In urban settings, desegregation requirements have hurt Native students by scattering them across large districts into many school buildings, increasing their isolation from their peers, and making it costly and difficult to provide effective cultural programs and support services. Students who identify themselves as Natives often are subjected to taunts and racial slurs that make them feel threatened and ashamed. When they defend themselves against harassment, they often are suspended or expelled.
Alienation is a key contributing factor in the high dropout rates.
Schools resist integrating Native language and culture into the curriculum, even when excellent materials and resources are available. Continued use of Native people as mascots, official symbols, emblems, and namesakes for schools is offensive and demeaning, and perpetuates negative racial stereotypes. Develop critical thinking skills to help students address common fallacies in reasoning such as overgeneralization and failure to follow a line of reasoning through to its logical conclusion. Since the number of Native educators remains inadequate, non-Native personnel need training to work more effectively with increasingly diverse student populations. Research on preparing teachers to teach culturally diverse student populations successfully shows a high correlation between educators' sensitivity, knowledge, and application of cultural awareness information and students' successful academic performance.