Native Americans
Multicultural and Urban Education
Group Project
Where did Native Americans come
from?
• Native Americans are the indigenous people
of the Americas.
• When and how they arrived on the continent
is debatable. The most common theory, the
New World Model, says they migrated from
Eurasia via the Bering Straight 9,000 to 50,000
years ago!
Native Americans in Oregon
• There are 16 tribes
that are federally
recognized in
Oregon:
Tillamook, Alsea,
Siuslaw, Coos, Chinook, Clatskani,
Coquille, Takelma, Shoshone,
Molalla, Cayuse, Kalapulyan,
Sahaptin, Northern Paiute, Shasta,
and Klamath.
Portland is located on
land that the
Chinook Tribe
resided on.
Where Native Americans and
Alaskan Natives Attend School
***
2008 Enrollment Across Districts
District
Total Enrollment
Native American/
Alaskan Native
Students
PORTLAND PUBLIC
SCHOOLS
46,046
764
1.7%
BEAVERTON
37, 613
576
1.5%
GRESHAMBARLOW
11, 872
154
1.3%
Total Percentage
Within Portland Public Schools…
Type of Schooling
ELEMENTARY
MIDDLE SCHOOL
HIGH SCHOOL
ALTERNATIVE
COMMUNITYBASED
ALTERNATIVES
SPECIAL
PROGRAMS
CHARTER
# of Native
American/ Alaskan
Native
Students
Percentage
Of Program or
School
388
1.5%
81
1.5%
152
1.4%
37
2.3%
78
6.1%
16
3.1%
12
1%
•Native Montessori Program (80%) and
the NAYA Early College Academy (47%)
are the programs with the highest
enrollment percentage of
Native/Alaskan Native students
•8 schools (with an enrollment of 350867) have zero to two Native/Alaskan
Native students
•Community-Based Alternative
programs are “for students whose
academic and social needs are not
being met effectively in the traditional
school setting”
Resources:
•http://www.mis.pps.k12.or.us/.docs/pg/10309
•http://www.beaverton.k12.or.us/pdf/dist/res_rep/dist_res_rep_2008
%20BSD%20Annual%20Survey%20Summary%20Report.pdf
•http://www.gresham.k12.or.us/about_our_district/district_profile.ht
ml
The Law
“Title VII”
Title VII of the No Child Left Behind Act 20
USC § 6319 et seq. provides the basis for
Indian Education Programs.
(a) PURPOSE- It is the purpose of this part to support the
efforts of local educational agencies, Indian tribes and
organizations, postsecondary institutions, and other
entities to meet the unique educational and culturally
related academic needs of American Indian and Alaska
Native students, so that such students can meet the
same challenging State student academic
achievement standards as all other students are
expected to meet. 20USC § 7402(a)
Portland Public Schools
The purpose of the Portland Public Schools Title VII Indian
Education Act Project is to improve the academic success of
American Indian/Alaska Natives through supplemental
services that support the culturally related learning needs of
project enrolled children and youth.
Portland's Title VII Project is focused on three major areas:
1. Improved academic achievement
2. Increased student retention
3. Increased Native cultural awareness/connections
http://www.indianed.pps.k12.or.us/.docs/pg/10014
Portland Public Schools
In an effort to increase Native cultural
awareness/connections Portland Public Schools
“provides cultural education to connect students with
their Native history, cultures and traditions, instilling
pride and confidence to achieve challenging
academic standards.”
http://www.indianed.pps.k12.or.us/.docs/pg/10014
Portland Public Schools
All Project enrolled students are offered the following services:
Basic school supplies
Resource and referral
Advocacy/intervention
Student incentives
Summer programs
Native cultural opportunities, awareness and cultural activities
Family literacy
Native Montessori Program
Early Childhood information
http://www.indianed.pps.k12.or.us/.docs/pg/10014
American Indian Baseline Essays
What are they?: “Baseline Essays are reference volumes each
consisting of six or seven individual essays written in traditional
subject-matter areas. Together, the Essays document the history,
culture(s) and contributions of a specific geocultural group.”
A Baseline Essay was planned to have the following characteristics:
• Information should be truthful, informative for all, and uplifting
for the subject cultural group.
• Content should include a brief survey of the history, culture(s)
and contributions of a geocultural group.
• Voices and perspective(s) of the people whose antecedents
originally come from the continent (or tied to the continent by
culture or heritage) should be reflected in the document.
• References should support information presented in the
Baseline Essay, though it is important to remember an essay is
not a research paper or book.
http://www.pps.k12.or.us/depts-c/mc-me/essays-3.php
Portland Public Schools
The Native American Youth and Family Center in
Portland received a $272,000 Demonstration Grant Award
this year from the Office of Indian Education to:
“implement a College Readiness through Assessment
and Enrichment Interventions project. The project will
identify and serve the underserved native student
population in the Portland metropolitan area high
schools to provide enrichment intervention strategies,
assessment and instruction in mathematics and
science, and ACT and PSAT tutoring and preparation.
This project will also conduct a city-wide Native College
Fair to encourage and promote more native students to
transition to post secondary education. Number of
participants: 70”
http://www.ed.gov/programs/indiandemo/awards.html
Washington County
“Title VII” administered by the Northwest Regional
Educational Service District (NWRESD)
NWRESD’s mission mirrors the policy statement at the
beginning of Title VII of NCBL
The purpose of the Program is to increase the
number of AI/AN students successfully completing
high school and pursuing higher education.
This year the focus is on (1) attendance, (2) academic
performance, (3) ACT or SAT preparation and testing, and (4)
career and/or college guidance including participation in
enrichment and volunteer opportunities.
http://nwresd.k12.or.us/instrserv/indianed/index.html
Washington County Perspective
Indian Education Programs – Title VII – exist not because of
race or ethnicity. They are based on the trust relationship of Tribal
nations with the U. S. federal government. According to the National
Indian Education Association, it summarizes the development of this
relationship: “In exchange for Indian land and trade concessions,
the U.S. assumed a protective role that developed into a ‘trust
relationship.’ Trust is generally defined as ‘the unique legal and
moral duty of the United States to assist Indians in the protection of
their property and rights.’ Trust has as its primary purpose the
continued survival of Indian tribes and their governments. The trust
relationship existing between the federal government and Indian
tribes governs that special, unique relationship between the United
States government and Indian nations.”
Based on this trust relationship, Indian Education Program –
Title VII – is included in No Child Left Behind. As described by the
Office of Indian Education, “The No Child Left Behind Act amends
the Indian education programs as Title VII, Part A of the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act.
http://nwresd.k12.or.us/instrserv/indianed/index.html
The Native American Perspective
From the first attempts at educating American Indians, the goal has been
to change them.
Every attempt at changing the American Indian and, now, the Alaska
Native has met with failure or minimal success.
Indian education policies have historically had two thrusts: isolation
and assimilation.
Federal policy toward American Indians and Alaska Natives has
historically forced assimilation for the purpose of divesting Indians of their
land and resources.
From the beginning, the curriculum in Indian schools offered no
Indian languages, culture, or history.
http://www.niea.org/history/educationhistory.php
Coercive Assimilation
The coercive assimilation policy has had disastrous effects on the education of
Indian children. It has resulted in:
1. The classroom and the school system becoming a sort of battleground
in which the Indian child attempts to protect his integrity and identity as an
individual by defeating the purposes of the school.
2. Schools that fail to understand or adapt, and-in fact-often denigrate
cultural differences.
3. Schools that blame their own failures on Indian students and reinforce
their defensiveness.
4. Schools that fail to recognize the importance and validity of the Indian
community, causing both the community and its children to retaliate by
treating the school as an alien institution.
5. A dismal record of much absenteeism, many dropouts, negative selfimage, low achievement, and, ultimately, academic failure for many Indian
children.
6. A perpetuation of the cycle of poverty, which undermines the success of
all other federal programs.
http://www.niea.org/history/educationhistory.php
Native American – Community
The Declaration of Independence describes Native Americans as the
following:
‘…merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is
an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and
conditions’
How can their be any equality between us if our country’s foundation is
based on these words?
Justice for All
(except Indians)
• By 1969 over 400 treaties signed between the United
States and Native Americans had been broken.
• Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831)
– Cherokees win the Georgia fight of their removal based on
Indian Removal Act passed by congress and signed by
President Jackson in 1830.
• President and state of Georgia ignored Supreme Court and
removal process continued.
How Can Native American trust anything the Federal or State
Governments say? What choices do they have?
Treaty Engagement….
• Asks Wilkinson: How could the Indians possibly know the
transcendent meaning of what they were signing?
• One interpreter at Medicine Creek, asked by Stevens whether he
could get the Indians to sign, assured the governor, "I can get these
Indians to sign their death warrant.“
• The treaties might have been that for the Indians had it not been
for a clause in each of them guaranteeing tribes the right to fish ". .
. at all usual and accustomed grounds and stations.“
• Stevens had no qualms about Indian fishing. Fish and game were
abundant to the point of seeming limitless. What did it matter? If
anything was to become extinct, it would be the Indians
themselves.
A Win for Native Americans
• Boldt Decision (1974): One of the most-significant decisions in the
history of Indian law.
• But the Boldt decision reverberated throughout Indian country
because, in symbol, it had less to do with allocation of fish than
with allocation of power. It elevated tribal treaties to at least the
level of state law, and gave Indians a new political status.
• Boldt was a great boost in the direction of tribes ruling themselves.
It coincided with a Nixon-era infusion of federal money intended to
strengthen tribal governments.
• The result has been both a political and economic awakening, seen
in arenas as divergent as tribal casino resorts in Connecticut, tribal
police powers in New Mexico and online tribal lotteries in Idaho.
Examples of positive change for Native
Americans stemming from the Boldt
Decision:
• In Washington, the Muckleshoot tribe held up a city of Tacoma plan
to build a pipeline along the Green River, ancestral fishing grounds.
The project went through but only after Tacoma agreed to pay the
tribe $20 million, build a tribal fish hatchery and hand over 100
acres.
• In Utah, the Goshute Indians, over the objections of its non-Indian
neighbors, plan to lease part of their reservation for nuclear-waste
storage.
• In New Mexico, the city of Albuquerque has agreed to spend $300
million on cleaning up the Rio Grande River to meet the waterquality requirements of the Isleta Pueblo, which manages part of
the watershed.
•
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq0Joi1ELps
•
The
Native
American
Community
21.7 of 1000
American Indian
and Alaska Native children
were the victims of
child maltreatment in 2002, compared with 20.2 of 1000 African American
•
children and 10.7 of 1000 white children
Age-adjusted death rate for adults exceeds that of the general population by
almost 40%, with deaths due to diabetes, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis,
and accidents occurring at least three times the national rate
Rates of inadequate prenatal care and post-neonatal death among American
Indian and Alaska Native infants that were two to three times those of white
infants
American Indian and Alaska Native children are twice as likely to be
overweight and three times as likely to be obese, with rates of both growing
by 4% since the mid-1990s
A U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report documented that the IHS is so
severely underfunded that it spends just $1914 per patient per year compared
with twice that amount ($3803) that is spent on a federal prisoner in a year.
Native people have lower labor force participation rates than those of the
general population as high as 35% in some reservation communities
Poverty and unemployment observed in American Indian and Alaska Native
communities is related to broader economic development challenges in
American Indian and Alaska Native communities, including geographic
isolation and the availability of largely low-wage jobs.
35 - 60% High School Drop-out rate well above national average
•
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2567901/
•
•
•
•
•
•
Barriers for Modern Day
Native Americans
1. Outside of the “culture
of power.”
– Delpit tells us we must
teach the codes of the
“culture of power,” but
also accept diverse
students as they are:
– “The answer is to
accept students but
also to take
responsibility to teach
them” (38).
Barriers for Modern Day
Native Americans
2. Different style of oral communication
• Highly skilled in story telling, and “saying a great deal
with a few words” (57).
• Many NA communities prohibit speaking for
someone else– students can appear to not
understand text
• Speech pattern: NA take long speech turns and
expect to not be interrupted
Barriers for Modern Day
Native Americans
3. Stereotyping
• The “Nonverbal Indian child”
– NA students will give short/no answers when
called on in class or asked inappropriate questions
– Because of this, teachers stop calling on them and
they become “invisible.”
– NA students operate best in small groups
• Native Americans are “very diverse in cultural
traditions, physical appearance, religion, and
lifestyle” (Nieto, 159).
Fern Sherman Case Study
1. The only NA at her school
2. “This isn’t done in my culture”
• Cut-off by teacher
3. Correcting teachers in history class
4. NA children are taught to succeed
“for one’s family, Nation, or
community,” not for ones self (165).
5. Succeeded because of the support
of her father, and the high
expectations of her teacher
Other Issues…
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Highest drop-out rate: 30%
Unemployment: 50%
High suicide rates
Inadequate health care
Higher infant mortality rate than the
national average
6. Widespread nutritional deficiencies
7. Alcoholism affects the lives of more than
60% of NA children
--- Nieto, page 166