Moving in the Right Direction

Every year since 1994, presidents have issued proclamations designating November “National Native American Heritage Month,” a time to celebrate Native Americans for their rich culture and customs. It’s also a time to reaffirm our commitment to providing Native Americans the quality education they need to succeed.

For more than 100 years, the federal government has been responsible for supporting schools located on or near Indian reservations. Unfortunately, we are failing to uphold that responsibility, and students and families are paying the price. Reports from investigative journalists and government watchdogs, congressional site visits, and public hearings have brought a bleak reality to light: the state of Indian education is appalling.

On a visit to the Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig School in Northern Minnesota earlier this year, Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline and Rep. Todd Rokita saw firsthand the deplorable conditions Native American students faced. At a hearing following the visit, Chairman Kline described the problems that schools just like the “Bug School” face: “falling ceilings; broken water heaters; electrical hazards; rotten floors; and rodent-infested classrooms.” And for many families, sending kids to these schools is their only option.

In her four-part series on Indian education, Pulitzer finalist Jill Burcum writes,

The educational promises this nation made to tribes are being broken. It is a policy of disgraceful indifference, leaving generation after generation of American Indian children struggling to build better lives.

When many tribes face staggering unemployment rates of over 50 percent, and the graduation rate for students who attend these schools is “the lowest of any racial or ethnic group in the country,” ignoring these educational challenges is unacceptable. That’s why the Education and the Workforce Committee is working to:

• Shine a national spotlight on the problem. The committee conducted two oversight hearings, a subcommittee hearing to examine the challenges facing Native American schools and a full committee hearing to hear directly from the Director of the Bureau of Indian Education and hold the administration accountable for years of neglect.

• Demand better from the federal government. The committee directed the Bureau of Indian Education to reform its “bungling bureaucracy” and demonstrate real progress that prioritizes the needs of Native American students. Just last month committee leaders reviewed the agency’s plan to solve the problems facing schools, recognizing signs of progress and raising continued concerns.

• Provide additional resources to address the deplorable conditions of schools maintained by the Bureau of Indian Education to help accelerate the pace of repairing and replacing these rundown schools so Native American students have safe and healthy environments to learn.

As Chairman Kline has said,

Nobody can visit one of these schools and not say, ‘we need to fix this.’ We have a bureaucratic mess. We all owe it to these kids to get past the confusing [bureaucracy] and stop saying it’s somebody else’s problem. It’s time now for it to be all of our responsibility.

This month, as people across the country celebrate the heritage of Native Americans, federal policymakers must continue working to provide Native American children the quality education they were promised.

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