Issues in Native American Representation
Native American Concerns About Education

When American Indians express concerns about the 7th Generation, a key issue is how the future generations will be educated.

For many, concerns about the future are very justified given that they have had to cope with the educational programs imposed on them by the dominant society.

1860-1928

The Civil War shattered the school system in the Indian Territory. In the decades following, many groups of people combined to restore, improve, and expand a system of Indian education.

Just about everybody from the BIA, to churches and missionaries, philanthropists, the military and the tribes themselves participated.

Efforts were made to "induce" Indian children to attend schools.

Under Grant's Peace Policy from 1869-1881, the churches were put in charge of a novel experiment to educate Indian youth, with a goal of giving students an individuals ideology, demolishing communal values, and wrecking tribal identity and values.

Between 1880 and 1900 the Indian Bureau opened several off reservation schools.

Places such as Carlisle, propounded by Henry Pratt in 1879, were aimed at assimilating Indian students into mainstream American Society.

For Pratt and others, Native culture had no significance. Everything about the students got changed.

The core idea, late in the century, was to teach  Indians the virtues held dear by 19th century America.

By 1888, there were 126 boarding and 107 day schools with an enrollment of more than 10,000 Indian children.

By 1900, the direction of Indian schooling shifted to an expanding network of federally supported schools.

The cirruculum in the schools was made uniform from 1898-1910, with all students taught certain basic courses like those taught in white schools, as well as vocational training to prepare students for reservation life.

Institutional labor was thereby transformed into vocational training.

In 1922 the Uniform Course of Study was revised to approximate more closely that given in the public schools.

Day schools were expanded so that all of them included six grades, and reservation boarding schools were made uniform with eight grades.

Nonreservation boarding schools began to offer high school work as a matter of course.

In 1921 only Haskell Institute in Kansas offered high school courses, but by 1929 six schools did.

In 1928 almost 90 percent of all Indian children were enrolled in some school.

About half of these were attending public schools, and about 10 percent, private and mission schools.

Of those attending schools operated by the BIA, 27 percent were enrolled in reservation and off-reservation boarding schools and a much smaller percentage in day schools.

Behind these statistics, education was limited.

A large proportion of the children dropped out of school early. For those who remained, the education they received was poor.

The educational level of the day schools was low, but it was better at the boarding schools where more advanced course work was offered. This course work was usually unrelated to the environment and culture from whence the students came.

1928-1945

By the 1920s it had become apparent that the misguided reforms of the late-nineteenth century had resulted in a disaster for the Indian people.

The policies of Indian land allotment and federal Indian education had inflicted immeasurable damage. The 1920s movement for reform, spearheaded by John Collier, led to the investigation of conditions of Indian life. The publication of these findings, called the Meriam report (1928), was largely devoted to Indian education.

One of the chief objects of criticism was the BIA boarding school, which was viewed as a "grossly inadequate" institution.

Still others were common to American education elsewhere.

A concept of a uniform curriculum was seen as unrealistic: it ignored local conditions and deliberately avoided Indian cultures.

The vocational training program had evolved into mere student labor necessary for the schools to operate.

Where schools did teach vocational training, the trades were either disappearing from the market or were taught at levels inadequate to secure a job.

The concept of training for reservation life had never fulfilled the goals anticipated in 1900.

The problem of the runaway became the symbol of the failure of the boarding schools.

The tragic stories of children who had died attempting to return home prompted the conclusion that pre-adolescent children should attend day schools near their homes.

The man largely responsible for composing the education section of the Meriam report, Will Carson Ryan, was named director of Indian education for the BIA in 1930.

In his five years in office Ryan attempted to improve training to more rural job-training geared to the needs of educational conditions by developing community schools on the reservations, alleviating poor conditions in boarding schools themselves, and closing others.

Equally important, in the public school realm he was responsible for the legislation that simplified the process by which schools were paid by the federal government for their Indian students.

The Johnson O'Malley Act of 1934 enabled the states, rather than the individual school districts, to sign contracts with the Education Division of the BIA.

Although this improved the funding procedure, the state school systems often used the money for general programs. As a result, from the 1940s through the early 1970s public schools failed to develop special programs for Indian students.

Both Ryan and his successor, Willard Walcott Beatty, were influenced by the progressive education ideas of John Dewey, and both saw the need for close ties between school and community.

During the mid-1930s, the bureau offered to Indian youth the first outside effort in American history to provide schooling that acknowledged the diversity and significance of native cultures.

Ryan gradually removed subjects such as algebra, geometry, and ancient history from the regular course of study and added rug weaving, silver making, pottery making, and tribal history

. Beatty developed bilingual texts for Sioux, Navajo, and Pueblo children and began one of the earliest programs in the country for training teachers in the techniques of bilingual instruction. Like some of his predecessors, he understood the need to teach children in their own language.

Between 1933 and 1941 the enrollment at the community day schools almost tripled as nearly 100 new schools were opened.

By 1941 the number of Indian children attending the community day schools surpassed the enrollment of 14,000 at the 49 boarding schools.

The stringent discipline at some of the boarding schools was eased and the military routine removed.

On the other hand, financial exigencies forced a continuation of the practice of student labor to support the schools.

Ryan and Beatty proved more successful in developing vocational training programs at the boarding schools.Except at Haskell Institute, which retained its secretarial training program, and Sherman Institute, Riverside,California, which taught shop courses, the boarding schools shifted emphasis from inadequate industrial training to more rural job training geared to the needs of the area in which the school was situated.

The boarding schools in the Dakotas, Montana, and Wyoming, for example, concentrated on raising herds of cattle.

The Oglala Community High School, Pine Ridge, South Dakota, became famous for the beef cattle and the fine horses that its students raised.

The Chilocco School in Oklahoma controlled more than 8,000 acres of land providing instruction in its diversified program of farming. Land irrigation, dry farming, control of erosion, animal husbandry, and plant life were taught in school.

At the Phoenix School, students learned how to operate heavy farm machinery.

The introduction of Indian art into the course of study was successful, especially at the Santa Fe Boarding School, which benefited from a revival of interest in Pueblo and Navajo art.

1945-1986

World War 11 touched and changed the lives of all Indians. In addition to those 24,000 who served in the U.S. armed forces, over 40,000 others left their homes to participate in war work.

For many, this meant a significant increase in income, but equally important, it introduced new concepts and a greater appreciation for the value of schooling.

These changes led Beatty, who remained director of education until 1952, to remold BIA education.

The most dramatic illustration of this shift came in the success of the Navajo Special Education Program, which provided basic schooling for 4,300 overage Navajo students, largely at Intermountain Inter-tribal School in Brigham City, Utah.

The goal of the program was to provide in five years the same education the child would have received in 10 or 12 years had he started school at the usual age.

The students received vocational training to enable them to find jobs.

Hildegard Thompson, director of Indian education in the BIA 1952-1965, continued the postwar policies begun by Beatty.

Perhaps her greatest contribution lay in the accelerated effort to enroll thousands of Indian children not yet in school. This included a program to provide schooling for 13,000 Navajos unaffected by the Navajo Special Education Program and about 1,000 Native Alaskans, many of whom were sent to Chilocco Indian School in Oklahoma.

To combat the rising dropout rate, the BIA began to sponsor summer-school programs in 1960.

It was hoped that by raising the educational achievement level of the Indian children, more of them would remain in school.

The summer sessions developed four kinds of program: academic schooling, work projects, field trips, and recreation.

Academic work was given at all levels from at preschool to college preparatory work.

The Branch of Education stressed post high school education to equip Indian youth to compete in the job market.

To give the student the option of choosing college, BIA policy emphasized academic rather than vocational training, which was restricted in the last two years of high school.

As a result of this policy the number of Indian college graduates tripled between 1961 and 1968: 66 to 181.

Another important factor in this growth was the increase in financial support available to Indian students desiring to attend college.

Federal assistance had been minimal until the Second World War. The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 provided a $250,000 loan fund for higher education.

By 1969 the BIA allocated $3 million for scholarship aid.

The mission of vocational studies became the responsibility of a few boarding schools.

Haskell Institute, which became Haskell Indian Junior College in 1965, added to its course in business and secretarial training courses in electronics, the building trades, and service occupations.

Chilocco School, which closed in 1980, offered vocational courses in dry cleaning, auto mechanics, welding, and printing.

The Institute of American Indian Arts, which replaced the Santa Fe Boarding School in 1962, offered post high school work in painting, sculpture, jewelry, ceramics, design, and printing of textiles and creative writing.

Alaska

Federal government schooling for the Alaska Natives differed from that offered the rest of the Indian children.

The administration of native schools in Alaska advocating assigned to the U.S. Office of Education in 1887 and was transferred to the BIA in 1931, although full control over the activities of the Alaska Natives was not assumed by the BIA until the Indian Reorganization Act was extended in 1936 to include Alaska.

In Alaska, the day school was the center of village organization.

In 1942 there were 6,450 children of Alaska Natives enrolled in government schools, 360 in public schools, and 136 in mission, private, and state schools.

By 1972 the number of school-aged children in Alaska was estimated as 21,439.

Of this number 6,080 were in government schools (two boarding schools and 53 day schools), 14,459 attending public schools, and 443 in other schools.

The number of children aged 5 to 8 who were not attending any school was 454.

The number of students over 18 attending various schools was 1,834.

Indian Self-Determination

In the mid-1960s over 90 percent of all Indian children were enrolled in school.

By the early 1980s those in BIA schools accounted for only 15 percent of this number;most of the remaining 85 percent were in public schools; only a small percent were in mission school.

Indian schooling had, therefore, witnessed another major shift-from BIA domination to that of the public school.

By the mid-1960s the BIA had established Indian advisory boards for almost all its schools and begun contracting with Indian groups to operate their own schools.

A new form of "contract school" had come into being.

Among the early experiments, two of the Navajo ventures-Rough Rock Demonstration School, Arizona,. and Navajo Community College, Tsaile, Arizona achieved success.

Other schools followed their lead and managed to achieve Indian control despite the difficulties of acquiring financial support.

These included Borrego Pass Day School, New Mexico; Wyoming Indian High School, Wyoming; and tribally controlled community was colleges such as Sinte Gleska, South Dakota; Standing Rock, North Dakota; and Fort Berthold, North Dakota.

During this era when Indian leaders  were demanding self-determination, Indian education was the subject of several studies.

The Senate report known as "the Kennedy report " led to a national debate on Indian schooling.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense and Educational Fund (1971) critique of Indian education added to the controversy.

At the same time, the U.S. Office of Education was conducting its own investigation of the subject.

Title I

The years between 1965 and 1978 witnessed passage of the most significant legislation on Indian education in American history.

The thrust of this legislation was to provide a greater Indian voice in Indian schooling.

Since the majority of Indian children were in public school, the new laws focused on developing the Indian voice in public school programs funded by the federal government for Indian children.

Under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965,  Indian children in public school qualified for special benefits as "children of low-income families."

This legislation increased the amount of money available to schools already reimbursed for Indian children through the "federally impacted area" legislation  of the 1950s and the Johnson-O'Malley Act.

Of all the public school programs affecting Indian children only Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act had provided an opportunity, albeit a limited one, for parental involvement and local control.

As a result, these special funds, which totaled reservation about $630 million in 1969 and which Congress intended for Indian pupils, generally were spent for all the pupils in a school district.

The Indian Education Act of 1972 mandated parental and community participation in the programs engendered by the impact aid laws.

It also encouraged programs that stressed culturally relevant and bilingual curriculum materials.

It established the Office of Indian Education in the Department of Education, directed by a deputy commissioner of education;

and it created a National Advisory Council on Indian Education to review applications for grants under the new act.

The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975  introduced a revolutionary tactic: it incorporated regulations, drafted by Indian leaders, that shifted the traditional control of Johnson-O'Malley programs from public school districts to Indians by direct contracting with Indian groups.

In 1979 there were:

By 1985, BIA education programs and operations totaled $273 million, which constituted the largest item in the BIA budget. In 1984 the BIA funded 206 educational facilities, including:

The BIA also provided grants to 19 tribally controlled community colleges under the Tribally Controlled Community College Assistance Act of 1978.

In 1984 over 3,300 Indian students were enrolled in these colleges.

In 1983 Sinte Gleska became the first Indian college in the country to receive accreditation on the 4-year baccalaureate level.

A few months later, the Oglala Lakota College, Kyle, South Dakota, also received accreditation.

In 1986 the BIA operated three postsecondary schools:

Noting that "the need for off-reservation boarding schools has declined with the development of schools on the reservations," in the late 1970s to early 1980s the BIA closed some of its off- boarding schools such as Concho, Fort Sill, and Chilocco in Oklahoma, Stewart in Nevada, and Mount Edgecumbe in Alaska.

Despite the protest of Indian students and faculty, Intermountain Inter-tribal School in Utah was closed in 1984.

An important development in Indian education was the passage in 1968 of Title VII-Bilingual Education Act, amended in 1974 and 1978, providing financial assistance to state and local educational agencies to meet the educational needs of children of limited English-speaking abilities.

Section 706 of the 1968 act and Section 722 of the 1974 and 1978 amendments dealt specifically with bilingual education for Indian children .

The 1978 Bilingual Education Act  expanded the eligibility for Title VII funding to Indian students from "home environments where a language other than English has had 'significant impact' on their English proficiency.".

As a result of sensitive legislation and tribal interest in language maintenance, the number of American Indian bilingual education programs funded by the Title VII Office of Bilingual Education, Department of Health and Human Services, has grown steadily since 1968.

Although bilingual-bicultural education constituted a minor component of BIA education programs, the BIA Office of Indian education has administered a number of bilingual programs.

One of the most successful bilingual programs has been the Primary Eskimo Program, at Bethel Agency, Alaska, serving Yupik-speaking children.

The program has been in operation since 1970, providing bilingual-bicultural instruction for Eskimo children and promoting community involvement in the classroom and school meetings; the Yupik Primary Eskimo Program is a maintenance-oriented bilingual program.

Since the late 1980s, many of these trends have expanded still farther, with even greater parts of  curriculum content  controlled locally.

Use of funds from casinos has allowed some nations to expand educational opportunities, not just for Indian people, but also for non-Indians in the area.

Particularly impressive is the growth of tribally controlled colleges, many starting to offer full four-year programs.

As well, there has been an increasing presence of American Indian studies programs on larger college and university campuses, as well as programs to promote training in areas like science and medicine. There are also organizations of American Indian college teachers/professors.

 

Most Indian people realize that education is important if economic development is to occur on reservations and if Indian people are to be afforded a wider range of opportunities for the future.

But, education, as with many other concerns of Indian people is related to sovereignty

Sources

For a wide range of sources, see Lisa Mitten's compilation of American Indian Education web sites (http://www.nativeculture.com/lisamitten/education.html) where you will find everything from full text articles, to information about the community colleges, to pages regarding K-12 education.

Much of the material for this lecture comes from an article by Margaret Connell Szasz and Carmelita Ryan entitled "American Indian Education" published in The Handbook of North American Indians, volume 4, History of Indian White Relations, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.  1988. pp. 284-300.