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"American Indian/Alaska Native Programs." (Day Two)
Testimony by Patricia Whitefoot, President-Elect, National Indian Education Association
U.S. House of Representatives Documents
Introduction. Chairman Calvert, Ranking Member McCollum, and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to provide testimony on behalf of the National Indian Education Association (NIEA). Founded in 1969, NIEA represents Native students, educators, families, communities, and tribes. NIEA's mission is to advance comprehensive educational opportunities for all American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians throughout the United States. As the premiere organization advocating for Native students, NIEA works to achieve educational equity and excellence, as well as to ensure that all students are provided high-quality academic and cultural education.
The State of Native Education. Native education is in a state of emergency. As Interior Secretary Sally Jewell has stated, "Indian education is an embarrassment to you and to us. It is not for the lack of desire. This [the Bureau of Indian Education] is the one part of the Department of the Interior that deals directly with services to children. We know that self-determination and self-governance is going to play an important role in bringing the kind of academically rigorous and culturally appropriate education that children need." n1
The Department of Education has recently applauded the improvement in nation-wide graduation rates, particularly among students of color. Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) students, however, are not experiencing the progress in graduation rates that the rest of the country is celebrating, with Native graduation rates often around 50% in many states. Native students also continue to lag behind their peers on other important educational indicators, such as reading and math. n2
Despite the pressing need for funding parity and equal access, historical funding trends illustrate that the federal government has been abandoning its trust responsibility by decreasing federal funds to Native-serving programs by over half in the last 30 years. Some Native students have been wholly abandoned, such as those languishing in BIA-funded juvenile detention centers-- desks sit empty because education funding for those facilities was cut in 2012. Other Native students attempt to learn in buildings that are literally falling down around them. Abandoning school construction funding, in particular, has been extremely detrimental to Native youth, as the GAO has reported that...