They recognize that many Indian students have been poorly prepared in younger grades. For example, the Tribal College Rural Systemic Initiative is a program based at Turtle Mountain Community College that seeks to achieve systemic reform of school systems in a five-state area using tribal colleges as the catalysts for change. Funded by the National Science Foundation, it supports changes in mathematics, science, and technology education. Obstacles many Of course, not every science and math class at the 31 colleges in the American Indian Higher Education Consortium is a model program. It is much easier for any instructor to rely upon textbooks than to create new culturally relevant and place-oriented curriculum.
Innovation necessarily involves risk.
Bringing culture into the classroom can trivialize it if only token efforts are made, such as using a tepee instead of a cone in a solid geometry class. In their attempt to emphasize culture, programs may not devote enough attention to science, resulting in students who are ghettoized and competent to enter only their local tribal employment market. Addressing fundamental differences in the very nature of science will take decades, as Jack Barden points out in his essay in this issue. Many of the tribal colleges science and math programs receive support from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the U.S. Forest Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, etc. Nevertheless, the colleges remain chronically under funded.