When Two Worlds Collide: Shared Experiences of Educating Navajos Living off the Reservation

Introduction A large newspaper recently identified Northridge Elementary as the "worst" public school in the state of New Mexico, noting that less than 2% of the student body was considered proficient in math and 11.6% in reading according to academic achievement measurements set by US Department of Education (Salazar, 2010). Northridge Elementary, a kindergarten through eighth grade public school, comprised almost entirely of Navajo students, failed to meet the requirements of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in both reading and math (New Mexcio's AYP ratings signal the need for refrom, 2011). AYP is a mechanism of the No Child Left Behind Act (2001) that includes three basic requirements: 95% participation in state administered assessments, 95% of students meet or exceed minimum performance target in reading and math, and 95% of students meet or exceed minimum targets on attendance rates (U.S. Department of Education, 2002). While Northridge did meet the state assessment participation requirements of AYP, they failed to meet the attendance (91.55%) and the minimum performance in reading (14.63% of students met target) and math (7.23% of students met target) requirements of AYP (New Mexico Department of Education, 2010). Nestled in the rural corner of a large county, the Northridge community is accountable to state and federal education departments. Northridge Elementary, located in what local people refer to as the "checkerboard," remains outside the actual Navajo Nation but surrounded by small plots of land owned by various private and public groups. The school is owned by the state, and most of the students attending Northridge live on land leased from the Navajo Nation but apart from the actual Navajo Reservation. It should be noted schools operating within the Bureau of Indian Affairs, such as schools located on reservations, are not required to report results of mandated national assessments (Warner & Grint, 2006). Although the Northridge community culture remains rooted in Navajo tradition, the demands of high stake assessments have resulted in a cultural collision for the students of Northridge Elementary. More specifically, while federal and state education departments view education as matter of individual achievement or the ability to produce self-expression, the Navajo historically have viewed education as a more collective process based heavily on revelations through nature (Calsoyas, 2005). The Navajo have well documented, recurring struggles with the American education system dating back to shortly after the American Civil War (Case, 1971). From 1943 through 1964 there was a Congressional effort to assimilate the Navajo as well as other American Indian groups into mainstream American society, such as the use of boarding schools, known as Indian termination policy (Tiller, 1979). The Indian Self-Determination and Educational Assistance Act (1975) eventually reversed the termination policy and granted tribal groups some educational autonomy, including the right to make their own educational decisions through a community-based schooling system; however, the act only applied to schools within the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (Manuelito, 2005). Thus, American Indian students attending schools outside reservations were and continue to be subject to the various mandates associated with the standards movement beginning in the 1980's. During the first five years of the No Child Left Behind Act (2001), roughly 70% of predominately American Indian schools failed to meet AYP (Zehr, 2007). Recent efforts to provide instruction in native languages, such as the Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act (2006), have helped preserve some American Indian identity through requiring bilingual instruction (Beaulieu, 2008). These efforts, however, have not resolved the reality school systems potentially face, like a reduction in funding, if Aboriginal students do not assimilate to the cultural values found in NCLB and state assessments (Agbo, 2004). …