCDONALD. It is going to come out right away. All of our

data was to be turned into the AHEIC at the end of May, so I think

we are going to get a report here in this next month.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; I hope you will send us a copy of that.

Mr. MCDONALD. We surely will.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Dr. Bordeaux, you testified 1 year ago on NCLB. What improvements have you seen over the past year in implementing No Child

Left Behind?

Mr. BORDEAUX. In the big picture, I think there are two things.

One is it is forcing public schools to look at their disaggregated

population, which in this discussion means looking at the Indian

students and actually recognizing that they are in the classroom

and they really are part of the student population, so they are looking at them and finding out what is going on with them academically, and recognizing that there is a need for them to work and

try to improve the achievement of academics for Native American

children in public schools.

In BIA-funded schools, I think the success stories are still being

written, but delays have happened because of the negotiated rulemaking process, where the rules are just now going into effect

about 1 week ago, which should probably have been done a couple

of years ago, but because of how long it took for them to go through

the process. It is hard to tell what is going to happen.

I do know that at our level at the school that I work at, we have

made a lot of successes academically. I am not convinced it is because of NCLB. I am convinced it is because the SissetonWahpeton people made the decision that they wanted to be better

educated, so that is what they are doing.

The CHAIRMAN. What is your school doing to meet the highly

qualified teacher requirements?

Mr. BORDEAUX. I think the are biggest impact is, I made a commitment a long time ago in looking at a research report that I

looked at when I was getting my doctorate that said that in business and industry they were spending nearly 5 percent of their

money in professional development and training and retraining

their staffs to make sure that they are always up to date on what

is going on in their industry. In education at that time, they were

spending less than 2 percent on professional development.
29

So I have made a commitment always to spend at least 5 percent

on professional development. As a matter of fact, this last year, I

think there are three of us right now who are doctorates at an elementary and secondary school. We have three other people working

on their doctorate degree. We have four of them finishing their specialist. We just have 14 graduated with master’s degrees from

Southwest State in Minnesota. So we have about 45 certified positions in our school and of that amount over 30 of them have at

least a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction or in educational administration. So I think that is one of the keys.

The other key is making sure that in the classroom, that what

is going on in the classroom is highly active and culturally relevant. For Indian children, those things are really important.

The CHAIRMAN. What would motivate a young graduate of a university with a teaching degree to want to come to teach at Red

Lake or Lakota Sioux Reservation or Chinlee, Arizona?

Mr. BORDEAUX. The hardest thing I think to motivate somebody

to come to a reservation to work is the economic condition on a lot

of reservations is real tough. It is hard to get housing. It is real

hard to find a quality of life on a lot of reservations that they are

used to if they have never lived in poverty. So it makes it a lot

more difficult.

What you have to do as a teacher, and most good teachers have

something in their heart that makes them a good teacher, and it

does matter where they go to.

The CHAIRMAN. But you have a relatively high turnover.

Mr. BORDEAUX. In a lot of schools. In our case, I think part of

it is location because where the Federal Government put that reservation just happened to go where there is an Interstate that goes

through it now. So it is location. And where they put other reservations at Pine Ridge and some other places where they put Indian

people, it is completely isolated. You do not have access to much

of anything.

There are places that do not have good Internet access, not very

good telephone service; where there is still a lot of multiple connections and stuff like that that is going on, too.

The CHAIRMAN. What is your comment about that, Dr. Beaulieu?

Mr. BEAULIEU. About teachers, Senator?

The CHAIRMAN. What do we need to do to motivate a young

American who graduates with a teaching degree to go to Tuba City,

AZ or Red Lake, the more remote areas of America that are mired

in poverty?

Mr. BEAULIEU. Senator, we have had some experience with

teacher training. We have had two Native teacher training programs at Arizona State University.

The CHAIRMAN. Is the answer to recruit more Native Americans

to be teachers?

Mr. BEAULIEU. Yes; indeed, I would say. In fact, focusing on people who are already in those schools who have a commitment to

teaching the children and enabling through programs such as we

do have with the Indian Professional Development Program which

has been very successful with the students that we have educated,

which requires that you teach in the school with a high Indian population once you graduate from the program.
30

The CHAIRMAN. But neither these programs nor the number of

Native Americans that are graduating with teaching degrees would

anywhere near fill the requirements for teaching positions on Native American and BIA schools, right?

Mr. BEAULIEU. They would not, but they would also——

The CHAIRMAN. So then it seems to me then you have to have

some other program which would at least in the interim motivate

non–Native Americans who are teaching-qualified to go there, just

like we increase pay and bonuses for men and women to serve in

the military.

Mr. BEAULIEU. That is correct.

The CHAIRMAN. So have you all ever come up with any plans or

ideas that we could motivate young teachers to go to these places

and fill these positions?

You are eager to answer, Dr. Bordeaux. Go ahead, and then Dr.

Beaulieu, if you would like.

Mr. BORDEAUX. I think one of the things that has been successful

in some places, too, is to allow schools over time to grow their own,

so that they hire para-educators that want to become teachers and

let them work as para-educators for 2 or 3 years. When they get

close to having teaching degrees, let them teach, even though they

are not fully certified and do not meet the highly qualified requirement yet, but let them teach and work in that school at the same

time so that they can get their degree plus gain the experience.

That is how you grow Indian teachers.

A lot of the Indian teachers that we have within our school have

gone that way. I think that is something that I think can work and

it has worked in certain areas.

I think another thing is we talked about loan forgiveness for

some of those that really want to come to poverty areas.

The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead, Dr. Beaulieu.

Mr. BEAULIEU. I was going to suggest a similar idea in terms of

in Tuba City we are currently working on the development of a

teacher program there through a program funded through the Arizona Department of Education. There are identified 23 individuals

who wish to become teachers there within the staff who are not

currently teachers. We are focusing on the development of a program there over time to develop that teaching corps.

I think it is not only an issue of supply, but also an issue of turnover rates. The turnover rates in some of these places are very

high, which creates another issue which has to do with long-term

improvement. If you are constantly changing teachers year after

year after year, you are not improving the school through professional development efforts as well.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Lowery, do you have any comments about

that?

Mr. LOWERY. Yes I do, sir; the Santa Fe Indian School Leadership Institute, which was cofounded by Regis Pecos, one of the

board members for the National Fund, created a community dialog

which forces each community to develop a community-based set of

principles and ideals, asking the question involving the entire community: What legacy do we want to leave our children 100 years

from now?
31

The FACE Program, which is the BIA’s best example of effective

programming, has within it the seed of a principle, which is they

go into the homes of students and they actually tutor the parents

in how to tutor their children, how to support their children. They

get a two-fold benefit. One is the parents are more highly motivated, more self-confident in pursuing and completing their own

education. Their students are as well.

Until we develop a holistic strategy that involves the entire community in owning its own responsibility and support for education,

we cannot have the kind of comprehensive, long-term support for

young people growing up on a reservation that want to stay on the

reservation, but come back highly qualified to an environment

where there is little reinforcement for their ideals and for their

commitment.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you want to weigh in on this Dr. McDonald

or pass?

Mr. MCDONALD. I would certainly take the opportunity to weighin.

It is a long term. There is not a short-term situation for it. Certainly, as an emissary of the tribal colleges, I would have to say

that a recent report of the College Board statistically has proven

that if they graduate from college, they take more active interest

in the community. They are more active in the schools. They are

more active community volunteers. Their children are more liable

to go to school, so it makes a more wholesome community for a

long-range effect.

For short range, certainly loan forgiveness is one; certainly some

priority pay. If you look at the future of one going to an Indian

school with very poor retirement, certainly way out there in the

middle of nowhere, with very poor medical help, poor housing, it

is not very attractive. One has to address all of those in order to

get really good quality teachers.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, Dr. Bordeaux? The State Department,

when you are in the Foreign Service and they send you to a remote

outpost, Uzbekistan, they give you additional pay, additional incentives, more enhanced opportunity for promotion. But there are rewards and incentives associated with it. In the military when we

send someone to a remote area separated from their family, et

cetera, we give them financial rewards for doing so.

It is a pretty bizarre statement, but why don’t we think about

providing financial and other incentives and rewards for young

Americans who graduate with teaching certificates to go to Chinlee

or Window Rock or Red Lake or these other places where the conditions exist that all of you have so adequately described.

Mr. MCDONALD. Yes; even in the urban areas or the big city of

Ronan, MT, it is very difficult for teachers there because of the politics between Indian and white and poor Indians and tragic youth

deaths. It is just tragic.

The CHAIRMAN. I would start out with BIA schools specifically.

What do you say, Dr. Bordeaux?

Mr. BORDEAUX. I think what you are talking about is a plausible

solution for part of the population that really wants to try and

work on Indian reservations, give them something in addition to

what they would normally get, but it cannot be the only answer.
32

I think there also has to be a process to try to grow Indian teachers

from within, too.

The CHAIRMAN. Could I remind you that in the military and the

State Department, it is not the only reason. We appeal to people’s

patriotism and willingness to serve, but we also reward them for

taking on additional burdensome tasks. It seems to me that to ask

a young teacher to go to a geographic area that has all of the conditions which you all have described and I am familiar with as well,

that maybe we should develop some kind of program that would reward them for that kind of service. First of all, it is patriotism, but

second of all it would be some kind of system where we might

make it more rewarding in a fiscal way than it is today.

In all due respect, if I was a young teacher and I had a choice

of Window Rock or Maricopa-Pima in Phoenix, I think I would

choose Maricopa-Pima. Right?

Mr. BORDEAUX. I am sure you would because I have been at

teacher fairs where people from Dallas public schools would be up

in Sioux Falls, SD offering $3,000 and $5,000 bonuses for those

teachers coming out of South Dakota universities. They would

much prefer to go down and do that instead of staying in South Dakota in the rural areas.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, maybe we ought to look at that because it

is obvious that it is a significant problem, one, in attracting people;

and two, as you pointed our Dr. McDonald and all of us know, the

turnover is horrendous. I think we ought to think outside the box

on this issue.

I thank the witnesses for being here. Thank you for your service.

Thank you for your commitment to Native American education and

we appreciate very much your valuable testimony.

This hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 11:20 a.m., the committee was adjourned, to reconvene at the call of the Chair.]
(33)

APPENDIX

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

PREPARED STATEMENT OF LELAND LEONARD, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF DINE’ EDUCATION, NAVAJO NATION

Within the Navajo Nation there is concern among teachers, communities, and administrators on the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act [NCLBA].

While there certainly is room to improve the education of Navajo students, meaningful discussions need to be held on the impact the NCLBA will have on the education

of Navajo students. Without meaningful discussions the Navajo Nation will struggle

with the impact of perceived negative test scores and the labeling of programs as

failing that are actually quite successful.

Responsible educators on Navajo have struggled for years to increase student

achievement. Simply mandating student achievement without having a meaningful

dialog on the definition of achievement and how to reach it will inappropriately

label schools as failing.

With that introduction, we wish to comment on some specific areas of NCLBA,

starting with initial testing results and provide a recommendation.

Navajo schools testing results—As of 2003–04 School Year.

Under the NCLBA nearly 11 percent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs [BIA] schools

are meeting Adequate Yearly Progress [AYP], down from 44 percent in SY 2002–

03. These numbers confirm our fears that move and more schools and students will

fail as the AYP bar rises. Testing results in the public schools are not much more

encouraging. Schools either make AYP or they do not under the NCLBA because

the act does not provide a middle ground.

Narrow scope of testing—NCLBA tests only in three subject areas: Reading,

Math, and Science. While these subjects are important, students maybe excelling in

other areas, such as music, art, history, vocational subject, or Navajo language and

culture and receive no credit under NCLBA. Schools will be tempted to focus on the

areas where the statute requires testing and de-emphasize or eliminate programs

that many students are excelling in.

The focus on testing—Focusing on testing results has had predictable results.

In many cases teachers are increasing homework, expanding drill time, teaching to

the test; i.e., doing more of all the things that weren’t working in the first place.

The NCLBA does not encourage innovation and imagination.

Scientifically based curriculum—There is not a lot of data concerning ‘‘what

works’’ with Navajo children. The existing data suggests that the most successful

curricula are those that are oriented in the Navajo culture. Many schools will disregard this information or not have access to it, and simply pick programs that have

found their way onto an approved list at the state or national level.

Schools that have a large Native American population must have the opportunity

to develop and implement culturally based curriculum and there needs to be specific

research funded to evaluate its effectiveness, preferably available to the tribes themselves. On Navajo, we have the beginnings of such research under the Navajo Nation’s Rural Systemic Initiative program under the National Science Foundation, but

the funding for that program ended.
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The large gap in proflciency—The goal of full proficiency within a 12-year period is far more realistic in schools where students are already testing at a high

level of proficiency than in those where proficiency levels are very low. For example

a school where 75 percent of the student body is already rated as proficient, may

have a relatively easy time of achieving the small increments necessary to make

AYP. A school that begins with 10 percent of its students rated as proficient will

have to consistently make dramatic gains. Even exceptional progress may still not

be enough to avoid being labeled as failing. The great danger is that even students

who are trying hard and doing reasonable well will be labeled as failing. The law

could require ‘‘gains ‘‘ in student achievement with recognition that every student is

an individual, with his own talents and interests. Testing should be used to identify

a student’s aptitude and provide guidance for the future direction of his/her education. Schools need to provide more options as the needs of our society expand.

Every student should not have to run the same race or be expected to arrive at the

same finish line.

We have a Recommendation:

Enhancing the opportunities for tribes to develop tribal educational systems where tribes can actually control the educational programs.

The Navajo Nation is in the process of assuming authority and responsibility over

the educational programs on Navajo. We are negotiating a Public Law 93–638 contract with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to assume responsibilities relating to the

provisions of technical assistance and training of school personnel, school boards

and parents. In addition, we are proposing new tribal legislation that would establish a Navajo Nation Board of Education with authority to develop standards and

accredit schools, collect and analyze date, and license administrators and teachers.

This option was one of the opportunities that was enhanced with the passage of

NCLBA and we plan to make full use of it to make a positive difference in the education programs on Navajo. While this legislation will relate primarily to the BIA

funded school system, the Board will also have authority to negotiate Memoranda

of Agreement with the three States that operate schools on the Navajo Nation.

The Bureau makes no provisions for implementing the statutory option for tribes

to develop their own alternative definitions of AYP. This again requires resources.

States received funding for this AYP planning, but nothing seems to be available

for the tribes that may wish to pursue their options to actually develop appropriate

measures for student progress. The Bureau should provide for such resources in its

MOU with the U.S. Department of Education.

To do this successfully requires resources. Congress has authorized such funding

but has not appropriated any funding for the past several years. See 25 USC 2020.

The Navajo Nation renews its funding request for tribal education departments in

the BIA budget at the authorized level of $2,000,000.

While the BIA has proposed ‘‘privatization’’ realignments on top of illegal reorganizations, budget cuts to offices charged with providing technical assistance, and

new programs with no statutory authorization; it ignores and neglects those things

it is truly charged with; i.e. encouraging and enhancing tribal self-determination.

Additionally, planning grants under section 103 of Public Law 93–638 have gone unfunded for many years.

No funding is requested for the critical planning for tribal control under the authorizations cited above, nor is there any request for adequate funding for administrative cost grants and indirect costs. The BIA also ignores opportunities for encouraging tribal control of education and centralizes the resources it receives from the

Department of Education rather than distributing them to the offices where technical assistance could be provided, and could more easily be contracted by tribes.

Conclusion: The No Child Left Behind Act needs to be amended. Its accountability

provisions need to recognize gains in achievement and must not be so narrowly

drawn. Testing is a tool that should be used to identify the aptitudes and performance of students but success on a test must not become the goal of education. Opportunities should be expanded for students who have an interest and aptitude in

something other than a traditional 4-year college.

In Indian country, the Federal Government should make use of statutory authorization that already exist to encourage and enhance tribal control of education as

a major tool for implementation of quality education programs.
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PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. DANIEL K. INOUYE, U.S. SENATOR FROM HAWAII

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I commend the committee for holding this hearing today.

Education is the cornerstone that helps to build our Nation to what it is today

and to prepare for our future. This is also true for native nations.

In Hawaii, we have several education programs available for Native Hawaiians,

separately funded from Indian programs, of course.

Native Hawaiians experience similar concerns as other native students, with a

majority of the schools in Hawaii that do not meet Federal elementary and secondary education standards having a predominantly Native Hawaiian population.

Although all native children are improving their test scores, they still fall behind

other children and the schools are still not meeting Federal standards.

But those Federal standards focus on reading, math, and science.

I mention this because there may be other factors that are causing the lower

achievement scores and creating negative consequences.

The Federal Government must consider and address the impact that inadequate

funding, poor school facilities, geographic isolation, culture, and other factors have

on the ability of schools to educate native students and on the ability of native students to learn.

We must realize that there are additional means to improve the education of native peoples of all ages, both in and out of the classroom.

Perhaps most importantly, we must recognize that native peoples must be involved in the education of their students to ensure that their unique needs are addressed.

This is critical in ensuring that native peoples can define and build their communities to reflect their respective cultures and needs.

Providing an effective, relevant and quality education is important to every nation

in order to prepare future leaders with the skills necessary to address social, health,

and economic conditions.

We must assist native nations in doing the same.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this much needed hearing.

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