[Senate Hearing 113-383]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 113-383
INDIAN EDUCATION SERIES: INDIAN STUDENTS
IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS: CULTIVATING THE NEXT
GENERATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 9, 2014
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Indian Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
JON TESTER, Montana, Chairman
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming, Vice Chairman
TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
TOM UDALL, New Mexico JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
AL FRANKEN, Minnesota MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
MARK BEGICH, Alaska DEB FISCHER, Nebraska
BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii
HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota
Mary J. Pavel, Majority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Rhonda Harjo, Minority Deputy Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on April 9, 2014.................................... 1
Statement of Senator Barrasso.................................... 7
Statement of Senator Franken..................................... 46
Statement of Senator Heitkamp.................................... 43
Statement of Senator Tester...................................... 1
Witnesses
Broaddus, Mandy Smoker, Director of Indian Education, Montana
Office of Public Instruction................................... 2
Prepared statement........................................... 5
Gish, Brent D., Executive Director, National Indian Impacted
Schools Association............................................ 36
Prepared statement........................................... 37
Hudson, Daniel, Chairman, Wyoming State Impact Aid............... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 9
Mendoza, William, Executive Director, White House Initiative on
American Indian and Alaska Native Education, U.S. Department of
Education...................................................... 49
Prepared statement........................................... 51
Siqueiros, Alberto, Ed.D., Superintendent, Baboquivari Unified
School District, Tohono O'odham Nation......................... 22
Prepared statement........................................... 24
Appendix
National Indian Education Association, prepared statement........ 57
Response to written questions submitted by Hon. Tom Udall to:
Mandy Smoker Broaddus........................................ 61
Brent D. Gish................................................ 60
Daniel Hudson................................................ 61
Response to written questions submitted to William Mendoza by:
Hon. Heidi Heitkamp.......................................... 62
Hon. Lisa Murkowski.......................................... 71
Hon. Tom Udall............................................... 68
INDIAN EDUCATION SERIES: INDIAN
STUDENTS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS:
CULTIVATING THE NEXT GENERATION
----------
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 2014
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Indian Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m. in room
628, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Jon Tester,
Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JON TESTER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM MONTANA
The Chairman. I will call the Committee to order.
Today, the Committee is holding an oversight hearing on the
public education of Indian and Alaska Native students.
In February, the Committee held a hearing on early
childhood development and education. We heard a lot about the
investments in our youth and the positive outcomes that can
occur when these investments take place early in a child's
life. This does not, however, free us from continuing these
investments throughout a student's educational life.
It is estimated that between 90 and 95 percent of all
Indian students in the United States are in the public school
system. That is approximately 400,000 Indian students. In my
home State of Montana, approximately 16,500 Indian students
attend public schools.
Yet, when we talk about Indian education, it often seems
that we tend to overlook the programs affecting Indian and
Alaska Native students in our public schools. I am pleased we
are focusing on this important issue today.
Many leaders and advocates for Indian education know that a
quality education system can help lift communities out of
poverty and many of the symptoms associated with poverty. I was
a teacher, my mom was a teacher and one of my kids is currently
a teacher. Education has been a big part of my life and I know
firsthand the impacts a quality education can have on our youth
throughout their lives.
I believe that improving those opportunities can be a
starting point for addressing many of the issues that are so
prevalent throughout much of Indian Country.
As this Committee continues its series of oversight
hearings on Indian education, I look forward to hearing the
progress that some communities are making in improving Indian
education for all. I want to thank our witnesses for joining us
today and testifying on a topic that they are clearly very
passionate about.
I want to extend a special welcome to Ms. Mandy Smoker
Broaddus, who is the Director of Indian Education for the
Office of Public Instruction in my home State of Montana and a
member of the Ft. Peck Sioux and Assiniboine Tribes.
Senator Barrasso obviously is not here yet. When he
arrives, he will have an opportunity to give an opening
statement.
For now, I think we will go to the first panel of
witnesses. I want to welcome them all. First, we are going to
be hearing from Ms. Mandy Smoker Broaddus, Director of Indian
Education, Montana Office of Public Instruction. We will then
turn to Daniel Hudson who is Chairman of Wyoming State Impact
Aid. He will be followed by Dr. Alberto Siqueiros,
Superintendent of the Baboquivari Unified School District No.
40 of Sells, Arizona, who has some interesting testimony.
Finally, we will hear from Brent Gish, Executive Director,
National Indian Impacted Schools Association.
I thank you all for being here today. For those who made a
long trip, thank you. For those who made a short trip, thank
you. We appreciate your testimony. I am going to ask you to try
to keep your testimony to five minutes. Your entire statement
will be made a part of the record.
We will start with you, Mandy.
STATEMENT OF MANDY SMOKER BROADDUS, DIRECTOR OF INDIAN
EDUCATION, MONTANA OFFICE OF PUBLIC
INSTRUCTION
Ms. Broaddus. Thank you, Chairman Tester. Good afternoon
and thank you for inviting the Montana Office of Public
Instruction to this important hearing today.
It is my privilege to work for Superintendent Denise Juneau
and for an agency in a State that ``recognizes the distinct and
unique cultural heritage of American Indians and is committed
in its educational goals to the preservation of our cultural
integrity,'' language taken directly from Montana's
constitution.
It is an honor to speak before you all today. I am humbled
by the spirit of my mother and all those who have gone before
me because a great deal of collective suffering, yet also
undeniable resiliency among my family and throughout Indian
Country has allowed me to be here today.
I have traveled from Montana with the next generation of my
family in my heart, nieces, nephews, cousins and my own son who
attend public schools back home. I would travel any distance if
it might mean strengthening schools and communities so that
they might have a better life.
For so many of us across Indian Country and on this panel
today, this work is deeply personal because we realize that it
is our job to remove all the barriers our children face, both
inside and outside of the school building.
No stone should go unturned in our efforts to improve the
educational systems so that our kids are prepared for whatever
they choose next in life. This is the moral obligation for
anyone who chooses to work in education and for American Indian
students, it is even more necessary because times are urgent
for our young people.
In the face of suicide clusters, increasing domestic
violence and growing instances of self-harm and drug addition,
students show up at school every day and it is our job to do
the best we can for them.
The first thing I want to say to you today is that the work
of improving educational outcomes for American Indian students
cannot be the work of schools alone. The achievement gap in
Montana and across this country is very real and the solutions
are multi-dimensional and complex.
We need better approaches to realize stronger, healthier,
more stable and better-educated families and communities. This
means that HUD housing, USDA, Head Start and the Department of
Justice must be at the table with the Indian Health Service,
tribal governments and tribal colleges.
Funding and policy must be reconsidered within a framework
of support with the end goal of creating an environment where
young people are valued and safe.
I will now talk about our efforts to create and coordinate
innovative approaches in Montana. After many years of advocacy,
the State provides funding, almost $500,000 each year, to the
Office of Public Instruction to improve educational outcomes
for American Indian students in our public school systems.
We have funded dropout prevention efforts, early childhood
efforts and elementary mathematics programs. We seek
opportunities to support and educate the whole child because a
collective effort is what is required. Over time, we have honed
and refined a holistic approach to this work and we use public
as well as private funding to establish as many leverage points
as possible.
In addition to State funding, the Office of Public
Instruction has used Federal School Improvement Grant dollars
to create a unique collaborative effort with our State's most
struggling public schools, all of which exist in Indian
Country. The Department of Education allowed us some
flexibility with our SIG grant and we created the Montana
Schools of Promise.
As a result, the OPI has provided direct services to three
school systems in our State. In addition, our agency stretched
its capacity and provided five on-site coaches to assist school
leaders, teachers, the school board, students and community
members. These OPI staff members either moved to these
communities or worked from there. They go to work in our
schools every day and are able to push on these turbulent
systems in ways that district staff is limited.
Key results have been increases in literacy rates,
increases in student engagement and improvement in overall
school climate and infrastructure. We have also been able to
dramatically increase the efficacy of local boards of trustees
and are supporting new administrators who focus on the
difficult work of improving their schools.
Lastly and perhaps most significantly, we have implemented
an innovative approach to better support the emotional and
mental wellbeing of students through high fidelity wraparound.
We received a two year Montana Mental Health Trust grant and a
$1.8 million SAMSHA Systems of Care Grant and are partnering
with tribal governments from our Schools of Promise sites--Fort
Peck, Crow and Northern Cheyenne--and with Indian Health
Services, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the State
Department of Public Health and Human Services.
With this support, we are implementing community driven,
culturally responsive school-based mental health wrap around
supports for students and their families through trained staff
who are tribal members.
These staff members have access to county and State support
services and natural and cultural support to build on the
assets of youth who all too often face traumatic experiences
and live with PTSD symptoms.
In closing, here are a few additional considerations. Title
III administrators at the DOEd must consider the uniqueness of
historically impacted native languages and their differences
from other world languages. All Federal and State entities
which impact the lives of children must expand their efforts
beyond the traditional scope of services and more fully realize
important connections with local school entities.
I applaud President Obama's creation of the White House
Council on Native American Affairs and hope that this work
results in better coordination and innovation in Indian
Country. A great need exists for comprehensive planning and
funding to support the multi-faceted approach because we will
not improve educational outcomes without addressing life
outcomes overwhelmed by high unemployment rates and a lack of
access to quality health care for American Indian families.
Lastly, policy and regulations need to take into
consideration the unique relationship American Indian tribes
have with the Federal Government as sovereign nations. As such,
their children and public schools are impacted by policies and
regulations that fail to be culturally responsive and
culturally sensitive.
Again, thank you for allowing me this important opportunity
today.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Broaddus follows:]
Prepared Statement of Mandy Smoker Broaddus, Director of Indian
Education, Montana Office of Public Instruction
The Chairman. Thank you for your testimony, Ms. Broaddus.
Before we get to you, Mr. Hudson, I am going to turn to
Vice Chairman Barrasso.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO,
U.S. SENATOR FROM WYOMING
Senator Barrasso. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for
holding this important hearing today.
I am delighted to welcome Mr. Dan Hudson from Lander,
Wyoming, to be with us on the panel and to be the next to
testify. He serves as the Wyoming State Impact Aid Chairman. We
have met many times over the past number of years. He has a
great deal of knowledge of Wyoming's schools, especially those
on the Wind River Indian Reservation.
As I have stated at prior hearings, and as he and I have
discussed in the past, education is a critical factor for
success in today's world. Indian children have a remarkable
capacity to learn and thrive. There are many challenges these
children face in achieving their education. Recruitment and
retention of qualified teachers and safe learning environments
are just a few of those challenges.
There are opportunities for improvement and success. I look
forward to the entire hearing today, Mr. Chairman, and to
hearing from our witnesses about the opportunities that exist.
I welcome the witnesses and look forward to the testimony and
especially welcome Mr. Dan Hudson.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Barrasso.
Mr. Hudson, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF DANIEL HUDSON, CHAIRMAN, WYOMING STATE IMPACT AID
Mr. Hudson. Thank you, Chairman Tester, Vice Chairman
Barrasso and ladies and gentlemen. I thank you for inviting all
of us to be here today.
I am Dan Hudson from Wyoming. As noted, I am Wyoming State
Impact Aid Chairman. I am following the prepared written
testimony. I would like to note that 93 percent of all Indian
students are educated in public K-12 schools as opposed to the
7 percent of Indian students educated in Bureau of Indian
Education schools.
Second, three times as many Indian students are educated in
schools receiving impact aid funds when compared to the Bureau
of Indian Education schools.
I point this out as there has been occasionally a
misperception that Indian education is largely the province of
the Bureau of Indian Education Schools and this is not the case
at all. As your program title notes, Indian students are
largely in public schools.
Since 93 percent of Indian students are educated in public
K-12 schools, I think it important to note these schools are
governed by locally elected school boards. As such, these
school board members are very directly responsible to Indian
parents and their local tribes. Impact aid recipient schools
servicing Indian students have current specific legal
safeguards in place that require parental and tribal input into
the education programs provided by those schools.
In written testimony provided, there are chosen examples of
excellent and forward thinking programs provided by impact aid
schools to serve Indian students. These schools include
Browning, Montana; Ethete, Wyoming; Sacaton, Arizona; Wakpala,
Wagner and Timber Lake in South Dakota; Toppenish, Washington;
Red Lake, Minnesota and Lapwai, Idaho.
These aren't the only schools providing such programs but
are representative of the best Indian education programs
provided to cultivate the next generation. These schools are
from your States. They would seriously welcome your visits to
see what can be done with these funds.
I would also like to point out that exemplary results have
been achieved despite relative reductions in available impact
aid funding for these and the other impact aid schools over the
past several years. For Indian students, the most important
portion of their impact aid funding is called basic support or
Section 8003.
For Fiscal Year 2014 and so far, 2015, the basic support
portion of impact aid is funded at $1,151,000,000. That is 58
percent of the authorized figure of $1,984,000,000. As noted in
my written testimony, other parts of impact aid are even more
constrained such as payments for property, which receives only
3.5 percent of its authorized funding figure.
The last time that impact aid received appropriations to
match its authorization was 1969. As such, impact aid which
provides for so much of the education of the great majority of
Indian students, especially so when the Native population is
concentrated, has not been adequately funded for the last 45
years.
The third point I would like to discuss is the timeliness
of payments from the U.S. Department of Education to impact aid
schools serving impacted Indian students. Because impact aid is
the only Federal education program that isn't forward funded,
payments are issued only after the department receives either
an appropriation or a continuing resolution in the current
fiscal year.
School programs should begin in September. For the 2014
funding provided by the U.S. Department of Education and
Congress, several of Wyoming's impact aid districts did not
receive their payments until mid to late March of 2014 for the
fiscal year that began October 1, 2013, seven months into the
school year.
It is thus apparent that having the funding arrive this
late in any school severely compromises the district's ability
to begin or continue programs that should have begun the prior
September. Additionally, other major portions of fiscal 2013
funding were not processed by the U.S. Department of Education
and received by Wyoming's districts until March of 2014.
Providing and improving Indian education with such unreliable
timeliness of payments is, at a minimum, extremely problematic.
To address these issues and provide the best cultivation
for the next generation, first, the impact aid program should
be forward funded. This does require a two-year appropriation
within a single year and is difficult with our current Federal
fiscal operation. The amount required would be about $2.774
billion.
Further, to provide the education that Indian students
should receive in order to fully cultivate the next generation
of public schools would thus require fully funding impact aid.
This admittedly takes an even greater portion of funds, roughly
$3.8 billion.
To generate the amounts of funding necessary to achieve and
sustain these figures should be included as a portion of the
long overdue rewriting of the Federal tax code rather than
trying to borrow the funding from elsewhere in the current
Federal budget.
Five minutes. Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hudson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Daniel Hudson, Chairman, Wyoming State Impact Aid
Good day. First I'd like to note that 93 percent of Indian Students
are educated in K-12 public schools, with only the remaining 7 percent
being educated in Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) schools. Indeed,
just as regards Indian Students attending schools that receive Impact
Aid, there is about a 3:1 preponderance toward regular K-12 schools
(additional Indian students also attend K-12 public schools that do not
receive Impact Aid funding, whereas the BIE figure is inclusive to
those schools on their ``count day''). Please see Appendix A, pages 1
and 2 for relevant figures. The point here is that in regards to
providing Indian Education, the preponderance of that activity is
performed by Impact Aid schools, not BIE schools.
We can provide examples of some notable Impact Aid districts'
educational programs, programs that serve to ``Cultivate the Next
Generation'' as follows. These have all been presented at the Annual
Conference of the National Indian Impacted Schools Association (NIISA)
to the NIISA general membership.
In Browning, Montana, a presentation of their alternative education
program, ``Engaging Our Youth'' provided an increase in graduation
rates from 54 percent to 71 percent. in the 2010 academic year. The
Browning ``Project Choices'' provides an individualized education and
social plan is generated, inclusive of physical needs, for each student
within the program. This individualized plan is formulated by
alternative education personnel. The ``Choices'' program in the school
networks with other programs in the community, and has the overall
intent of helping these students. As of the presentation, the program
services 35 students. One should note that the graduation rate of 71
percent, even though not exceptional, is nonetheless a 17 percent
increase--and that is achieved among students whose physical needs of
existing are not met outside of the program setting.
In Ethete, Wyoming, Fremont County School District #14 achieved a
tremendous success in reading scoring, going from 0 percent reading
proficiency over quite a few years to 60 percent reading proficiency in
grades K-6. This was due to instituting a research-based, culturally
relevant professional development program developed by Mr. Craig
Dougherty at the Wyoming Indian Center in Sheridan Wyoming--and
initially developed for Native Hawaiian students. The focus of the
Center is on improving teaching; by improving teaching the education of
the students improves. The Center's focus is to improve learning by
working on students' strengths. There are no excuses--teachers cannot
change students' family situation or backgrounds--and thus the teachers
are the educational resources for the kids. Excuses and whining are not
permitted--the teacher is responsible for educating the students. The
program does require that teachers receive additional training after
graduation. Graduate study in math or language arts is required for the
program, as universities provide a general education background, but
specialists are what are needed. Teacher quality has six times the
effect on student learning than all other factors combined, including
ethnicity and socioeconomics. We have to provide a world-class
education to America's First Children.
In Sacaton, Arizona, Sacaton Unified School District (AZ), their
instructional program is headed up by Superintendent Jim Christiansen
with a team of Janet Chouteau, instructional coach, and Amanda
Billings, master teacher. The Sacaton program uses teacher coaches to
train staff, with the intent to unify and improve instruction. This
method has resulted in substantial gains in reading capabilities;
mathematics had good growth, although not quite as substantial. The
Sacaton program has four essential elements used to turn schools
around: (1) leadership, (2) professional growth, (3) curriculum
improvement, and (4) assessment of results with resulting modifications
to the plan. Reading and mathematics daily instructional time was
increased from 50 to 80 minutes. Parental involvement in education
remains an issue. The integration of cultural aspects and the Pima
language into Sacaton's educational program is not yet completed. Class
materials are also available for advanced and superior students, as
they can access instructional software in advanced level classrooms.
In South Dakota, quite a few districts are instituting exemplary
programs delivered to students while doing so in the geographical area
of the highest poverty in the United States. Wagner, SD schools
implemented the JAG (Jobs for America's Graduates) program at that
District to address student needs with severe life and academic needs.
Typically, membership in the JAG increases graduation rates to over 90
percent.
The Timber Lake District, also from South Dakota, has implemented
an ``Intensive Care Unit''. Superintendent Jarrod Larson notes that the
program focuses on achievement, accountability, and parent involvement,
along with positive professional development. To enter in the ICU,
students have missing work, have below a 2.0 average but no D's or F's.
The ICU program identifies these at-risk students and low-achieving
students. One of the components of the program is to have a Trusted
Adult available to address bullying issues. There are no 0 grades, but
students cannot go back to the prior semester. As such, if a student is
in the ICU for mathematics, that student must work on mathematics in
the program--not other areas such as art, for example. While in ICU,
there is no participation in assemblies, no sports participation, no
dances--until the work is completed. There are also no random reward
days in ICU. The results indicate reduced student apathy, increased
performance, and increased parental communication. Timber Lake also has
a signal science program developed by LuAnne Lindskov, South Dakota
Teacher of the Year. The program utilizes a new philosophy of
educational planning for success for the science students inclusive of
individualized tutoring during and after school.
In Wakpala, South Dakota, located on the Standing Rock Sioux
reservation, they have implemented educational programs by trying to
find out what works with Native students. It was noted that if the
school is seen to be sincere about the task and also sincere in caring
about the students, the students will perform well, it was also seen
that healthy behavior had to be modeled by the staff, as the students
do indeed watch. Wakpala has 100 percent Native Americans in its
student body; They are also 47 percent Limited English Proficient, 30
percent special education, 100 percent free and reduced lunch, and have
47 percent mobility among its students and the surrounding districts.
One challenge noted is that the area districts are trying to provide a
standardized curriculum in relation to the mobility factor. However,
results from the Wakpala program included a 5 percent improvement in
attendance, a 19 percent increase in graduation rate, and an eight-fold
decrease in high school discipline referrals.
Washington State also has a series of programs that serve Native
students to ``Cultivate the Next Generation''. Former Superintendent
Steve Myers instituted a pre-school cooperative at Toppenish,
Washington. Mr. Myers program is centered around the fact that very
young children (ages 3-5) have much more brain activity than is
measured in later years. Myers has noted that we as a society invest
great amounts of funding and effort to educate in later years, but very
little in preschool, despite the fact that preschool is where the
maximum amount of learning as measured by brain activity is actually
occurring. Myers program provided data that the emphasis on early
education pays off at the upper end of the education spectrum. 86
percent of his program children graduate, and between 83 and 96 percent
of the children go on to a post-secondary education. The program uses
multiple data assessments to ensure each child masters learning skills.
Toppenish also currently has an exemplary high school program
centered around science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The
goal of the this program, provided by Superintendent John Cerna, is
both college and career readiness. They generate a 93 percent
graduation rate. All students take Introduction to Engineering Design
as an introductory class. Second in the high school series is civil
engineering and architecture, followed by aerospace engineering.
Toppenish High School also provides instruction in robotics and digital
electronics. The English department also promotes technical writing.
Toppenish Middle and High School entered the World Technology
Competition, placing 36th overall in the world. Demographically, the
District is 90 percent free and reduced lunch, 83 percent Hispanic, and
13 percent Native American. Additionally, all Toppenish freshmen take
Principles of Biomedical Science, as the usual Earth Science and
Physical Science classes weren't preparing students for the Washington
State tests. As a consequence, enrollment in upper level mathematics
and science classes increased markedly, and the more basic/introductory
classes declined in enrollment.
Lapwai, Idaho instituted a program developed by Mr. Harold Ott
called Key Elements of High Performing Schools. The Lapwai District was
the recipient of a three year grant from the Albertson Foundation,
providing funding to address student performance. Ott noted that we
work too much on teaching, and not enough on learning. Ott also noted
that it is the moral responsibility of each teacher to educate each
child entrusted to them. The issue is to be teaching each student as
they are special, all of them, one at a time. As a result, every
student discovers their own chance to succeed. Ott also contends that
students don't fail--systems do. The task of leaders is thus to change
systems so the students can all succeed. The Wapato, WA District, where
Ott also worked, had a 14 percent graduation rate. A group of sixty
separate people wrote a school improvement grant, as a moral commitment
to change the Wapato school system. Four years later, the Wapato
District had an 86 percent graduation rate. Ott included the premise
that cultural diversity is a gift--we, as a nation, don't completely do
the 'melting pot' consistently. Wapato's program, as replicated in
Lapwai, had a multicultural fair, celebrating diversity, not
uniformity. This honors the things important to the District's various
students and their respective cultures. It also provided a sharp
reduction in discipline referrals, fights and gang activity. Ott noted
his motto--``No shame, no blame,--and no excuses.''
These examples are all provided by Impact Aid recipient schools,
and yes, they are selected with a viewpoint toward this Committee's
membership. They are by no means the only such examples available from
Impact Aid recipient schools primarily engaged in teaching Native
American students. It should also be pointed out that these schools are
all what is referred to as ``high LOT'' districts--meaning that they
receive a high percentage of their Impact Aid payment. Among other
things, the high LOT designation is indicative of high need and was
required by Congress in the 1994 iteration of Impact Aid. The point
being made here is that other schools receive lesser payment
percentages and as a possible consequence, have not evinced similar
programs.
Additionally, it should also be noted that these programs and
results from these schools have been achieved even while the Impact Aid
program itself has not received commensurate appropriations to provide
and continue such programs, and the delivery of Impact Aid funding by
the U.S. Department of Education to these and other Impact Aid schools
has been haphazard, especially over the last few years of operation.
The Impact Aid Law has several sections. Basic Support, or Section
8003 receives the major portion of appropriations and is the life blood
of Native education. Currently this Section of Impact Aid is funded at
58 percent of authorization, for fiscal 2014 a figure of
$1,151,233,000. The full federal obligation of Basic Support would be
$1,984,000,000. Basic Support, however, receives a far greater
proportion of the federal obligation than does another portion of the
program, that being Payments for Property, or section 8002, which
receives only 3.5 percent of authorization. For fiscal 2014, that
appropriation is $66,813,000; the true figure for Payments for Property
is actually $1,885,000,000, substantially close to the Basic Support
figure. As such, if appropriations were to actually meet the federal
obligation as authorized, the overall figure for these two portions of
Impact Aid would be about $3.8 billion. This compares to the
appropriated figure for these two parts (which aren't the entirety) of
Impact Aid of about $1.2 billion. The last year that appropriations
balanced authorization for Impact Aid was 1969. Since that time, the
Impact Aid program, which provides the educational needs and programs
of the great majority of Native American students, has not been
adequately funded. Please see Appendix B.
Further exacerbating this issue, the U.S. Department of Education,
first, cannot process payments to Impact Aid recipient districts
without a current year authorization (or continuing resolution) amount.
Impact Aid, as the second oldest federal education program, retains
that current year funding character of such programs from years long
gone. All other federal education programs are forward funded for one
year. As such, the other federal education program payments can be
processed in the current fiscal year without undue delays. Impact Aid,
until such time as a current year appropriation (or continuing
resolution) is completed, cannot be paid out, leaving the Impact Aid
districts without Impact Aid funding for an unknown time. Worse, as I
might note for Wyoming's school districts (I cannot knowledgably speak
for other states), there appears to be no consistency as regards
reception of payments from the U.S. Department of Impact Aid.
As an example, two Wyoming Districts (Fremont County School
Districts #14 and #21) received 40 percent of their 2014 Impact Aid
program funds in December 2013; they received an additional 40 percent
of their fiscal 2014funds in March 2014. Another Wyoming District
(Fremont County School District #38) did not receive any fiscal 2014
funding in December, and finally received its 2014 Impact Aid funds in
mid-March of 2014. Yet another Wyoming District (Fremont County School
District #6) is thought to have received its 2014 funds as of March 28,
2014. It should be noted that for the 2014 program year, it was
Wyoming's turn to provide documentation to the U.S. Department of
Education to verify the Impact Aid application figures. Fremont County
School District #6 had provided suitable documentation no later than
April 17, 2013 as may be verified by email commentary in the supplied
Appendix, yet did not receive payment until March 28th, 2014
(probably). Please see Appendix C, pages 1 and 2.
Another example of lack of performance is the processing of another
area of Wyoming's payments. One of the three methods of calculating
payments involves the use of what's called a ``generally comparable
district.'' This is the oldest method of calculating payment, and the
Impact Aid law, both current and for reauthorization purposes, requires
selection of the best method for payment purposes. The file properties
of this payment basis for Fiscal Year 2013, of which I've kept a copy
on my computer, and which the Wyoming Department of Education must
certify to the U.S. Department of Education shows last saving of the
file in August 2012. This means that all work was completed on the file
in Wyoming and it was transmitted not later than August 2012 to the
U.S. Department of Education. The payment of these Fiscal Year 2013
funds was not done until February 25, 2014. Please see Appendix D.
Frankly, my file transmission email is so long ago that it no longer
exists. You might look, for another example, at Appendix E, which is
the transmission of Fiscal Year 2014 information, provided to the U.S.
Department of Education on April 1--2013. It will be some time until we
see these funds, but it has already been slightly over a year since the
information was supplied.
Anecdotally, districts have related that the U.S. Department of
Education has related having staffing problems and/or data processing
issues that prevent timely payment processing. These things do indeed
happen, and we've all had them. However, when these excuses are used
year after year (again, anecdotally), this certainly becomes an
irritant at the school district level, but in the end, what this means
is at least some of the students who should have received the benefit
of these funds to provide their education will not receive the benefit
of these funds. Please also see Appendices F and G. These are part of a
presentation of the U.S. Department of Education to the National
Association of Federally Impacted Schools Association on March 17, 2014
regarding payment processing timelines. I'd like to point out here that
processing of some aforementioned ``Basic Support'' 8003 funding dates
back three years to 2011; likewise the 'Payments for Property' 8002
funding goes even further, back to 2010. To be fair, there are legal
issues that may impede payment processing by the U.S. Department of
Education. On the other hand, these legal issues are now dragging on
for four years.
Schools cannot provide a consistent program platform to ``Cultivate
the Next Generation'' without having at least a relatively consistent
fiscal basis. Some of the programs noted above, like that of Fremont
County School District #14, are becoming static, as the Impact Aid
funding necessary to provide and expand such programs has relatively
dwindled.
It isn't right to whine about problems without offering solutions,
so, quite frankly, first and foremost providing a 4 percent Impact Aid
appropriations increment for fiscal 2015 as compared to 2014 would
begin to address the issues; this would require about $64 Million.
Working toward forward funding of the program and thus alleviating
a lot of the payment problems is more difficult, as that requires a
'double appropriation' for two fiscal years in one, currently requiring
about $2.774 Billion. With our current national fiscal situation, this
is not an easy issue to address.
However, to really ``Cultivate the Next Generation'' for Native
students, these should be concrete goals to achieve. Finally, steps
should be taken to fully fund the program in order to properly address
the issue of federal responsibility for education of federal, and in
our case here today, Native students. Frankly, although it will likely
prove politically unpalatable for the foreseeable future, the source of
funds to do these tasks should, by the way our government is supposed
to work, be achieved during the long overdue rewriting of the federal
tax code as a part of proper balancing of federal revenues and
expenses.
Thank you.
Attachments
The Chairman. Right on the mark. Thank you, Mr. Hudson.
Mr. Siqueiros?
STATEMENT OF ALBERTO SIQUEIROS, E.d.D., SUPERINTENDENT,
BABOQUIVARI UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, TOHONO O'ODHAM NATION
Mr. Siqueiros. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Vice Chairman and
members of the Committee.
I am the very proud superintendent of the Baboquivari
Unified School District on the Tohono O'odham Nation.
I am here to tell you that transformation is working in our
school district. I thank the Committee, the U.S. Department of
Education and the Indian Affairs Committee, in particular, for
the support of the things that are going on in our school
district.
However, I will tell you that in September 2009 when I
arrived at my school district, I would classify or characterize
things as probably the most challenging experience I have ever
experienced in my entire life. Things were in disarray;
systemically, we were broken in every aspect of any expectation
that a parent, community member or governing board member, the
U.S. Congress or the Senate would have regarding a public
school.
Rather than just make lofty goals and establish short and
long term aspirations for our kids and for ourselves, we
decided to take a very aggressive approach to transformation.
In fact, my elementary and high schools in January 2010 were
classified as PLAs, persistently lowest achieving schools. That
meant that we were in the bottom five percent of all schools in
the State of Arizona. My middle school was a Tier 2 corrective
action school, not that far behind.
In fact, I will tell you that when I first arrived and
looked at the data going back to the early 2000s, my elementary
kids in the third grade were achieving mastery on the State
assessment at about 50 percent in reading, writing and math.
However, as they progressed through the grades, by the time
they were tenth graders, taking the High Stakes Assessment for
graduation from high school, less than 30 percent of our
students were achieving mastery. Instead of getting better, we
were regressing. This not only required courageous
conversation, but also required courageous action.
Working together within our community with the support of
my governing board, we began a comprehensive transformation
effort that included rehiring our teachers. At that particular
point, Arizona law permitted me to non-renew certain
classifications or classes of teachers. We non-renewed 52 of
our 87 teachers and started all over. Of the 52 that were non-
renewed, 13 were invited to come back after an interview
process.
Our goal moving forward was not just to hire warm bodies to
fill spaces, but to look and seek highly qualified and highly
effective teachers. Sherman Alexi classifies his experiences
growing up in the State of Washington as follows: The teachers
that end up in tribal school situations are typically teachers
without options. Consider for a moment how challenging that is.
Usually we are located out in the middle of nowhere, very far
from large urban settings, so it is challenging to find and
retain teachers in our situations.
As part of this process, we have leveraged our impact aid
Federal dollars, our entitlement dollars and our State aid to
create a situation by which we can recruit highly effective
teachers and sustain them over a period of time.
We have also looked at recruiting effective principals. We
believe that the principal is the most influential part of the
educational system; the teacher is the most important. Direct
instruction matters the most.
In addition to hiring teachers, we have created a very
comprehensive approach to our instruction. We have identified
four fundamental questions that we ask: what do we want our
kids to learn; how do we know when they have learned; what do
we do when they do not learn; and what do we do when they do
learn?
As we answered those questions, we designed a very
successful program that I will tell you right now, in the very
short period of time, we have had some huge successes. Our goal
is to truly create a college and career going culture in our
school district.
In May 2008, our graduation rate was 39 percent. I am
pleased to report that in May 2013, that rate elevated to 78
percent. Thirty of our students out of 52 graduating seniors
applied for college; 24 were accepted and 19 enrolled. Over $2
million in scholarships for our school district was a record.
The number of kids attending college was also a record.
You can see that our transformation effort is really
producing the intended outcomes and our students are becoming
much more successful through self-determination.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Siqueiros follows:]
Prepared Statement of Alberto Siqueiros, Ed.D., Superintendent,
Baboquivari Unified School District, Tohono O'odham Nation
Background
In January 2010, the Baboquivari Unified School District (BUSD)
took the bold step to say enough to a legacy of mediocre performance
and results, and committed to transforming itself to an excelling
school system. Since that time, teachers, staff, administrators,
parents, governing board, and of course, students have put forth an
unprecedented effort to move from a school district producing mediocre
results to one with high expectations and accountability! Our students
have made significant strides in their academic ``self-determination''
to become effective learners who strive for excellence and our staff/
teachers' level of expertise and experience has never been better. We
believe the Baboquivari Unified School District is now poised to become
the great educational institute that we all envision, and that our
students will be college and career ready upon graduation from high
school! To this end, we have challenged our students, parents,
community, and the BUSD educational team to take full advantage of our
ongoing transformational efforts toward ensuring that:
1. Students will reach their academic potential preparing them
for the next academic year (yes, including college for our high
school graduates);
2. Parents will be highly involved and engaged with their
children's education;
3. Schools will provide a nurturing and positive learning
environment conducive to effective learning; and,
4. The entire community will develop the ``determination''
that makes the education of our children its highest priority!
Long gone are the days of low expectations, mediocre performance
and results often seen in Tribal educational settings. We insist that
the entire BUSD community support our efforts in educating our
children. We believe that a community with high expectations will
result in a quality educational system! These efforts will positively
impact the health and wellness, economic prosperity, and quality of
life of the Tohono O'odham for generations to come. The students of the
Tohono O'odham Nation deserve a quality education and the Baboquivari
Unified School District is poised and committed towards fulfilling its
obligation.
Examples of our students' success include:
Nearly a 40 percent increase in Baboquivari High School's
graduation rate over the past five years.
Six Gates Millenium Scholars and one Dorrance Scholar over
the past three years.
Over $2 million in scholarships in 2013 (all-time high for
BHS).
State & National Science Fair winners in 2012, 2013, and
2014.
52 seniors graduated in the Class of 2013; 30 applied to
college; 24 were accepted; 19 enrolled in college in 2013 (all-
time highs for BHS).
K-3 cohorts have the highest achievement of all grades as a
result of the full benefit of our current transformation
efforts.
Call to Action: Our Journey to Success
As one of two school systems on the Tohono O'odham Nation, BUSD is
a state public school serving 1,100 students in Preschool through 12th
grade (the Bureau of Indian Education serves approximately 800
students). BUSD has a P-5 elementary school, 6-8 middle school, 9-12
high school, and two alternative schools serving students in grades 6-
12. In 2012, Baboquivari High School (BHS) and Indian Oasis Elementary
School (IOES) were designated as Persistently Lowest Achieving Schools
by the Arizona Department of Education. By definition, these two
schools were in the bottom 5 percent of all schools in Arizona. In May
of 2008, BHS had a graduation rate of 39 percent and IOES had not made
Adequate Yearly Progress in several years (Arizona Department of
Education, 2008). As a result, a call to action was necessitated and
put into motion by the BUSD Governing Board. The first step was
initiated in the summer of 2009 when the new superintendent was hired
to spearhead the transformation of BUSD.
With the support of the Governing Board, the newly hired
superintendent began the process of developing a strategic plan at
addressing the root cause of BUSD's underperforming schools. Several
internal data points including student achievement, attendance,
enrollment, discipline, college going rates, student interviews,
community input, budgetary allocations and expenditures, teacher/staff
performance, and parent involvement & engagement rates were used in a
comprehensive needs assessment. Additionally, data points directly
associated to the overall wellness of the Tohono O'odham Nation
including high school completion rates among adults, college attainment
levels, unemployment rates, and incidences of health issues were
utilized. As a result, four key areas were identified to guide the work
of transforming BUSD:
1. Design a highly effective and efficient educational support
services division: Human Resources, Transportation, Facilities,
Technology, and Finance.
2. Establish positive and meaningful partnerships and
relationships with key stakeholders including the Tohono
O'odham Nation, higher education institutions, parents, and the
various wraparound service agencies on the Tohono O'odham
Nation.
3. Develop a highly effective system of support for the
Governing Board that leads to highly effective governance.
4. Develop a teaching and learning approach based on best
practices that focuses on student achievement.
The emphasis moving forward was to assume a systems-thinking
approach by which all district divisions required partial to full
overhauls. Unfortunately, the comprehensive needs assessment
demonstrated serious inefficiencies within all district departments and
divisions. The following sections will identify those deficiencies
along with their remediation.
Educational Support
The design of a highly effective and efficient educational support
services division that included Human Resources, Transportation,
Facilities, Technology, and Finance was and continues to be the basis
for supporting highly effective instruction and ultimately learning.
Human Resources
The quality of any organization is dependent on the quality of its
employees. BUSD believes that teachers are the most important and that
principals are the most influential members of the school district. And
of course, other staff including non-certificated personnel and all
district level-administrators exists to provide key levels of support
to the teaching and learning that occurs in classrooms. Following were
the existing deficiencies and the remediation BUSD has taken over the
last four years toward building and developing the quality of services
provided by employees:
Human Resource Deficiencies and Remediation:
Ineffective hiring practices and procedures that de-emphasized
hiring highly effective certificated personnel and support
staff were exceedingly evident. BUSD had resorted to simply
filling positions by settling with the only candidate applying
for a teaching vacancy.
BUSD committed to developing a comprehensive approach and
philosophy of hiring only effective personnel. Specifically, the
following corrective steps were taken:
a. BUSD determined that it would follow a turnaround approach
in the School Improvement Grant process and chose to non-renew
all probationary teachers in the spring of 2010. In all, 49 out
of 87 classroom teachers were non-renewed. All the non-renewed
teachers were provided the opportunity to reapply for teaching
positions and only 13 were rehired. All other teachers for the
following school year were hired from a BUSD hosted teacher
fair held in Tucson, Arizona.
It is important to note, that BUSD was bound by Arizona
Law in its decision to select only probationary teachers for
non-renewal. Because BUSD was not effectively following State
mandated teacher evaluation procedures, it could not bring
forward statement of charges for poor performance for teachers
in the continuing category.
b. BUSD determined that it had to develop a comprehensive
approach to hiring teachers. The following procedures and
policy changes were put in place:
Developed two strategies for teacher recruitment:
Teacher Recruitment One or TR1: When a vacancy exists, BUSD
will follow the typical hiring procedures in school districts:
post an advertisement, accept applications, invite qualified
candidates to interview, select the bestqualified candidate.
Teacher Recruitment Two or TR2: BUSD administration will
identify superstar teachers from other school districts and
actively recruit them. Identification of such teachers is based
on referrals by other educators, newspaper articles indicating
previous successes of a teacher such as awards or
implementation of unique programs, or self identified teachers
that contact BUSD. The superstar status is based on data that
demonstrates their ability to move students academically. The
concept of TR2 is very similar to how college sports coaches
identify and recruit star athletes.
BUSD committed to increasing teacher pay by
strategically utilizing its Federal funding (including Impact
Aid) and State funding. BUSD went from being one of the lowest
paying school districts in Arizona to the highest in 2013. The
goal is to continue on this trajectory each year.
BUSD changed the governing board policy that provides
the superintendent discretion in placing newly hired TR2
teachers on any step on its teacher salary schedule. Arizona
school districts typically have policy that awards between five
to ten years of experience to newly hired teachers for
placement on salary schedules. Commonly, this is why teachers
don't move from one school district to another after they have
surpassed this range of years of employment in any one school
district. BUSD now has the ability to recruit experienced
superstar teachers from other school districts by leveraging
this change in policy.
c. BUSD determined that it had to develop a comprehensive
evaluation system for teachers. It appeared that prior to 2010,
employees were not provided with an effective evaluation. For
teachers it simply became a process of compliance with law and
not providing accurate and meaningful evaluations.
The shift from a philosophy of compliance to one of meaningful
feedback for continuous teacher growth has become the norm in
BUSD. Teachers recognize that the principal will progress
monitor their instruction as a means toward improving academic
achievement of students. As a result, BUSD developed and
implemented the Teacher Performance Evaluation System based on
the Arizona Framework for Measuring Educator Effectiveness. Key
components of this system include:
All teachers, regardless of experience, receive at least
two evaluations per year. The first evaluation is completed by
the end of the first quarter of the school year. This provides
the teacher with feedback early in the year and, if warranted,
the teacher is placed on an improvement plan with the necessary
support.
The school principal is required to conduct multiple
formal and informal teacher observations throughout the year.
Three district teams comprised of the superintendent,
key district personnel, principals, and school improvement
coaches conduct monthly walkthroughs that provide principals
with specific observational feedback on teacher performance.
Each of the teams observes the same teachers monthly and the
observational data is scored and monitored throughout the year.
Each teacher is also evaluated based on the academic
achievement growth of their students using classroom and whole
school results.
Issuance of subsequent year contracts is based on these
components of the BUSD Teacher Performance Evaluation System.
d. BUSD requires an annual evaluation of all non-classroom
certificated staff and all non-certificated staff. Though a
policy requiring annual evaluations had been in place in
previous years, it was not until recently that this became the
expected practice for all supervisors.
e. BUSD implemented strategic and curricular aligned
professional development for instructional certificated staff
and para-professionals. All certificated staff received an
extended contract that requires attendance in professional
development before the beginning and end of the school year.
During the 2013-14 school year, instructional staff was
provided 19 days of professional development aligned to the
district curriculum and expectations including Common Core
Standards, AVID (Advancement Via Individual Advancement),
Success for All Reading, PowerTeaching Math, technology, and
Tohono O'odham Culture awareness.
f. All BUSD non-instructional support staff receive job-
specific training during the summer and throughout the school
year as needed.
g. BUSD strongly believes that school principals are the most
influential members of the school district. As a result, three
highly effective school principals with a deep knowledge of
instruction, learning, and successful school leadership
experiences are currently leading the three schools in BUSD.
Each of the principals were recruited and invited to apply.
Transportation
Transportation Deficiencies and Remediation:
The BUSD transportation required a shift from antiquated
transportation procedures to a system that took into account more
current methods of training, routing, and maintenance of its vehicle
fleet.
The following changes resulted in improved transportation of
students to school and home:
a. Hired an experienced transportation director to assist in
providing effective leadership.
b. Downsized the number of mechanics from five to one in
accordance with industry standards based on the size of the
district's bus and white fleet. The one remaining mechanic
oversees general breakdowns and miscellaneous repairs of the
fleet.
c. Determined that it is more cost effective to contract out
repairs and general maintenance of the district's fleet.
d. Developed more strategic bus routes to reduce, as much as
possible, the time students spend on the bus. Due to the
remoteness of the district this continues to be a concern.
e. Provide ongoing training to bus drivers in transportation
specific areas in addition to areas generally considered more
academic such as Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports
(PBIS), Child Find, Mandatory Reporting, and Tohono O'odham
Culture awareness.
BUSD acknowledges that our bus drivers are the first and last
school employees to see our students daily. As such, we strongly view
this department as a critical component of student success.
Facilities
Facilities Deficiencies and Remediation:
The BUSD Facilities were in major need of remediation at the start
of the 2009 school year. All aspects of classrooms were in poor
condition from walls needing repair and painting, inoperable light
fixtures, stained and dirty carpets, and broken furniture. Generally,
our school grounds were not maintained and in poor condition as well.
Playgrounds, common areas, and athletic fields and facilities were not
up to standard. Our students were not being provided a learning
environment conducive to effective learning.
The following changes resulted in aesthetically pleasing and safe
learning environments for students, teachers & staff, and parents:
a. Hired a facilities director and grounds lead with expertise
in the areas of facilities & grounds maintenance and repair.
b. Strategically leveraged our Impact Aid, ARRA funds, and
donation funds in the development of a comprehensive plan to
fix all existing facilities and grounds and to develop
maintenance schedules including:
Purchase of new furniture aligned to our teaching
practices (desks and tables easily movable for cooperative
learning activities).
Replaced carpet in all classrooms.
Painted all classrooms and in the process of painting
the exterior of schools.
Repaired classroom fixtures such as clocks and pencil
sharpeners.
Repaired roofs and replaced ceiling tiles.
Designed and built a playground for the elementary
school.
Brought all athletic fields and courts up to Arizona
Interscholastics remoteness Association standards so that our
student athletes were provided safe venues to practice and play
games. This included the purchase of score boards in several
venues that didn't have them.
c. Provide department specific training and support for all
employees in accordance with industry standards.
Information and Technology
Information and Technology Deficiencies and Remediation:
BUSD had several areas of concern regarding its ability to deliver
IT services both as a management system and as an instructional tool.
Because this area required a high level of expertise, a new IT director
was hired with the expertise and school district experience needed to
resolve a variety of key issues. The following provides details of the
deficiencies and how they were remediated.
Internet Service
The district had only 9 mbps of bandwidth total during the 2010-11
school year. The bandwidth was shared with the district office and all
three school sites. Each school site had only 1.5 mbps each. During the
2012-2013 school year the district was upgraded to 200 mbps; 100 mbps
at the district office/middle school, 50 mbps at the elementary school,
and 50 mbps at the high school.
In November 2011, the district procured Internet services using the
E-Rate process. No vendors were able to deliver services at the 1000
mbps rate. The only service provider that could promise more than
50mbps was the Tohono O'odham Utility Authority (TOUA). The district
applied for E-Rate funding and asked the vendor to deliver service at
the earliest available time allowable using E-Rate funding. At the
time, TOUA did not have any fiber based Internet services. After many
conversations and pressure on TOUA, Fiber Optic services became
available to BUSD in July 2012. BUSD was the first TOUA customer able
to order fiber optic Internet services. However, the district was not
able to fully switch to the fiber optic Internet services until
December 2013. This was due to TOUA's inability to provide reliable
service.
E-Rate Funding
Baboquivari School District had not received E-Rate funding between
FY 2008 and FY 2011. This was due to procurement and filling deadline
issues. BUSD brought in a consulting vendor to help correct issues and
get the district back in good standing with the E-Rate Program. The
district is now reimbursed for 90 percent of all communications
services. This includes Internet, telephone, cellphones, websites,
internal connections, and maintenance of internal connections.
Infrastructure
The district infrastructure was not fully operational through the
2010-11. The district had purchased a wireless solution and it was
never configured or fully installed. Access points were mounted and no
cabling was present to power up the wireless access points. Network
switches were connected at lower than ideal speeds using copper and not
fiber. Some network switches were broken and not replaced. Servers were
also in need of upgrades and replacement parts.
During the fall of 2012 the district procured a full district-wide
infrastructure overhaul using E-Rate funding. Funding was approved in
February 2013. The district completed work at all sites in January
2014. E-Rate funds were only used at the middle school. School
Improvement Technology Grant funding was used at the elementary and
high schools. Using the school Improvement Technology Grants allowed
the district to get the project fully funded. E-Rate funding only
covers 90 percent of any costs.
Hardware
The district purchased 800 student laptops during the 2008-09
school year. Only 450 of those devices were deployed in 2010. Many of
the deployed laptops did not have sufficient wireless coverage to be
used effectively. After the infrastructure was installed and repaired
all the devices were deployed.
Power
Power is still a big concern. Most of the network infrastructure
had no battery backup power. The district infrastructure now has at
least 2 hours of runtime and can support wireless devices and phones
for that time.
Support
The district now has effective and responsive tech support.
District technicians are able to work with staff and ensure that all
district technology is in good working order. Also, the district now
has a technology integration specialist. This position supports
teachers directly in effective technology and content integration.
Finance
Finance Deficiencies and Remediation:
Effective budgeting processes are essential to the successful
operation of a school district. BUSD receives funding from State Aid,
Federal Entitlement Funds, and Federal Impact Aid. However, during the
2009-10 school year it became evident that BUSD didn't have defined
budgeting processes with a clear focus toward supporting schools. The
major areas of concern included:
a. Lack of a defined budget development processes.
Decisions were made arbitrarily by the District's
business manager and superintendent without input from key
stakeholders including principals, department directors, and
parents
The school board had little to no involvement in the
development of the budget, other than final approval.
b. Lack of effective and efficient budget management
processes.
c. Out of compliance with State of Arizona Audit requirements.
In the 2009-10 school year, auditors were unable to complete
discovery due to a lack of established general budgeting
procedures, therefore, the completion of audits were delayed
over a four-year period.
The following measures were taken to remediate these deficiencies:
a. Hired an effective school business manager with 20 years of
successful experience in Arizona public schools.
b. Developed an inclusive budget development process that
included the formation of a budget committee comprised of
teachers, parents, principals, and district administrators.
c. The Governing Board is provided a detailed budget report at
a regular board meeting once a month.
d. A study session is held annually with the Governing Board
to review budget recommendations and to gather input from
members.
e. Upgraded budgeting and payroll software.
f. Provide ongoing training to the business department staff.
g. Developed best practice business procedures.
h. Hired a reputable school auditing firm that assisted in
bringing BUSD into compliance with the Arizona Auditing
requirements.
Meaningful Partnerships
Key to the success of BUSD is the establishment of positive and
meaningful partnerships and relationships with key stakeholders
including the Tohono O'odham Nation, higher education institutions,
parents, and the various wraparound service agencies on the Tohono
O'odham Nation. BUSD strongly believes that if we are not successful
with this component, our transformation efforts will plateau and
sustainable effective learning will not occur.
The Tohono O'odham Nation
BUSD believes that a strong partnership with the Tohono O'odham
Nation's leadership is a key component in the sustainability of an
effective school system. Of particular mention is BUSD's efforts to
create a C-20 Council on the Tohono O'odham Nation that brings key
decision makers together to support the education of children (the C in
this case refers to conception). Such a group will create the necessary
collective efficiencies, not only for the benefit of BUSD, but the
greater community as well. All service agencies and departments on the
Tohono O'odham Nation will develop the much needed coordinated health
and wellness approach so urgently needed.
As an example, it is critical that a priority is placed on
providing an expecting female the needed wraparound services she
requires so that both mom and the baby have a healthy pregnancy term.
There are two primary reasons for this: First, the expected female
needs guidance and support in maintaining a healthy pregnancy from
prenatal care to awareness on what the dos and don'ts are during a
pregnancy. For example, the incidence of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome has a
direct correlation on the child's health and cognitive abilities for
the rest of his/her life. Expecting moms need to have knowledge of this
and know exactly where and how to get the necessary assistance.
Unfortunately, the standard of prenatal care for Native American women
is not at the level recommended by the medical profession. Again, there
is a need to provide all the necessary services to ensure that
expecting moms have knowledge and access to the appropriate prenatal
care and information associated with a healthy pregnancy. Secondly,
brain research clearly informs us that the brain is about 80 percent
fully developed by the age of three and to a great extent, the level of
prenatal services are highly correlated to the cognitive developmental
levels of children in Tribal environments. Sadly, there exists a crisis
surrounding this matter.
Just as critical in the C-20 Concept is the quality of early
childhood services and education provided to children in our community.
The research on learning suggests that children who are exposed to
strategic learning opportunities and that are provided the appropriate
levels of nutrition and wellness care are more apt to succeed
academically. Unfortunately, this too is in a state of crisis and
requires a significant overhaul. For example in BUSD, we do not see a
correlation with kindergarten readiness with those students that are
enrolled in the Tohono O'odham Nation's Head Start Programs and those
that are not.
The current levels of wraparound services and safety nets for
children of all ages fall short of providing the quality of services
needed to support BUSD students and their families . The C- 20 Concept
is intended to support the necessary changes that lead to the delivery
of effective wraparound services and the development of the much needed
safety nets for all BUSD children and their families. However,
extensive work is required to reach this goal.
Generally, BUSD is garnering the needed support from the Nation's
leadership through the following means:
1. Regular meetings with the Human Resource Development
Committee of the Legislative Council. BUSD provides progress
reports and updates on program changes in addition to the
implementation of new programs.
2. Annual Progress Report presentations to the Legislative
Council.
3. Established meetings with directors and leaders of the
Tohono O'odham Nation's key departments including Education,
Behavioral Health, Recreation, Police Department, Fire
Department, and Public Safety, along with the leadership of the
Indian Health Services. This effort is continuously improving
as BUSD strives to build collaborative partnerships and
relationships with the various agencies on the Tohono O'odham
Nation.
4. Periodic progress report presentations and meetings with
the Chairman of the Tohono O'odham Nation. This is an area that
continues to improve annually.
5. BUSD's direct involvement in the Circles of Care Grant that
supports a coordinated model of the delivery of effective
wraparound services and the development of safety nets for the
Tohono O'odham Nation.
Higher Education
BUSD has established effective partnerships with several
institutions of higher education including the University of Arizona,
Pima Community College and the Tohono O'odham Community College. In
particular the Tohono O'odham Community College (TOCC) and BUSD have
established a comprehensive partnership to support the needs of
students. Key components of this partnership include:
1. Monthly collaborative meetings with BUSD and TOCC
leadership.
2. Implementation of a dual credit programs where juniors and
seniors earn college credit for Math and English classes taught
at Baboquivari High School.
3. TOCC and BUSD are partners in the delivery of a United
States Department of Education i3 Innovation Grant that
provides students in K-12 with AVID. AVID is a college
preparation system that infuses key strategies and expectations
in the development of a college going culture.
4. An MOU that ensures that both institutions will maintain a
collaborative partnership in providing education to the Tohono
O'odham in Preschool through Community College.
Additional information related to BUSD's partnership with the
University of Arizona is described later in this document.
Parent Involvement and Engagement
BUSD has made the involvement of parents, guardians, and caretakers
a priority. The research and literature in educational best practices
suggests that perhaps the most important component of student success
is the level of parental involvement in their children's education.
BUSD has implemented several key strategies and programs in supporting
our parents, guardians, and caretakers involvement in their children's
education. Among these are:
1. POP Academy: The Power of Parents Academy is designed to
engage parents at two critical levels in the lives of their
children as described below:
a. Provide a series of classes over 15 hours in seven weeks on
topics that affect their children's lives and that impact their
quality of life now and in the future. This includes the
following topics:
How to navigate the school system successfully
(communicating with teachers, principals, and staff).
How to setup homework expectations that lead to
effective learning.
Knowledge and awareness of social issues that influence
their children (gangs, controlled substances, sexual activity,
etc.).
Basic life skills such a financial literacy, how to
maintain your vehicle, how to repair leaky faucets.
Topics surrounding health and wellness.
b. Enforce to parents the significance of their own education
by building the selfdetermination that they too can become
lifelong learners. Their attendance not only helps them but
they also become role models for their children. This in itself
is perhaps the most significant aspect of the POP Academy:
children seeing their parents attend school.
BUSD is collaborating with TOCC in the development of programs
that will encourage parents in returning to school to earn a
GED and/or to continue their education. Unfortunately, nearly
50 percent of the adults on the Tohono O'odham Nation have not
graduated from high school and very few have college degrees.
The POP Academy will eventually assist our parents in
continuing their education as follows:
Those that successfully complete the POP Academy will
earn a college credit through TOCC.
Those who have not graduated from high school will be
encouraged to enroll in TOCC's Adult Education Program leading
to a GED.
Those who have graduated from high school will be
encouraged to enter a certificated program, an associates
degree or a transfer program.
An educated populace results in an improved quality of life for
all members of the Tohono O'odham Nation. Certainly, as
research suggests, there is a correlation in students' academic
success and the levels of educational attainment of their
parents. The POP Academy is designed to capitalize on this.
2. BUSD strongly believes in the significance of parent
involvement and engagement and has dedicated funding that
provides a fulltime district level administrator and a parent
involvement specialist at each campus.
a. The district Coordinator of Parent/Community Involvement &
Engagement oversees all related programs and events associated
with this effort.
Provides training and support for the site-level parent
involvement specialist.
Plans and implements district level programs including
the Back to School Celebration and the Miracle on Main Street
Winter Festival. The Back to School Celebration is a
comprehensive effort that brings over 1,000 students and
parents to a community type fair. Students receive haircuts,
backpacks and supplies, and participate in fun activities;
while parents are provided classes in a variety of school and
community related topics. The Miracle on Main Street provides
and brings a community building approach where the schools and
community agencies provide educational activities for students,
school and community leaders perform Christmas carols, and
students and adults are provided culturally relevant stories.
Well over 1,000 meals are served to those in attendance.
Oversees the POP Academy.
Oversees the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance
Program.
Leads BUSD's community outreach efforts including
newsletters, communiques, and community meetings.
b. The site level Parent Involvement Specialists work directly
with teachers and principals in all aspects of engaging parents
including:
Conducting home visits as needed.
Providing transportation to parents to school events/
meetings and to school related appointments with external
agencies.
Making referrals for students and families to
wraparound agencies as needed.
Participating in a variety of parent meetings.
Translating for parents as needed.
Overseeing their sites clothing bank.
Collaborating with the district coordinator in the
delivery of all parenting classes and events.
3. Generally BUSD expects parents, guardians, and caretakers
to be fully involved and engaged in their child's education.
BUSD has established a compact that requires the following of
parents:
a. Read to and/or with their child at least 20 minutes daily.
b. Spend at least 10 minutes daily having a meaningful
conversation about school with their child.
c. Volunteer at a minimum 4 hours monthly in their child's
school. This can include participation in the POP Academy and
other parent classes and events throughout the year.
d. Attend the back to school event where students are provided
backpacks school uniforms, shoes, haircuts, etc.
e. Attend Parent/Teacher conferences as scheduled twice per
year or as needed.
Governance
BUSD strongly believes in providing a highly effective system of
support for the Governing Board that leads to highly effective
decisionmaking.
a. The superintendent maintains communication with each board
member in matters related to the operation of the school
district. In BUSD this includes regular written updates along
with communication on pertinent information as it occurs.
b. The superintendent provides the Governing Board with the
necessary information that prepares members for effective
decisionmaking at official meetings. This includes the
dissemination of critical information in the board packet
delivered timely in advance of scheduled board meetings so as
to provide adequate time for review. Additionally, in BUSD, the
superintendent meets and/or calls each board member in the days
prior to the board meeting to provide additional information
and/or clarification to items and supporting documents as
needed.
c. The superintendent ensures that timely and effective
training is provided to the Governing Board and its members.
Additionally, an annual retreat is held where the Governing
Board reviews previous years goals and outcomes, and sets the
same for the subsequent year.
Teaching and Learning
BUSD is highly committed to providing a rigorous learning
environment for each of its students. To this end, BUSD has implemented
a teaching and learning approach based on best practices that focus on
student achievement. We also believe that the most significant aspect
of learning is direct instruction and as such, we have focused on
improving our teachers preparation and readiness to deliver a rigorous
curriculum that leads to students being next year ready at the
completion of the current school year, and of course, college and/or
career ready upon graduation from high school. BUSD believes that the
most influential members of the district are its principals and that
its teachers are the most important. BUSD also recognizes that the
development of highly effective learning environments can only occur
through individuals that have a clear purpose, unwavering passion, and
a powerful persistence. BUSD has such a team of professionals in its
teaching staff, administrative team, and support staff.
As previously mentioned in this document, BUSD has implemented a
comprehensive approach at providing training and support to all members
of the instructional team including teachers, para-professionals,
principals, and district staff and administration. Specifically, the
instructional team participates in a focused effort that includes:
1. Professional Development (PD) for the Instructional Team
a. 24 days contractually required PD in 2013 and 19 days in
2014 (these days were scheduled prior to the school year and
after the school year, with three days occurring during the
school year; reduction in PD days attributed to decreased
funding).
b. Additionally, job-embedded training and support is provided
throughout the year in reading and math. Trainers model lessons
and strategies, observe teachers, and provide immediate
feedback and coaching.
c. Site level instructional coaches provide differentiated
professional development and support to teachers aligned to
principal observations and district walkthrough observations
(described in the Human Resource section of this document).
d. The following topics and areas continue to be the focus of
the BUSD Professional Development Program:
Common Core Standards
Tohono O'odham Culture
Beyond Textbooks (curriculum mapping, lesson planning,
and benchmark assessments)
Marzano's Art and Science of Teaching
Classroom Management
Technology as an Instructional Tool
e. All teachers new to the district and all teachers in their
second year in the district are required an additional 16 hour
of professional development in the BUSD New Teacher Induction
Program. Teachers receive extended training in the areas
highlighted above. This is part of our efforts at ensuring that
all teachers receive the same level of training and support in
the expected pedagogy and curriculum.
Additionally BUSD has set very clearly articulated expectations for
teachers that are employed in our schools. The teacher contract
includes the following language that articulates expectations:
1. The Teacher agrees to teach such grade, grades or subjects
and to perform such other professional duties as may be
assigned by the Governing Board or its administrators including
but not limited to:
a. Meet the needs of all students through the use of the
District's adopted instructional strategies, programs and
procedures so that all students are given every reasonable
opportunity to achieve one year's growth in the course(s)
taught. This includes, but is not limited to the use of AVID
strategies, Success for All, and all other adopted materials.
b. Integrate the provided technology into everyday instruction
in alignment with the District's grade level and/or content
expectations.
c. Maintain a classroom environment that promotes effective
learning through the use of best practice routines and
procedures, displaying exemplary student work, posting learning
objectives prominently visible to students in grade level
appropriate language, maintaining bulletin boards/displays
consistent with current instructional themes, and that promotes
the Tohono O'odham Culture.
d. Maintain an adherence to professional growth by attending
all District approved professional development during the term
of the contract.
e. Collaborate with grade-level and/or content teachers at a
minimum of once per week in the development of lessons, units,
and activities in alignment with the District's curriculum.
f. Collaborate with grade-level and/or content teachers and
other school personnel at a minimum of once per week in the
disaggregation of student achievement, attendance, and
behavioral data so as to develop and implement differentiated
instruction as needed.
g. Meet District expectations in the use of school-wide and
classroom quantitative data that measures student academic
progress in alignment with the Arizona Framework for Measuring
Educator Effectiveness
h. Complete lesson plans weekly in alignment with the
district's curriculum and post electronically utilizing the
District's lesson plan template.
i. Maintain accurate records in Infinite Campus, which are
updated and posted as required by the District. This includes,
but is not limited to, grade book, grades, attendance, and
correspondence.
j. Develop and design a teacher web page that includes, but is
not limited to, teacher welcome page, lesson plans, curriculum,
assignments, and links. k. Provide timely communication to each
of your student's parents or guardians at a minimum once per
quarter or as needed.
l. Recognize the significance of the Tohono O'odham Culture in
teaching and learning and, as such, demonstrate proficiency
through its integration into daily instruction in alignment
with the District's expectations.
As part of the issuance of contracts, each principal meets with
each teacher and reviews the language to ensure that there is full
understanding and agreement of the district's expectations.
BUSD has implemented the following key initiatives over the past
four years that will enable students to be next year ready upon the
completion of the current school year and college and career ready upon
graduation from high school. The selection of these initiatives was
strategic having been preceded by careful review, research, and
dialogue with principals, teachers, and school improvement specialist.
Common Core Implementation--Though required in Arizona
through a phase-in over three years, BUSD implemented fully
prior to the full implementation time period. The Common Core
Standards provide the rigor our students need to successfully
be college ready.
Success For All Reading--provides a very structured program
with intensive professional development and training. As a
result, BUSD teachers have become effective teachers of
reading. SFA also provides fluid leveled groupings that support
struggling as well as proficient readers.
--IOES was labeled as an SFA Ambassador School as a result of
significant growth in reading.
Power/Teaching Math Framework--Similar to SFA, this
framework provides effective instructional strategies
incorporated with our math adoptions.
Beyond Textbooks--Provides BUSD teachers for a framework for
curriculum mapping, teacher resources for lesson planning, and
assessment calendars.
Increased rigor in graduation requirements. The BUSD
Curriculum provides our students with a much deeper
understanding of the Common Core Standards in all courses.
Additionally, high school students are offered the necessary
honors courses through direct instruction on campus, online
courses, and dual credit courses through TOCC and Pima
Community College.
Data Driven Response to Intervention
--Effective use of Formative & Summative Assessments at all
levels
--GALILEO weekly and quarterly assessments
--Interventions provided during school, afterschool,
Saturdays, and all Intercessions
BUSD added 23 school days to the school year in 2011. The
additional days was an increase to the 157 day school year up
to that point.
More specifically in our goal of students being college ready upon
graduation from high school, BUSD has implemented the Wisdom Project.
The Wisdom project is a joint effort with TOCC under a United States
Department of Education i3 Innovation Grant in the delivery of a
college readiness system. As mentioned previously, the implementation
of the AVID system is funded through this grant. AVID, Advancement Via
Individual Determination, is a college readiness system for elementary
through higher education that is designed to increase school-wide
learning and performance. AVID accelerates student learning, uses
research based methods of effective instruction, provides meaningful
and motivational professional learning, and acts as a catalyst for
systemic reform and change (AVID, 2014). Beginning in elementary school
the WICOR method, which stands for writing, inquiry, collaboration,
organization, and reading becomes the standard for learning. AVID
curriculum is used in AVID elective classes and in content-area
classes. These basic skills are research-based strategies that help
prepare students for college.
Additional components of the Wisdom Project are:
Dual Credit Courses through TOCC and Pima Community College.
Focused visits to university and college campuses where
students are introduced to specific fields of study and
professions.
Teen Town Hall where students plan and implement a forum
where community leaders from throughout the Tohono O'odham
Nation are invited to respond to specific student issues,
concerns, and questions.
On campus college fairs and presentations where students
receive information from colleges from throughout Arizona and
the United States.
Components of the Wisdom Project currently in development are:
Internships where high school students will be placed in
degree required job experiences.
The Compact to Academic Success (CAS). BUSD is finalizing
this unique program with the University of Arizona (UA) that
provides Baboquivari High School Students with the following
based on very specific requirements while in high school:
1. Automatic Admission to the UA.
2. ``Front of the line'' status for financial aid and
scholarship opportunities.
3. Dedicated retention services while enrolled at the UA
BHS students must:
1. Maintain a GPA of 3.0 or higher
2. Maintain an attendance rate of 95 percent or higher
3. Must be involved in extra-curricular activities
4. Model exemplary citizenship
5. Successfully complete all prerequisite courses
6. Meet ACT or SAT requirements
Our goal is to expand this program to other universities in Arizona
in subsequent years.
Next Steps
Additional efforts are currently in development and scheduled for
implementation for the 2014- 15 school year:
BUSD is adding an additional 20 days to the 180 day school
year currently in place.
Implementing a digital program:
-- All math and reading materials at the elementary school
will be fully digital
-- The middle school and high school will be fully digital
-- Each student will be issued a take home tablet that will
have all materials as listed above on their tablets
-- Each classroom will have a 75'' HD monitor with a touch
overlay that will permit the teacher and students to manipulate
it with their finger. Additionally, the teacher and students
will have the capability of manipulating the 75'' HD monitor
from their tablet.
-- This will create a true 21st Century learning environment
that prepares students not only for college, but also for the
exponentially moving technological world. This will permit our
students to develop skill sets and foundational knowledge of
21st century possibilities.
Moving to a School-wide III budgeting process that permits
the blending of all entitlement funds with State aid.
Development of a Foundation that will support scholarships
for students, additional educational programs, and increased
salaries for teachers and staff.
The development of a Superstar Teacher salary schedule based on
specific criteria aligned to student achievement and leadership.
Teachers successfully meeting this criteria are moved to a ``master
level'' pay rate significantly higher than the current salary schedule.
Closing
BUSD is committed toward meeting its obligation of providing a
comprehensive learning environment that leads to college and career
readiness for our students. Over the past four years, BUSD has had
courageous conversations with all key stakeholders and has taken the
courageous actions resulting in improved outcomes for students. Though
we celebrate these successes, we recognize the need toward continued
improvement and will continually strive to do what is best for our
students. I thank you for allowing me the opportunity to share the
challenges and successes on BUSD's Journey to Success and welcome
further discussion.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Gish?
STATEMENT OF BRENT D. GISH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INDIAN
IMPACTED SCHOOLS ASSOCIATION
Mr. Gish. Chairman Tester, Vice Chairman Barrasso and
members of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, thank you
for the opportunity to come before you today.
My name is Brent Gish. I serve as Executive Director of the
National Indian Impacted Schools Association, commonly known as
NIISA. Prior to accepting this position, I was privileged to
work as a teacher and school administrator at two of
Minnesota's federally impacted Indian land school districts for
nearly 40 years.
The Impact Aid Program, established by Congress in 1950 and
administered through the Department of Education, provides
Federal funds for public school operations that otherwise would
have been provided by local tax revenues but for the presence
of Federal property.
The program provides funding for eligible districts
enrolling federally-connected children. My comments will focus
on the challenges faced by Indian land school districts and the
children they serve.
There are roughly 1,350 public school districts nationwide
receiving impact aid payments; 635 of those are Indian land
school districts. These districts enroll over 941,000
federally-connected students, of which approximately 115,000
reside on Indian treaty, Federal trust and Alaska Native Claims
Act lands.
The Impact Aid Program supports educational services to
over 12 million children enrolled in eligible districts. The
Impact Aid Program provides a formal link between tribal
governments and public school districts.
Through the Indian policies and procedures written into
current law, tribes and parents of Indian students are afforded
the opportunity to provide valuable insight and recommendations
on whether Indian students are equal participants in all
district programs and school activities.
Should they determine the need, they may request changes in
school programs and content. If the discussions reach an
impasse, the impact aid statute provides for an administrative
appeal process. NIISA supports the IPP process in current law.
The timeliness of impact aid payments is a major concern
for eligible districts. Boards of education and school
administrators must make very difficult and legally binding
decisions regarding programming and personnel for the upcoming
year without knowing how much impact aid funding they will be
receiving, trusting that Congress will pass an appropriations
bill in a timely manner.
For some heavily impacted school districts, impact aid can
represent 50 percent or more of their operating funds. It
cannot be overemphasized how critical impact aid is in
providing basic, day-to-day educational services.
With the current Federal budget deficit and the Budget
Control Act of 2011 passed to address the budget shortfall, we
acknowledge the challenges that forward funding would present
to the Congress. However, we believe the rationale for it is
sound, is in the best interest of Indian land students and
tribal communities.
The implementation of the Budget Control Act hit Indian
land school districts in Fiscal Year 2013, a year before most
Federal education programs. Faced with a reduction in impact
aid funding, our districts sought ways to absorb the loss with
the least negative impact on our students.
These cuts came at a particularly critical juncture in
school reform and restructuring efforts. A high percentage of
Indian land schools are in various stages of school
improvements. Evidence-based programs and strategies have been
adopted to close the achievement gaps, improve attendance,
increase graduation rates and advance culturally relevant
practices and strategies in preK-12 classrooms, the ultimate
goal being to prepare our students for tomorrow's workforce and
higher education. If we are to be successful, federally
impacted Indian land districts need adequate resources to get
it done.
NIISA gratefully acknowledges that for Fiscal Year 2014,
Congress restored impact aid funding levels to near pre-
sequestration levels. We propose, however, a modest four
percent increase for Fiscal Year 2015 which would allow Indian
land districts to begin the recovery process due to loss and
declining revenues, to invest in new technology, to rehire
teachers and support staff, to implement more culturally
relevant practices and classes, to upgrade facilities and more.
The goal of each and every one of our districts is to
become a high performing school district. We fervently believe
that we can accomplish it, our school boards and administrators
can make it happen with adequate resources, impact aid being
one very critical element.
Section 8007 of the law authorizes appropriations for
school construction and facility maintenance. The amount
appropriated in recent years has been grossly inadequate to
address the backlog of need for facility replacement,
renovation and maintenance of Indian land districts.
The ability of Indian land districts to address facility
needs varies but for many it is nearly impossible to secure the
necessary bonding for construction or major renovation. It is
urgent that Congress seek a solution for this critical need.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gish follows:]
Prepared Statement of Brent D. Gish, Executive Director, National
Indian Impacted Schools Association
Chairman Tester, Vice Chairman Barrasso, Members of the Senate
Committee on Indian Affairs, thank you for the opportunity to appear
before you today on behalf of the National Indian Impacted Schools
Association and the National Association of Federally Impacted Schools.
My name is Brent Gish. I serve as the Executive Director of the
National Indian Impacted Schools Association (NIISA). Prior to
accepting this position, I was privileged to work as a teacher and
school administrator in two of Minnesota's federally impacted Indian
land school districts for nearly 40 years.
The NIISA organization is an advocacy organization working on
behalf of some 635 public school districts that enroll children whose
residence is located on Indian treaty, federal trust, or land conveyed
under the Alaska Claims Settlement Act. These parcels of land are
exempt from taxation, the primary sources of operating funds for public
schools. The long term goal of NIISA is to secure full funding of the
Impact Aid program.
The Impact Aid Program, established by Congress in 1950 and
administered through the Department of Education, provides federal
funds for public school operations that would have otherwise been
provided by local tax revenues but for the presence of federal
property. It should be noted that the Impact Aid Program also provides
funding for districts enrolling children whose parents serve in the
armed forces residing either on or off military installations, federal
low rent housing and civilians that live on or work on federal
property. My comments will focus on the challenges faced by Indian
lands school districts.
As you are no doubt very keenly aware, approximately 93 percent of
American Indian and Alaska Native elementary and secondary students
attend public schools with the remaining 7 percent of students
attending Bureau of Indian Education/Bureau of Indian Affairs and
privately funded schools.
Roughly 1,350 public school districts nationwide receive Impact Aid
payments. These districts enroll over 941,000 federally impacted
students of which approximately 115,000+ reside on Indian/trust/Alaskan
Native Claims Settlement Act lands. The revenues generated by federally
impacted students through the Impact Aid program supports educational
services to over 12,000,000 children enrolled in eligible districts.
Impact Aid is non categorical funding and therefore can be utilized for
any allowable expenditure as authorized by state education agencies and
the local school board. This is but one example of efficient and
effective utilization of federal programs, dollars generated by a
segment of the student population benefiting the whole student
community.
Every state represented on the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs
receives substantial amounts of federal Impact Aid. In FY 2013,
estimated Basic Support payments amount to nearly $610,000,000 or half
of the total Impact Aid appropriation of $1.2+ billion. \1\ It should
also be noted that in addition to basic support funding, eligible
districts receive funding for children with special needs and
facilities upkeep and repair.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Alaska--$132.6 M; Arizona--$160.3 M; Hawaii--$31.8 M; Idaho--
$4.8 M; Minnesota--$18.1 M; Montana--$40.7 M; Nebraska--$15.6 M; North
Dakota--$23.8 M; New Mexico--$86.1 M; South Dakota--$47.8 M;
Washington--$39.3 M; Wyoming--$8.6 M
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
For Indian Country, the Impact Aid program is a vital element of
public policy for providing every child with a free and appropriate
public education or as is the focus of this hearing, ``Cultivating the
Next Generation''. Signed into law in 1950, the Impact Aid program is
one of the oldest federal education programs. The land base that
generates Impact Aid consists of 53 million acres of Indian trust land
in the lower 48 states and 44 million acres included in the Alaska
Native Claims Act. The Impact Aid program is but one example of the
United States government fulfilling its trust responsibility--in this
case, for education--for American Indian and Alaska Native peoples.
The Impact Aid program provides a formal link between tribal
governments and public school districts serving students residing on
Indian lands by requiring school districts to consult with tribes and
members of tribal communities. Federally impacted school districts must
consult with tribes and Indian communities to develop Indian Policies
and Procedures (IPP). Through this process, tribes and parents of
Indian students are afforded the opportunity to provide valuable
insights and recommendations on whether Indian students are ``equal
participants'' in all district programs and school activities. Further,
tribes and parents may request changes in school programs and content.
Should discussions reach an impasse, the Impact Aid statute provides
for an administrative appeal process. We support the processes
established through the Indian Policies and Procedures provision in
current law.
The timeliness of Impact Aid payments is a major concern for
eligible districts. Impact Aid is not a forward funded program as are
other major education programs, e.g., Title I, Individuals with
Disabilities Act (IDEA) and Bureau of Indian Affairs/Bureau of Indian
Education, etc. Boards of Education and school administrators must make
very difficult decisions regarding programming and personnel for the
upcoming school year without knowing how much Impact Aid funding they
will be receiving. For some heavily impacted school districts, Impact
Aid revenues can represent 50 percent or more of its operating funds.
It cannot be over-emphasized how critical Impact Aid is in providing
basic day-to-day educational services.
Forward funding of the Impact Aid program would be a major step
forward, and long overdue I might add, in providing timely payments to
school districts. With the federal current budget deficit and the
Budget Control Act of 2011 to address deficit, we acknowledge the
challenge that forward funding would present to Congress, however, we
believe the rationale for it is sound and in the best interest of
Indian lands students and tribal communities.
The implementation of the Budget Control Act hit Indian lands
school districts in FY 2013, a year before most other federal education
programs. Faced with a reduction in Impact Aid funding, our districts
sought ways to absorb the loss in funding in a variety of ways: reduced
professional development; increased class size; deferred facility
maintenance; reduced instructional staff; reduced support staff;
reduced course offering including culturally relevant classes; reduced
technology replacement and expanded student usage; close community
based schools; reduce bus routes and extra curricular transportation,
etc. These cuts came at a particularly critical juncture in school
reform and restructuring efforts. A high percentage of Indian lands
schools are in various stages of school improvement. Evidence based
programs and strategies have been adopted to close the achievement gap,
improve attendance, increase graduation rates and embed culturally
relevant practices and strategies PreK-12 with the ultimate goal being
to prepare our students for tomorrow's workforce and higher education.
If we are to be successful, federally impacted Indian land districts
need adequate resources to get it done!
To illustrate the challenge ``the sequester'' posed to Indian lands
districts, school administrators offered the following insights and
perspectives. One superintendent from an Oklahoma district stated his
district has `virtually no local tax base' from which to fall back on
in times of budget reduction. It was further sighted by a
superintendent serving students living on Navajo trust lands, ``It is
important for all students to have opportunities equitable to other
districts with lucrative tax bases. . .To penalize students due to lack
of a tax base and the failure of the federal government to pay its
`fair share' of the tax burden is a detriment. . .There are no
alternative resources to make up to lost Impact Aid revenues. . .''
Finally, a superintendent from a Nebraska school district put it this
way in referencing the impact of the sequester, ``We are planning for
tough times instead of seeking ways to provide children with more
opportunities to be successful in life's endeavors.'' Suffice it to
say, the sequester hit federally impacted Indian land school districts
hard and to the detriment of the students, their communities and
reservations.
The illustrations above reflect the impact of the sequester on FY
2013 and previous years of funding levels that fall short of keeping up
with inflation. NIISA gratefully acknowledges that for FY 2014,
Congress restored Impact Aid funding levels near pre sequester levels.
NIISA wishes to express its deepest and most sincere appreciation. We
are hopeful that future budgets and appropriations passed by Congress
will reflect its obligation to adequately compensate federally impacted
school districts for lost taxing authority. And, as we prepare for FY
2015, the Administration's Budget request to Congress would increase
the Department of Education's/Impact Aid budget by 1.9 percent. Given
the deficit our country is facing, one might conclude that increase is
more than fair. However, I would point out that the Impact Aid program
has not been fully funded since 1969 resulting in prorated payments to
eligible districts. The NAFIS/NIISA request to Congress is for a modest
4 percent increase. That would allow Indian land districts to begin the
recovery process due to lost and declining revenues. . .to invest in
new technology; to rehire teachers and support staff; to implement more
culturally relevant practices and classes; to upgrade facilities; etc.
The goal of each and every one of our districts is to become a high
performing school district. We firmly believe it can be accomplished.
Our school boards and administrators can make it happen with adequate
resources, Impact Aid being one very critical element.
Finally, Impact Aid is authorized under Title VIII of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Section 8007 authorizes
appropriations for school construction and facility maintenance. The
amounts appropriated in recent years have been grossly inadequate to
address the backlog of need for facility replacement, renovation and
maintenance in Indian lands districts. The ability of the Indian land
district to address facility needs varies but for many it is nearly
impossible to secure the necessary bonding for construction or major
renovation. For instance, there are 80 school districts made up
entirely of Indian lands and there are an additional 161 school
districts which have at least 50 percent Indian lands. The situation
was not created by the Indian lands districts and needs a federal
solution!
Chairman Tester and Members of the Senate Committee on Indian
Affairs, thank you for extending an invitation to the National Indian
Impacted Schools Association to appear before this Committee. We look
forward to working with you as legislation comes before Congress that
affects children residing on federal trust, tribal and Alaska Claims
Settlement lands.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Gish, and thank all of you who
provided testimony today. I appreciate your coming to
Washington and providing your perspective on our children's
future.
I will start with you, Ms. Broaddus. Senator Dorgan sat in
the same seat last week. He told us about a roundtable that he
held with Federal agency officials working on programs that
affect families and children. His organization was doing
something very, very similar in one instance on the same
reservation without knowing. Everyone was working but no one
was communicating because they didn't know the other was there.
You brought up the importance of communication and
collaboration. Can you speak to some of the collaboration that
OPI and Montana have been involved in, their success and why
they were successful?
Ms. Broaddus. Coordination and collaboration in Indian
Country is often more difficult and complicated than it seems
with many funding streams and many different interests at the
table. At the Office of Public Instruction, we found those
partners are very willing, however, especially when it comes to
issues surrounding children and families on our reservations.
We have coordinated meetings from the very beginning of our
school improvement grants. As an example, we asked that all
partners come to the table to talk about this unique funding
stream and the ways that Montana wanted to employ specific
strategies for American Indian students.
Everyone came to the table and brought forth really great
ideas and really helped us as valuable partners in our overall
process.
The Chairman. We all know about the population figures. For
example, in Montana, we have 3,600 individuals, about 7 percent
of our general population is Native American, yet 17 percent of
our male inmates are Native American, 21 percent are female.
One thing I know contributes to higher incarceration is
lack of educational attainment, yet in Montana--you can correct
me if I am wrong--Native kids are expelled or suspended from
schools at rates that far exceed their population, making it in
some cases nearly impossible to complete their education.
Why do you think this is happening in your personal opinion
and is there anything we can do to help turn it around?
Ms. Broaddus. That is a very complicated but very good
question. I agree with those specifics regarding suspension and
expulsion rates across our State. In particular, I think a key
issue at the heart of the matter is the difficult life
experiences and the trauma that many American Indian students
face.
I think often behaviors described as discipline issues
could often be solved in better addressing student mental and
emotional needs and concerns. Through our Schools of Promise
work we have trained our teachers and our administrators to
understand those signs of trauma and PTSD in American Indian
students and to better respond to give them tools they can use
to decelerate those behaviors in our schools.
The Chairman. I appreciate that.
I am going to go to you, Dr. Siqueiros.
I think we are all impressed by the strides you have made
in your school district. I think your experiences may help us
develop policies for under performing schools but it probably
isn't easy, as you just said.
You took up the first challenge of realigning faculty and
administration. How vigorous was the evaluation process and how
did it affect instruction throughout that process?
Mr. Siqueiros. At that particular point, my school district
did not have a very successful comprehensive evaluation process
in place. We took what was in current use and revised and
modified it. We had expectations that all employees,
particularly our teachers, would be evaluated.
The evaluation process was not simply for dictating if you
were coming back or not. Think about that for a moment. One of
the things we implemented was that all teachers would be
required to have the first evaluation be completed by October
15, the end of the first quarter. That allowed us, as an
instructional team, to provide the necessary support for that
teacher to improve.
Secondly, it also gave us the opportunity within Arizona
law that in the event we had to bring forward a statement of
charges for dismissal, it gave us that opportunity as well. At
that particular point, because of all those efforts and the
efforts in terms of our teacher recruitment and retention
efforts, we brought in a different type at the level of
expertise for our school district that we had not seen before.
That does a number of things. One, those highly effective
teachers are not just graded in the classroom for direction
instruction, but they are also role models for the neighboring
teacher in the classroom next door.
The Chairman. Amen, brother.
I am impressed with your technological upgrades, although I
actually come from rural America and I know that there is a
lack of access to high speed Internet. Tell us more about your
experience with the E-Rate process and how increased access to
the Internet is affecting instruction in your schools?
Mr. Siqueiros. I would tell you that we are incredibly
challenged right now with bandwidth, accessibility and capacity
within the Tohono O'odham Nation. The Nation received a large
grant a few years ago and they are laying fiber optics
throughout the Nation, in particular for the school systems and
other government agencies.
The capacity that the Tohono O'odham Utility Authority has
right now is not sufficient to serve all of its customers.
Given our technology emphasis moving forward, we would take
about 50 percent of total capacity.
We are in the process of utilizing our E-Rate funding
possibilities--I hope I use the terminology correctly--we are
going to dark fiber to that capacity by borrowing, hopefully,
or renting the pipe that comes in from Tucson, Arizona to the
Tohono O'odham Nation to purchase from a third vendor the
necessary bandwidth for us to do the necessary work. That
funding will come directly from our E-Rate.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Vice Chairman Barrasso?
Senator Barrasso. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I have questions for Mr. Hudson.
Your written testimony talks about teacher quality having
about six times the positive effect on student learning in
terms of other factors combined. Teacher quality improvement
was instrumental in improving the reading proficiency at the
Fremont County School in Ethete, Wyoming. The proficiency went
up significantly in grades K-6. Can you elaborate on how
teacher quality was increased in the Fremont County Schools?
Mr. Hudson. We decided to put an intensive reading program
in place. Our teachers virtually had to be retrained and we had
two lead teachers who were extensively trained and then that
was distributed throughout the entire K-6 educational staffing.
First teachers were trained and additionally, the
paraprofessional educators we had were also trained.
This meant whether you had the teacher or the
paraprofessional, they were both capable of influencing the
reading and eventually the mathematics instruction that was
given to the students. Consequently, within those two areas,
our test scores which had shown zero percent proficiency for I
couldn't even tell you how long, managed to come up to 60
percent proficiency within one year by virtue of having those
lead teachers and the program they developed with folks from
Sheridan, Wyoming. They instigated that and came up with some
dramatic gains in reading. They weren't quite as good in
mathematics but there was a 40 to 50 percent increase.
It has also increased the class time devoted to reading and
mathematics. This came at the expense of cultural programs but
since we are tested and evaluated in reading and mathematics,
that is where we put our efforts. So far they have paid off.
Later in the written testimony, you might note that it has
not gone up from that 60 percent. It stagnates. It is like my
colleague from New Mexico notes, for some reason it hits a
platform and it is very difficult to drive it past that point.
We are still trying but haven't gotten much farther than that.
Senator Barrasso. Following up with that, we heard from Dr.
Siqueiros that the teachers are most important, but the
principals are most influential. I wonder if we can visit a
little about that because recruitment and retention of
qualified teachers are issues many tribal communities face.
In your written testimony, you mentioned teachers are the
educational resource for Indian children. Can you talk a bit
about the role of the principal in helping with recruitment,
with putting forward a program? You mentioned how intensive the
retraining of the teachers was to have them prepare to help
students in this way and maybe some of those retention
strategies you are now going to use in Fremont County and
whether maybe we can replicate those successes in other places.
Mr. Hudson. The principals are actually also a part of the
staff training. They went through this and made sure the
teachers attended the training sessions to start. Their
evaluation programs also started to require they had to be
proficient within reading and mathematics instruction as
delivered to the students. That became part of their
evaluation.
Wyoming requires any initial teacher to be evaluated twice
and a continuing contract teacher once a year. The evaluation
was rewritten to include proficiency in their instruction in
mathematics and reading. Additionally, staff training was
provided by the principals to any of the staff who came up with
deficiency in providing these programs to the teachers and in
turn, to give it to the students.
From an administrative point of view, the principals have
to be trained to do a proper evaluation of the staffers. It
isn't the same plain Jane evaluation as has been pointed out
that says okay, we've done this, looks good, you're doing a
good job, you step in the classroom twice a year, then you walk
out the door and the teacher goes back to what they were doing
anyway.
The staff has to be quarterly and directly evaluated as far
as their capability of putting this program into effect. If
they don't put the program into effect, then it doesn't happen
and a lot of excuses start. The administrators have to develop
and implement a very valid teacher evaluation platform.
In turn, our superintendent, Ms. Michelle Hoffman--you are
familiar with her--was the driving force to put this into
place. She said this will be and when she says that, it is.
Senator Barrasso. You talked about parental involvement and
also used the term trusted adults. Could you talk a bit about
that?
Mr. Hudson. Primarily the Fremont County School districts,
the adults are an integral part of the educational program
because they are there at every school board meeting, not just
for the required impact aid meeting. They have a valid input
into the educational program of their students.
We hold teacher-parent visitations at least twice a year on
a formal basis and informally at any time so the students and
parents can visit with the appropriate instructor and/or the
administrator.
Sometimes discipline gets to be an issue and because of
that we have hired additional counselors to try and forestall
such issues before such things as suspension or expulsion
happen. Teacher involvement of educated parents is a very valid
part of that program.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you. Thank you so much for your
testimony.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Barrasso.
Senator Heitkamp?
STATEMENT OF HON. HEIDI HEITKAMP,
U.S. SENATOR FROM NORTH DAKOTA
Senator Heitkamp. Thank you, Chairman Tester and Vice Chair
Barrasso.
One of the first hearings Senator Tester had as Chairman of
this Committee was to talk about early childhood learning,
helping prepare children before they come to your institutions
to actually be ready to learn. I think as we look at how we can
get beyond the plateau, we definitely believe that is a
strategy that needs to be pursued.
I want to take a moment and think about who you all
represent and then think about a room full of kids because that
is who you are really here representing. In your hands are the
futures, their futures. Kids behind their parents, their
grandmas and grandpas, usually will tell you the most
significant and important people in their lives are their
teachers.
That is why I think it is so important that we get that
piece right and that we recruit the best and brightest of those
teachers. We try to get kids more prepared to learn but I think
you are absolutely headed in the right direction.
I was listening to your story and said, man, I wish we
could do that in our schools in North Dakota. I wish we could
take your programs and introduce them in North Dakota. You kind
of brushed over how you actually got to the recruitment of
those teachers. Was it pay increases, was it additional time
off, additional support, promises of more access to decision
making in the classroom? What was it that you pitched to those
new teachers that made such a compelling case that you were
able to get folks to come to Indian Country and your school
districts and teach?
Mr. Siqueiros. Before I answer that question, I want to put
an emphasis towards conception in early childhood education. We
are incredibly concerned about what occurs at conception to a
child and all the issues that exist on tribal lands.
In our committee, we are emphasizing that very issue, that
all the wraparound services need to come to the aid of that mom
to prevent FSA and to prevent nutritional issues. Think about
brain development for a second. The brain is almost fully
developed by the age of three, somewhere between 80 and 85
percent, way before we get them in pre-school, kindergarten
through 12th grade. It is important that we address that as
well. The importance of wraparound services is critically
important.
In response to your question about teacher recruitment, we
established two recruitment efforts, what we call a Teacher
Recruitment I and Teacher Recruitment II. TR1 is the typical.
We have an opening, post the position on our web page, we take
and screen applications and invite people for interviews. With
TR2, we go out and seek highly effective teachers, either word
of mouth, they won an award, they come out in newspapers,
something like that. We go out and recruit them very much like
college football coaches recruit their star quarterback. We
have taken that approach.
Because we have leveraged our Federal impact aid dollars
and our entitlement dollars and our local State aid, we have
been able to raise our teacher starting salaries. We are now
the highest paid school district in the State of Arizona as a
result of leveraging those dollars to apply as much as possible
back to the classroom. I need that great teacher to make this
happen.
Secondly, we also provide highly intensive, professional
development programs that are in line with our curriculum and
our expectations of instruction. We are also clear about those
expectations when we sign or issue a contract. What we expect
is fully spelled out in their contracts.
Third, we take care of folks. It is not just about the
money, it is not just about professional development. We work
really hard to create an environment that is effective for them
as much as it is for students. We spend a lot of time in
indoctrination of the Tohono O'odham culture because the
majority of our teachers are not Native Americans.
Senator Heitkamp. It sounds like it is absolutely the right
direction. I appreciate your comments about don't just look at
early childhood, look at all those things.
Senator Murkowski and I have introduced a commission on the
status of Native Americans bill because I think we have for too
long siloed these issues. We are here talking about K-12
education, we talk about higher education and student
attainment, we talk about public health, and we talk about
housing.
We talk about all these issues but at the end of the day,
all we really want to do is create a much better environment
from the word go for Native American children because that is
going to elevate everyone. Too often, you have these struggles
where we fight over what is really very few resources saying
no, don't put it in housing, it is much more important to put
it in education; no, don't put it here.
If I could have another second, I want to talk about
forward funding. We saw this during the shutdown. I can't tell
you the panic calls I got from schools who are already late in
getting their payments saying now what, now what do I do?
Should I lay off teachers, where do I go with this?
I think everyone here who understands Indian Country
understands the importance of forward funding. I will ask you
what are the other things we can do on impact aid schools
collaboratively beyond forward funding that could make a
difference? I guess that is to you, Mr. Gish.
Mr. Gish. We understand the difficulties that basically a
double appropriation would bring and yet we want to continue to
keep it at the forefront because these are the challenges that
our school districts face. They are making a decision in March
and April, negotiating with bargaining units and entering legal
contracts with them. We have to make decisions based on the
fact that Congress will act in good faith.
If appropriations could at least come in a timely manner,
even if it weren't a forward funded program, if we could say we
can count on that first payment coming in October after
beginning our school year or even a month or two later, there
have been times that we have had to face no funding until mid-
winter, until February and March and that means our school
districts are out there, borrowing money, paying interest and
those dollars never return. Those are dollars taken away from
our students.
It would be critical and be a huge step forward if the
appropriations would come and federally impacted schools are
going to get their first payment as schools begin. That would
be huge.
On early childhood--if I might add on to that--it is the
most fertile ground in Indian Country. If we have a child who
comes to school ready to learn, we can do miracles but when our
first step is to start remediation, it means catch up and some
never will.
Ms. Broaddus said we can't do it alone. That is absolutely
true. We need to be able to tap into every other resource in
the tribe, early childhood programs or Head Start programs and
put our heads together. We can do it together.
If we knew we had an appropriation and could count on it in
those early months in the fall, that would relieve a lot of the
stress and pressure and those dollars that go out of our school
systems to pay interest.
Senator Heitkamp. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Gish. You are right on early
childhood.
Senator Franken?
STATEMENT OF HON. AL FRANKEN,
U.S. SENATOR FROM MINNESOTA
Senator Franken. First of all, I would like to recognize
Mr. Gish. Thank you for being here. Thank you for all your
years of work in education and in Indian Country.
Chairman Tester, I would like to commend you for the series
of hearings on Indian education issues.
One of the things I want to talk about is school
construction and school reconstruction. The Bug O Nay Ge Shig
School on Leech Lake Reservation has been a project of mine, to
get this thing reconstructed. It's a pole barn. The kids
actually have to leave the school if winds get above 40 miles
an hour.
We had a very tough winter this year and sometimes that
means they have to leave the school when it is below zero and
the wind is howling. They have to run to another structure
about 400 yards away. There are all kinds of physical problems
with this school.
Mr. Siqueiros, you mentioned the renovation of school
facilities in your district as part of your overall school
improvement plan. Can you elaborate on how you were able to
create a safe learning environment for your students and staff?
Mr. Siqueiros. One of the things we have done effectively
is through our finances and our budgeting processes. I
mentioned in my opening statement we have been able to leverage
all our funding sources highly effectively.
We have been able to carry forward our impact aid dollars
and keep them in reserves up to about $5 million annually.
Initially, one of the things we did was reinvest those dollars
and renovate some of our facilities that were in dire need of
renovation from painting walls to replacing furniture, carpets,
tiles, leaking roofs, on and on and on.
One of the issues we are hoping to prevent reoccurring over
and over is lack of maintenance of our facilities. That is our
emphasis for our school district, that we provide the necessary
resources in terms of not just the money but also people power
that are knowledgable and expert and can do this for us.
The unique circumstance that we face--because we are 60
miles outside of Tucson, Arizona--is if our air conditioning
breaks, there is some additional cost to get folks out.
Senator Franken. How far out?
Mr. Siqueiros. Sixty miles. That requires that we have
trained personnel go in and change air filters, provide general
maintenance and things like that. In Arizona, obviously we have
extreme heat.
Senator Franken. Dry heat though, isn't it?
Mr. Siqueiros. Dry heat, absolutely.
Senator Franken. It's cold in Minnesota, dry cold so it is
not so bad.
Mr. Siqueiros. Very true.
That is the approach we have taken. However, our goal in
the very near future is to add an additional wing at our
elementary school that we will leverage with impact aid
dollars. Hopefully, we will be in a position to apply for some
of those contract dollars from impact aid but we are also going
to leverage some of that with some local funding opportunities
from a program called First Things First that will allow us--we
find matching dollars--up to $5 million to build an early
childhood center for our school district.
Senator Franken. I think that is great. I met with the
Tohono's Chairman. Tohono is 60 miles from Tucson and that, as
those of us who work on this Committee know, makes a difference
in terms of the finances of a tribe.
Leech Lake that I am referring to--Mr. Gish knows--is not
near a big city like Tucson. It is near Bemidji, but a
population center makes a difference in terms of how you can
put aside the impact aid.
Let me talk about mental health a bit because I had a
roundtable in St. Paul with a lot of the different Bands and
tribes in Minnesota on impact aid and what had to go by the
wayside. We had one Band where they had to lay off their mental
health people in the school and they had a couple suicides.
I just think that mental health is tremendously important.
I put forward a bill called Mental Health in Schools. We
actually got about $55 million in funding in the last
appropriations to do grants for schools that use a kind of
model where they train everyone from the school bus driver to
the teachers to the lunch ladies to recognize when a kid may
have a mental health issue and to go to the counselor or school
psychologist. These were some of the people who were lost when
impact aid got cut.
Having those professionals see the kid and get the kid
access to community mental health services has made a huge
difference. It is a great program and has made such a
difference to kids and obviously to their families.
Can you talk, Mr. Gish or anybody, about the needs in
Indian Country in terms of mental health services and substance
abuse treatment services?
Mr. Gish. I like to give credit where credit is due. The
credit goes to the Red Lake Nation where I spent the last six
years of my career. My service came right after a very
traumatic tragedy that occurred in the school and the
community.
As we looked at a recovery plan, we first looked at what
are the characteristics of high performing schools and looked
at research there. Foundational to that was just as we are
speaking, that we need healthy learners. If we are going to
make great progress and become a high performing school, we
need healthy learners. Healthy learners make healthy schools.
We got a multi-faceted approach but it began with the Red
Lake Nation and their health services, specifically their
mental health services. They provided our schools what we call
cultural counselors, trained individuals, enrolled members of
the Red Lake Band who were in each and every one of our
schools.
They became the first level of mental health services for a
child. Maybe they were just angry some day and needed to talk
to someone but it was someone who looked just like them,
someone from their culture and someone who understood where
they were coming from. They had resources above them and also
had school psychologists who were available as well.
After that first level says no, this goes beyond me, this
is more than just a little bit of a single incident or anger
but going to people more technically trained and have the
education and background. Then further, we had access to the
Indian Health Service and the mental health division there
where clinical psychologists and psychiatrists were available.
Mr. Tester may remember this. We incorporated the services
of the Native Children's Trauma Center, which is at the
University of Montana in Missoula. They came in and trained all
staff that we had from our bus drivers to food service, to all
of our teachers, to our administrators and board members as
well so that we could recognize characteristics of children who
are suffering.
We have children where there is situational trauma they are
going through but there is also historical trauma we are
dealing with. It doesn't simply go away over time so we
developed strategies that we could incorporate.
I will tell you after we had a suicide incident, we put
into place a crisis management plan the next day ready to pay
for students who were going to be traumatized by this and very
upset. We discovered there was a suicide pact and six
individuals were ready to follow through with that. The system
worked. All six were placed. They went to the Indian Health
Service, they were placed in a facility in Grand Forks, North
Dakota.
All six are walking this earth today. I will tell you I
believe it is because the plan actually worked. I will give
credit where credit is due. We had people who were intervening,
services that worked and the system worked that time.
Senator Franken. I think we just need to do that both in
Indian Country and nationwide. We need to really understand
that about 1 in 5 children nationwide will experience a serious
mental health issue in their lives and about 70 to 80 percent
never get diagnosed or treated.
That is where we can save a lot of pain for a lot of people
and a lot of families, a lot of kids and as a country, do
ourselves an enormous favor.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Franken.
I will say from my perspective, I think the greatest
opportunity we have in education is early childhood. The
greatest challenge we face as a country is with mental health.
This is a problem that is not going to go away. It will only be
remediated if we are able to do the right thing at the State,
Federal and local levels.
I just want to say thank you all for your testimony. I
appreciate it very much.
Mr. Hudson? Make it as concise as possible.
Mr. Hudson. One thing I would note in the Ethete and
Fremont County areas, we have our grandparents of the students
employed within the school district to address their needs. Not
only are they out there basically as professionals but these
are people they are related to and know and they can trust.
Then they go on to the counselors.
Secondly, as Mr. Gish pointed out in school construction,
the current year, 2014, there is $17.6 million in impact aid
out there for construction. That is about enough to build one
400 student elementary school in the whole United States, just
one. Consequently, I tend to think it is somewhat under funded.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. That is an understatement.
Thank you all for your testimony. There will be questions
we are going to have to submit. We can talk with this panel
literally until summer. Thank you all very much for your
perspective. Thank you for your testimony and thank you for
your commitment to be here.
With that we will bring up our second panel which consists
of Mr. Bill Mendoza, Executive Director, White House Initiative
on American Indian and Alaska Native Education, U.S. Department
of Education.
Mr. Mendoza, it is very good to have you here. I want to
thank you for joining us today.
As with the previous panel, I would ask that you try to
keep your testimony to five minutes. Your entire written
testimony will be made a part of the record. With that,
welcome.
We might do this as standard operating procedure. I
appreciate your being willing to be on the second panel. One of
the things I have found through my short tenure here is it
gives me great perspective if I can hear what the folks on the
ground are saying. I think as someone in the Administration, it
can help you and everybody else too.
Thank you for being here. You may proceed with your
testimony.
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM MENDOZA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WHITE HOUSE
INITIATIVE ON AMERICAN INDIAN AND
ALASKA NATIVE EDUCATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
EDUCATION
Mr. Mendoza. Good afternoon, Chairman Tester, Ranking
Member Barrasso and distinguished members of the Committee.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
While I am here as the Executive Director of the White
House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native
Education, I am also an Oglala and Sicangu-Lakota product of
public schools. I worked as a teacher and principal in public
schools. My children attend public schools and have dedicated
my professional life to improving and supporting the needs of
all American Indians and Alaska Native Students.
American Indian education is sometimes thought to mean
education provided by Bureau of Indian Education funded
schools. However, as every speaker has testified before you
today, the reality is that the vast majority of Native
students, 93 percent, attend public schools operated by their
local school districts.
These schools are located both on and off reservations and
in urban centers. In many cases, there is coordination between
local education and tribal communities. However, as we hear
time and time again from tribal leaders and from educators,
more often than not, these public schools exist without
meaningful input from the tribal community.
Absent this interaction, our public schools are less
informed about culture and unique needs of our Indian students
and Native students lack access to culturally approved
curricula, educators with sufficient cultural training and
adequate learning conditions. These challenges may act as
barriers to quality of education and contribute to poor
outcomes for Native students.
Native students comprise just one percent of the overall
student population. However, according to the Department's
civil rights data collection, we know that Native students
account for roughly seven percent of kindergarten students held
back; two percent of school suspensions; and three percent of
expulsions.
In addition, males are suspended more than two times the
rate of their peers and females are more than three times
likely to be suspended as well. According to the National
Center for Education statistics, Native students drop out at a
rate nearly twice that of other students. They lag behind their
peers in graduation rates and complete AP courses at a
significantly lower rate than their peers.
The NIES study report shows the achievement gap is widening
in mathematics between Native students and their peers and
reading scores remain stagnant.
These figures are important because they paint a picture
for the landscape of public education for our Native students.
We must also be careful that we are drawing the proper
conclusions. We need to dig deeper to better understand why
these disparities exist so that we can put in place meaningful
support that will improve outcomes for all students attending
our public schools.
The Department of Education provides support to these
students in a variety of ways. There are large dollar programs
such as Title I and impact aid that direct funds to communities
with high concentrations of low-income students as well as
communities affected by Federal activities.
In addition, the department administers several formula
grants and discretionary competitive grants designed to support
the unique cultural and language needs of Native students,
increase the number of American Indian and Alaska Native
teachers, school administrators and other school officials and
build capacity of tribal education agencies in partnership with
State educational agencies and to support the unique needs of
Alaska Natives and their communities.
Early in the Administration, President Obama demonstrated a
deep commitment to Native students and the tribal community by
issuing a memorandum instructing agency heads to engage in
regular meaningful consultation with tribes. In 2011, he signed
an executive order further signaling his commitment to improve
educational outcomes cradle to career for American Indians and
Alaska Natives.
Secretary Duncan has also shown unwavering commitment to
these students. He has visited numerous reservations and tribal
communities, held roundtable discussions and participated in
consultation and commencements.
One of the consistent themes expressed by tribes and tribal
communities has been the lack of opportunities for them to
engage meaningfully in the education of their children. The
department understands the best solutions for Native students
come from those who these students the best, the tribes.
As a direct result, in 2012, we launched a pilot program,
the State Tribal Education Partnership Program. We plan to
continue this first of a kind effort in order to further
respond to the tribal community. My office, the White House
Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education is
actively engaged in these issues and includes the President's
Interagency Working Group on Indian Education, the DOI
Education Joint Committee on Indian Education and the National
Advisory Council on Indian Education.
I have expounded on this work in my written testimony and
would be happy to discuss this in more detail in the question
and answer portion.
Chairman Tester and members of the Committee, thank you for
the opportunity to testify today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mendoza follows:]
Prepared Statement of William Mendoza, Executive Director, White House
Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education, U.S.
Department of Education
Good afternoon, Chairman Tester, Ranking Member Barrasso, and
distinguished Members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity
to testify today about the status of the American Indian and Alaska
Native (AI/AN) students in our public schools.
AI/AN Student Profile
American Indian education is sometimes thought to mean the schools
operated by the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) or by Indian tribes or
tribal organizations. However, the reality is that the vast majority of
AI/AN students--approximately 93 percent--attend public schools
operated by their local school districts. These schools are located
both on and off reservations and tribal lands.
In some cases, there is coordination between the local education
agency (LEA) and the tribal community. However, more often than not,
these public schools exist without meaningful input from the tribal
community. Absent this interaction, our public schools are less
informed about the culture and unique needs of our Indian students. AI/
AN students lack access to culturally appropriate curricula, educators
with sufficient cultural training, and sometimes adequate learning
conditions. These challenges may act as barriers to a quality education
and contribute to poor outcomes for AI/AN students.
We know the earlier we start providing educational opportunities to
our students, the more successful they will be as adults. The best
investment we can make is to provide our children with a strong start
and foundation for learning.
The Department of Education recently released the Civil Rights Data
Collection (CRDC) for 2010-2011. This is the first time since 2001 that
we have data from nearly every public school in the country that tells
us about specific subpopulations including AI/AN students. While we
know that AI/AN students comprise about one percent of the overall
population, according to the CRDC report about seven percent of the
140,000 kindergarten students held back were AI/AN students. These AI/
AN kindergartners are held back at nearly twice the rate of white
children. Further, states like Oregon, Wyoming, Montana and Arizona
with high American Indian populations are among the States with the
lowest percentage of school districts operating pre-school programs.
The CRDC report also collected data on school discipline.
Similarly, AI/AN students represent a disproportionate share of
disciplinary action as they are less than one percent of the student
population but account for two percent of out-of-school suspensions and
three percent of expulsions. AI/AN males are suspended at more than two
times the rate of their white peers with, on average, six percent of
white male students being suspended compared to approximately 13
percent of AI/AN males. Young AI/AN females are more than three times
more likely to be suspended from school as their white counterparts,
with, on average, two percent of white females students being suspended
from school as compared to approximately seven percent for AI/AN female
students.
Each day that our students are not in the classroom they are
missing out on valuable instruction time.
One of the most important factors in raising student achievement is
an effective teacher. While there certainly are effective first year
teachers, research shows that teachers on average increase their
effectiveness over their first few years of teaching. It is interesting
to note that the CRDC report found disparities in access to experienced
teachers for AI/AN students. The data shows AI/AN students attend
schools with higher concentrations of first-year teachers at a higher
rate than white students. Specifically, approximately four percent of
AI/AN students attend schools where more than 20 percent of teachers
are in their first year of teaching, compared to one percent of white
students.
We also know AI/AN students are less prepared for college and
career. Looking at the high school graduation rates and drop-out rates
for 2011, we see AI/AN students dropout at a rate that is nearly twice
that of all students. In fact, AI/AN students account for the highest
dropout rate of any racial or ethnic population. And AI/AN students are
lagging in increasing their graduation rates. The average graduation
rate for all students increased six points, from approximately 75
percent in 2007-2008 to 81 percent in 2011-2012. Yet, over this period
the graduation rate for AI/AN students increased just four points, from
approximately 64 to 68 percent.
But graduating isn't always enough. We must ensure AI/AN students
are taking rigorous coursework to be best prepared for today's economy.
In 2009, only about 20 percent of the AI/AN graduates completed an
Advanced Placement course. This is extremely low when we consider the
comparable approximate figures for Asian/Pacific Islander (66 percent),
White (37 percent), Black (22 percent) and Hispanic (34 percent)
graduates.
And even fewer AI/AN high school graduates (approximately 18
percent) have completed an analysis or pre-calculus course compared to
the average for all students (approximately 35 percent). We also see
drastic differences in the completion of courses in chemistry or
physics compared to the averages for all students (approximately 70
percent and 36 percent, respectively).
In 2011, the National Indian Education Study (NIES) reported the
results of the mathematic and reading achievement levels of fourth- and
eighth- grade AI/AN AI/AN students, using a nationally representative
sample.
The math assessment showed that AI/AN fourth-grade students scored
approximately 16 points lower on average than non-AI/AN students in
math. AI/AN eighth-grade students scored approximately 19 points lower
on average in math than non-AI/AN students. This represents and even
wider gap compared to the 2005 NIES scores that showed a gap of
approximately 12 points for fourth-graders and 15 points for eight-
graders. And while there are no significant changes in average reading
scores for AI/AN students compared to 2005, overall gaps separating AI/
AN students from their white peers have mostly widened.
For those in poverty, the difference is even starker. Using the
National School Lunch Program (NSLP) as an indicator of family income,
we know that in 2011, AI/AN eighth-grade students who were eligible for
NSLP had average reading scores approximately 20 points lower, on
average, than AI/AN eight-grade students who were not eligible for
NSLP.
Department Programs that Support AI/AN Students
The Department administers a variety of formula grants as well as
competitive grants to support AI/AN students.
Impact Aid is a formula grant program under section 8003 (Basic
Support Payments) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)
that provides direct funding to school districts that are affected by
federal activities. The Basic Support Payments program was funded at
$1.2 billion for FY 2014 and approximately one-half of those funds will
be distributed to districts that provide free public education to
children living on Indian lands.
Title VII, Part A provides formula grant funds to over
approximately 1,300 districts that educate AI/AN students. The funds
must be used for supplementary services to meet the needs of those
students, including their language and cultural needs, to help them
succeed in school. In addition, Title VII, Part A also authorizes
several discretionary programs designed to improve the quality of
education for Indian students and to prepare and train Indians to serve
as teachers and school administrators. Funds are awarded competitively
and currently support the following programs: Demonstration Grants
(Section 7121); Professional Development Grants (Section 7122); and the
State Tribal Education Partnership (STEP) (Section 7131).
Demonstration grants provide support in such areas as innovative
programs, remedial instruction, bilingual and bicultural programs,
guidance and counseling, early childhood and kindergarten programs,
secondary-to-postsecondary education transition programs, school-to-
work programs, and family literacy services.
Professional Development grants support increasing of the number of
American Indians qualified in teaching, school administration, and
other education professions, and improving the skills of those
individuals. Individuals receiving training under this program are
required to secure employment in a field related to their education and
benefiting Indians. If they do not meet this requirement, they must pay
back the amount of the assistance. Awards focus on pre-service teacher
and pre-service administrator training.
The Alaska Native Education (ANE) program supports activities that
provide educational opportunities that are culturally relevant and
beneficial to Alaska Native Students and the community. In 2012-2013,
there were 57 active ANE grants for a total investment of just over $31
million.
The Department understands the best solutions for AI/AN students
come from those that know these students best, the tribes. We remain
committed to strengthening and advancing our relations with Indian
tribes.
In 2009 President Obama issued a Memorandum to the heads of
executive departments and agencies emphasizing his commitment to
regular and meaningful consultation and collaboration with tribal
officials in policy decisions that have tribal implications. The
memorandum called for complete and consistent implementation of
Executive Order 13175. It also directed each agency to submit a
detailed plan of action that the agency will take to implement the
policies and directives of E.O. 13175.
The Department was quick to respond to the Memorandum. In 2010, the
Department conducted six tribal consultations with tribal leaders and
Indian educators. We held consultations in New Mexico, South Dakota,
Oklahoma, Alaska, Arizona, and Washington and learned much from the
discussion. As a result, we issues a report in November 2011 titled
``Tribal Leaders Speak: The State of Indian Education.''
We continue to have regular consultation with these leaders and
have held additional consultations in Denver, Green Bay, Stockton, Los
Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Troy, Anchorage, Scottsdale, Niagara, and
Smith River. This year the Department, in partnership with the National
Indian Education Association and The United and Southeastern Tribes,
held the first consultation of 2014. We have three more consultations
scheduled for later this year in Oklahoma, Montana and North Dakota.
One of the consistent themes expressed during these consultations
has been the lack of opportunities for tribes to meaningfully
participate in the education of their own children. In response, the
Obama Administration proposed, in our ESEA reauthorization blueprint,
to elevate the role of tribal education agencies (TEAs).
Additionally, the FY 2012 appropriation provided funding for the
Department to create a pilot competition designed to increase the role
of the TEA in meeting the education needs of students attending public
schools on the tribe's reservation. The State Tribal Education Program
(STEP) is the result of this effort. The STEP program aims to promote
collaboration between TEAs and state educational agencies (SEAs). The
program is also intended to build the capacity of tribes as they
develop and enhance their roles, responsibilities and accountability in
Indian education.
The pilot program funded projects created through cooperative
agreements between TEAs and SEAs that allow the TEAs to perform some
state-level functions for certain Federal grant programs funded through
ESEA, specific to public schools located on tribally controlled lands.
In 2013, Secretary Duncan and Secretary of the Interior Jewell
traveled to Wyoming for a series of events to highlight the importance
of education that included a roundtable discussion with local tribal
leaders and two school visits. During this trip the Secretaries engaged
with state and tribal representatives as well as youth from the Eastern
Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes.
I am proud to inform you that the Secretary has visited
reservations and tribal communities in Montana, Alaska, South Dakota,
New Mexico, Wisconsin, Wyoming and Arizona. These visits have allowed
him to witness first-hand the problems that Indian country faces. His
visits have included roundtable discussions as well as commencement
addresses at Sinte Gleske University, Navajo Technical University and
College of Menominee Nation. This year he will be the commencement
speaker at Salish Kootenai College in Montana. The Secretary welcomes
these opportunities to learn more about the unique challenges facing
AI/AN students and to highlight the important role tribal colleges and
universities play in providing access to higher education for the
community. He understands the vital role tribal colleges and
universities (TCUs) play in language and cultural preservation.
The White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native
Education (Initiative), housed at the Department of Education, has
responsibility to carry out the President's Executive Order 13592,
signed December 2, 2011. The Initiative seeks to support activities
that will strengthen the Nation by expanding educational outcome
opportunities and improving educational outcomes for all AI/AN
students. The Initiative is also committed to furthering tribal self-
determination and we work to ensure AI/AN students, at all levels of
education, have an opportunity to learn their Native languages and
histories as well as receive complete and competitive educations that
prepare them for college, and careers so they may lead productive and
satisfying lives.
In order to meet the goals of the Executive Order the Initiative is
actively engaged in three major activities; the ED Joint Committee on
Indian Education, The President's Interagency Working Group on Indian
Education and the Native Languages Working Group.
The Initiative formed a DOI-ED joint Committee on Indian Education
(Committee), which includes tribal leader representatives from the
Tribal Education Budget Council. The Committee was formed as a result
of a 2012 ED-DOI Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The MOU leverages
the expertise of both departments to improve educational opportunities
and outcomes for AI/AN students. The Committee has started working on
developing plans to implement seven specific goals and activities that
are outlined in the MOU.
The President's Interagency Working Group on Indian Education (IWG)
was established in the E.O. 13592. The IWG held its inaugural meeting
in 2013. Senior Administration Officials from 29 agencies came together
to begin interagency implementation of the E.O. The departments will
work to develop four year plans that will focus on expanding
educational opportunities and improving outcomes for AI/AN students
including helping ensure the opportunity to learn their Native
language.
The Native Language Working Group resulted from a Memorandum of
Agreement between the Department of Education, U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families and
the Department of Interior Bureau of Indian Education. We are working
to achieve the goals of the Agreement (MOA) on Native Languages. In
addition to developing a course of action, the MOA provides a framework
for collaboration and coordination across Federal agencies to help
preserve and revitalize native languages.
The Native Language Workgroup is planning a Native American
Languages Summit; Working Together for Native American Language Success
for June, 2014. During this conference, Federal partners and
organizations with Native Language programs will come together to
discuss methods for measuring success. The goal is to work together as
a team to ensure the preservation and acquisition of Native languages
so that they may not only be revitalized but that Native youth have a
command of the language from a linguistic and cultural perspective.
The Department of Education has taken significant steps to promote
the preservation and revitalization of native languages including the
following:
The Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE) has included an
Invitational Priority to support activities that strengthen
Native language preservation and revitalization in institutions
of higher education in the Title III Alaska Native and Native
Hawaiian-Serving Institutions grant competition in FY 2014.
The Office of Indian Education (OIE) has made several
important changes to the application for Title VII formula
grants for FY 2014 in order to emphasize the statutory
requirement that grant funds be used as part of a comprehensive
program for meeting the culturally-related academic needs of
Indian students, including the language and cultural needs of
the children. In 2013, there were approximately 1,300 Title VII
programs and 500,000 students served nationwide.
In 2013, the South Central Comprehensive Center (SC3), one
of three ED Regional Comprehensive Centers, supported the
Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) in the
development of the native language certification and is
continuing to provide technical assistance during statewide
implementation of an alternate pathway in native language
certification. This work addresses the critical need for fluent
native language instructors in efforts to enhance native
language revitalization among the 39 Oklahoma tribes.
Through dedicated funding including ED's Strengthening Institutions
Program and Title III grants, several tribal colleges have implemented
native language activities as part of their curricula. For example,
Cheyenne language courses are currently being offered at Chief Dull
Knife College in a four course series and the college also provides
summer Cheyenne language immersion experiences for youth in the
surrounding communities; Fort Berthold Community College, a tribal
college of the Three Affiliated Tribes, has started a project that will
provide linguistic training to tribal members in technologically
advanced methods of linguistic data collection and analysis aimed at
preventing the loss of the highly endangered Mandan language; and the
Blackfeet Language Studies curriculum at Blackfeet Community College is
designed to promote language fluency in accordance with Blackfeet
Language standards, which are equivalent to national standards for
language acquisition.
The Department of Education continues to hold consultations with
tribal leaders on ways the Department can help address the need to
preserve, protect, and promote the rights and freedom of Native
Americans to use, practice, and develop native languages.
In addition, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department
of Education have collaborated to ensure that AI/AN students who are
not proficient in English are appropriately identified as English
Learners (ELs) and offered language support services until they achieve
proficiency in English. Toward this end, the Departments reached two
settlement agreements with the State of Arizona regarding its Home
Language Survey (3/25/11) and its process for testing ELs (8/31/12). In
February of this year, the Department of Justice also reached a
settlement agreement with a school district in Arizona to ensure its
Navajo-speaking ELs receive appropriate EL services with teachers who
are trained to provide those services.
The National Advisory Council on Indian Education (NACIE) also
plays a vital role in how we address the unique needs of AI/AN
students. NACIE is comprised of fifteen American Indians (including
Alaska Native) that are appointed by the President. NACIE advises the
Secretary on the funding and administration of any program, including
those established under Title VII, Part A of the ESEA, with respect to
which the Secretary has jurisdiction and that includes Indian children
or adults as participants or that may benefit Indian children or
adults. NACIE annually submits a report to the Congress on the
activities of the Council which may include any recommendation the
Council considers appropriate for the improvement of Federal education
programs that include or may benefit Indian children or adults as
participants. *
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* A copy of the NACIE Annual Report to Congress 2012-2013 has been
retained in the Committee files.
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Moving forward, the President has requested funding for vital new
programs, such as Race to the Top Equity and Opportunity, a new College
Success Grants for Minority-Serving Institutions Initiative, First in
the World (FITW) funds focused on institutional innovation, and
additional existing programs that are critical to addressing the needs
of many AI/AN students.
The Department remains committed to better understanding the needs
of AI/AN students and to our responsibility to help improve the
educational outcomes for all AI/AN students. Thank you for the
opportunity to testify today and I happy to respond to any questions.
The Chairman. Thank you for your testimony.
They have called a roll call vote on the floor so I am
going to make my questions short. You make your answers short.
I doubt anyone is coming back because there are multiple votes.
The White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska
Native Education has been in existence for about three years.
How are you measuring the progress and success of the work of
that program?
Mr. Mendoza. My measurement of the progress of this
initiative centers around how we are changing the context
within the Federal family of how we look at American Indian and
Alaska Native education. As we have come into what amounts to a
paradigm shift in approaching this issue, we are looking at
closing the gaps between how the Federal Government, States and
tribes are working together.
To that end, we are engaged in a number of activities that
directly effect how the Federal Government operates in terms of
how we utilize grants, contracts, services, loans and so forth
to affect Indian communities. We work directly from the lens of
self-determination and self governance for tribes. I would be
happy to expand on some of those specific mechanisms that I
mentioned in my remarks.
The Chairman. I would like you to, in written form if you
may, cite me some of your most significant achievements with
this program to date. I would love to see those so we could
potentially utilize them.
In the Department's appropriation for 2012, funds were
included for a pilot program known as State Tribal Education
Partnership, STEP. Can you tell us how the implementation of
this pilot program is going?
Mr. Mendoza. The implementation of this program is
proceeding in a way we feel is dramatically changing the way
States and tribes are working together. In areas of the country
like Oklahoma, New Mexico and Idaho, we see a tremendous amount
of effort being put into formal collaborations between these
entities that are getting at the root causes of some of these
issues where we are dealing with culturally responsiveness, the
teaching field and looking at how we are supporting the
capacity building of tribal education agencies in some of the
critical formula programs.
We couldn't be happier with how these tribal education
agencies are growing through these programs and how we can move
forward in strengthening the program.
The Chairman. Very good.
I am going to put some additional questions to you in
writing. You heard the testimony of the previous folks. If
there are things they said that are applicable to the
department and the department would like to respond, I would
love to hear your response.
There are some programs out there that I think have real
merit and I think we might be able to take them more than just
regional and more than just single school districts.
Thank you, Mr. Mendoza. I appreciate your testimony. I am
sorry we have this vote right now but sometimes we have to do
that.
I want to thank all the witnesses for their testimony
today. This Committee will continue to work on these issues and
work on legislation to make productive changes. As I said in my
opening, I am a big believer in education. I think it is one of
the keys to getting people raised up in the economic strata and
how we build our economy. Indian Country and Indian education
is incredibly important in all of this.
The hearing record will remain open for two weeks.
With that, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:43 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
Prepared Statement of the National Indian Education Association
Tribal leaders and Native advocates have consistently listed
education as a top priority for our communities. The National Indian
Education Association (NIEA) is excited that the Senate Committee on
Indian Affairs has heard the collective call for reform and is working
to highlight the condition of Native education and find solutions to
persisting problems. As NIEA and Native education stakeholders have
stated for years, a strong education foundation is critical to the
future of tribal nations and Native communities. To provide
recommendations for strengthening that foundation and as this Committee
works with Congress and the Administration, we request this written
testimony and supplemental documents be submitted into the record.
NIEA was incorporated in 1970 and is the most representative Native
education organization in the United States. NIEA's mission is to
advance comprehensive and equal educational opportunities for American
Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian students. NIEA supports
tribal sovereignty over education as well as strengthening traditional
Native cultures and values that enable Native learners to become
contributing members of their communities. As the most inclusive Native
education organization, NIEA membership consists of tribal leaders,
educators, students, researchers, and education stakeholders from all
50 states. From communities in Hawaii, to tribal reservations across
the continental U.S., to villages in Alaska and urban communities in
major cities, NIEA has the most reach of any Native education
organization in the country.
The State of Native Education
Native education is currently in a state of emergency. Native
students lag behind their peers on every educational indicator, from
academic achievement to high school and college graduation rates. Just
over 50 percent of Native students are graduating high school, compared
to nearly 80 percent for the majority population nationally. Further,
only one in four Native high school graduates who took the ACT scored
at the college-ready level in math and only one-third in reading
comprehension, as compared to more than half for white graduates.
Increasingly alarming, only 40 percent of Native college enrollees in
2004 actually graduated college with a bachelor's degree by 2010.
Nearly 62 percent of the majority students graduated. For Native
students to succeed in college and careers, they must have a strong
education foundation that also meets their local needs and strengthens
their linguistic and cultural identity.
Native Student Demographics \1\
\1\ National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of
Education Sciences, United States Department of Education.National
Indian EducationStudy 2011.(NCES 2012-466). http://nces.ed.gov/
nationsreportcard/nies/
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378,000, or 93 percent of Native students, attend U.S.
public schools, comprising 0.7 percent of the total public
school population (2010-2011 school year).
Of all Native students, 33 percent live in poverty, compared
to 12 percent of Whites (2011-2012 school year).
29 percent of these students attend high-poverty city public
schools, compared to 6 percent of Whites (2009-10 school year).
Only 52 percent of Native students live in two-parent
households, compared to 75 percent of Whites (2011).
After the most recent census, only 65,356 Natives ages 25
years and older had a graduate or professional degree.
Public Education Recommendations
NIEA's work over more than forty years has centered on reversing
these negative trends to ensure our communities have the future leaders
they need to thrive and sustain local cultural and linguistic
traditions. The following public education recommendations are based on
resolutions passed by our membership as well as past policy work and
community outreach regarding needed regulatory and legislative reform.
I. Equitably Fund Native-Serving Schools
Tribes and Native communities have a tremendous stake in an
improved public education system. With 93 percent of Native students
attending traditional public schools, education should prepare Native
students not only for active and equal participation in the global
market, but also to be positive, involved members and leaders of their
communities. To support that participation, the federal government must
uphold its trust relationship with tribes. Established through
treaties, federal law, and U.S. Supreme Court decisions, this
relationship includes a fiduciary obligation to provide parity in
access and equal resources to all American Indian and Alaska Native
students, whether they attend Bureau of Indian Education (BIE),
charter, or public schools.
As tribes work with Congress to increase their role and
responsibility in administering education, federal support should
increase for tribal governments and Native education institutions to
repair the damage caused by shrinking budgets and sequestration.
Historical funding trends illustrate that the federal government is
abandoning its trust responsibility by decreasing federal funds to
Native-serving programs by more than half in the last 30 years.
Fortunately, Congress postponed sequestration for two years and
increased funds to many programs. However, Congress and the
Administration maintained FY 2013 sequestration levels in FY 2014 for
Native education funding in Title VII--the Native education title under
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). This action is
incomprehensible and unacceptable. Now is the time to invest in Native
education by strengthening the ability of tribes to participate in
education as well as provide adequate funds to schools serving Native
students. Tribal governance of education services is crucial as well as
increasing collaboration and engagement among key stakeholders and
decreasing barriers that inhibit tribes from equally participating in
education.
II. Strengthen Tribal Self-Determination
Congress should assist tribes who wish to participate in the
delivery of their children's education by strengthening tribal
education agencies. Since the late 20th Century, Congress has worked to
strengthen tribal capacity to directly serve their citizens. In this
spirit, tribes should have the same ability as state and local
education agencies to administer education services because many
Native-serving public schools are located on or just outside tribal
lands. In FY 2012, Congress funded an authorization under the
Department of Education (ED) for tribal capacity building in public
reservation schools under the State-Tribal Education Partnership (STEP)
program. STEP was not only a good first step to increase cooperation
and collaboration among states, tribes, and local schools, it succeeded
in increasing, albeit it in a limited way, the capacity of tribes to
administer education programs.
True tribal self-determination without the state acting as an
intermediary in education should be afforded. All tribes who wish to
participate should have the authority and funding to build their
capacity to administer education programs. Native leaders understand
their children best and Native communities can better address a child's
unique educational and cultural needs. Providing tribes the ability to
administer education programs would ensure that tribes have the same
ability as state education and local education agencies. The ESEA
should authorize tribes to operate title programs in public schools
located on tribal lands and that serve Native students. ED would then
work with tribes to identify appropriate title programs for
administration allowing tribes the opportunity to partner with their
particular local education agency for effective implementation.
III. Expand Collaboration and Engagement
Since Native students often transfer between their local schools,
there must be collaboration among federal, state, and tribal
governments, as well as between tribes and their local schools, to
ensure the academic and cultural needs of Native students are
addressed. While the federal government has a trust responsibility to
work with tribes, tribal concerns are often excluded at the state and
local level. Local education agencies and their schools should partner
closely and consult with tribes when developing programs that serve
Native students. Further, local schools should work with tribes to
develop school calendars that account for cultural events, local
outreach that successfully engages parents, and professional
development and/or technical assistance training that includes cultural
and linguistic traditions.
Native parents must be involved in Native-serving public schools to
provide their children familial support. Otherwise, local work to
increase the success of Native students will fail. Parents and family
members must feel comfortable in their child's school environment.
Schools should ensure parents understand how to navigate the school's
administrative and educational structure, so parents understand the
appropriate support needed at home in order to complement their child's
learning in school.
Congress should also ensure public schools engage their local
tribes to make sure a network of care provides parents additional
services, such as health and wellness and behavioral supports, where
needed. Unfortunately, Native-serving schools often work in a vacuum or
hire non-Native staff unaware of their local population's needs. These
attributes are not conducive for creating stability for Native parents
and communities who rely on local relationships built on a foundation
of trust. Tribes and Native communities should have the ability to work
with their local public schools to ensure Native parents feel
comfortable engaging teachers and administrators. This begins by
increasing tribal access to work with school administrators and
teachers so school staff understand the significance of a holistic
education rooted in the local Native culture and language.
Native languages are not only crucial for protecting and
strengthening Native culture and increasing family engagement, a
curriculum steeped in linguistic tradition also raises student
achievement by helping the child learn in a familiar environment. To
support such initiatives, this Committee should move Senate Bill 1948--
the Native Language Immersion Student Achievement Act--so that eligible
schools may participate in a grant program that provides new funds to
develop and maintain Native language programs. Immersion programs
increase Native student success rates by providing a well-rounded
education that includes mathematic and language arts, while also
strengthening Native traditions. Further, sustainable funding for
immersion programs would generate data to help education stakeholders
create best practice models for educating Native students.
IV. Reduce Inequitable Regulation
Increasing self-determination for tribes to administer services and
work with local stakeholders will not succeed unless there are fewer
restrictions on tribes to engage their public schools. Native students
often transfer between public, charter, and BIE schools that serve
their community. This constant mobility creates information gaps, as
systems are not required to track and coordinate student data when
students transfer.
Provided the same access as local education agencies, tribes and
their education agencies can better track and measure their student
populations when provided parity in access. With a more complete
database, tribes can utilize and create data pools where information is
deficient. Unfortunately, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act
(FERPA) exclude tribes from equitably accessing their Native student's
records. Amending FERPA to provide basic parity for tribes to access
data would create accurate student statistics that help create more
effective models for addressing issues that decrease Native student
achievement rates.
Likewise, Native-serving programs in public schools must not be
restrictive due to agency implementation. Rather, they must function as
Congress originally intended. Title VII administered by ED provides
supplemental grants to ensure programs serving Native students meet
basic elementary and secondary educational needs as well as address the
unique culturally-related academic needs of Native children. Citing the
Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), the Office of Indian
Education within ED utilizes systems that measure Native student
academic achievement as the benchmark for Title VII programmatic
success.
This measurement system functions contrary to congressional intent
for Title VII. Under the current iteration of ESEA, the law stipulates
that Title VII formula grant programmatic success is based on
supporting cultural education and creating a presence for Native
education. This cultural presence creates a unique focus in a school
district or school in order to work in concert with ESEA, rather than
directly increasing the academic achievement of Native students.
Congress should ensure that eligible entities receiving Title VII funds
have the ability to serve Native students as law stipulates--not as ED
interprets. Providing this oversight will ensure restrictive barriers
are diminished in Native-serving schools and that more appropriate
evaluation tools are utilized to measure an important Native-serving
program.
V. Elevate the National Advisory Council on Indian Education
The Federal Government must recognize and support tribal self-
determination in education as well as entities that represent and work
to improve Native education. For too long, ED, the Administration, and
Congress have ignored the annual reports of the National Advisory
Council on Indian Education (NACIE). As the body that works to advise
the Secretary of Education on Native issues, NACIE must be elevated.
We request this Committee work to provide oversight to ED, so that
NACIE has the opportunity to annually meet with the Secretary as well
as the President. Further, their annual reports to Congress seldom
receive response and issues continue to persist from year to year
without being addressed. We call on this Committee to ensure Congress
provides a response to their report and work with the White House
Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education and the
Office of Indian Education within ED to ensure the Secretary responds
to the annual NACIE report. In this vein, NIEA supports and includes
the 2013 NACIE Report into the record in hopes of raising awareness of
their issues.
Conclusion
We also include the 112th Congressional legislation, the Native
Culture Language, and Access for Success in Schools (CLASS) Act--Senate
Bill 1262, as an addendum. * This comprehensive bill included Native
stakeholder's requests for needed legislative reform under the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act, so that Native students and
tribes have increased parity to participate in Native-serving education
systems, such as public schools. Because the Senate's ESEA
reauthorization--the Strengthening America's Schools Act of 2013--
passed out of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP)
Committee, we recommend this Committee work to include CLASS Act
technical amendments in the chance the ESEA bill moves to the Senate
floor for consideration.
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NIEA appreciates the continued support of this Committee and we
look forward to working closely with its members under the leadership
of Chairman Tester and Ranking Member Barrasso. We share your
commitment to Native education and strengthening our partnership to
ensure Native-serving public schools are as effective as possible. To
achieve this, there must be collaboration among all entities that touch
a child's life and at all levels--tribal, federal, state, and local. It
is difficult to speak of increasing the success of Native students when
addressing only one part of the education system, so we must work with
all systems since our students frequently move between schools during
their scholastic career. While this hearing focused on public schools,
NIEA is happy to see the Committee highlight the need for parity in all
systems serving our children. Only by working with all stakeholders
will we increase our students' preparedness for success no matter where
they learn.
Once again, thank you for this opportunity.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Tom Udall to
Brent D. Gish
Question. What standards and best practices exist for public
schools to assess highly qualified teachers of Native languages and
culture so that Alaska Native/American Indian pupils (indeed all
students) may learn of and in Native language and culture?
Answer. A growing number of states are now recognizing the value
and need to imbed Native language and culture into diverse classroom
settings to provide cultural relevance and to support Native language
preservation. It has been a great challenge to identify and recruit
highly qualified Native language and culture teachers. Very few college
programs offer licensure in Native languages and the demand far exceeds
availability. States have relied on tribes to identify, assess
competency, and recommend licensing. Through Memorandums of
Understanding (MOU), the state then grants a license to teach in the
language specialty area.
In addition to a shortage of highly qualified teachers, there
exists a shortage of Native language curriculum, learning materials and
support policies, ie accepting Native language and culture course work
for graduation credit. It is acknowledged that this area of high need
is being addressed by tribal education departments, tribal colleges,
state and private universities, and for profit companies but there is a
backlog of need for quality materials that fit under the umbrella of
``common core standards''.
Currently there is limited research and proven practice in the area
of Native language and culture, the principles of quality instruction
apply to this unique discipline as it does for all other disciplines.
It is my belief that the teachers of Native language and culture who
are licensed by tribes would benefit greatly by enrolling in courses
that address proven practices in pedagogy ie, behavior management,
differentiated instruction, assessment, data analysis, etc. Further, I
highly support and encourage Congress/SCIA to support tribes, states
and local school districts in their quest for high performing schools
where all students are valued as demonstrated by the teaching of Native
language and practicing cultural relevance for all learners.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Tom Udall to
Daniel Hudson
Question. What standards and best practices exist for public
schools to assess highly qualified teachers of Native languages and
culture so that Alaska Native/American Indian pupils (indeed all
students) may learn of and in Native language and culture?
Answer. First, teachers of Native language and culture may very
well not fit the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)
definition of ``highly qualified''. These instructors, at least in the
states of Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico and Arizona, are initially
licensed and renewed for classroom instruction by each state, but
required competency for such licensure is determined by their
individual Tribe. (See Appendix A for these documents.) * Regarding
renewal, Montana and Arizona require sixty hours of additional
instructor work during the license periods, for license renewal; the
other two States noted do not, to the best of my knowledge, require
additional training for license renewal.
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* The information reffered to has been retained in Committee
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It should be noted that this does not necessarily imply a
diminished instructional person as regards the ``highly qualified''
term vis-a-vis Native language and culture instructors. Usually an
instructor has to have a minimum of a Bachelor's degree in their
teaching area and today, pass the Praxis test in their subject area to
confirm competence. For a Native language and culture instructor, there
simply does not exist coursework or indeed professors at the collegiate
level for them to attain a college-conferred Bachelor's degree in, say,
Arapaho language and culture, let alone the Praxis test to confirm
competency in that instructional area (One might contrast this to a
college degree for Spanish language instruction, which is indeed
available and instructional competency is capable of being tested.)
Thus coursework competency in Native language and culture is and
currently has to be determined by each instructors' Tribal
certification mechanism.
Past the point of initial competency, then, which has to be
verified by the Native Tribe and their respective competency
requirements, other assessments of classroom teachers can certainly be
applied to Native language and culture instructors in the same manner
as other subject areas. Such things as classroom management, student
involvement in the course material, presentation of course material,
and so on can be assessed as for any other instructor. It might be
noted that currently these assessments are performed with a school
district level selected assessment mechanism, and the yearly number of
such assessments is determined by each individual state. Wyoming, for
example, requires teachers to be formally assessed not less than twice
a year for the first three years of their employment, while such
teachers are not tenured. After tenure has been granted, formal
assessment is then required not less than once a year. Logically,
assessments could be performed more often than these standards for all
certified instructors (teachers) including Native language and culture
instructors, and frankly, best practice would indicate more frequent
informal assessments can be provided during the first few years of an
instructor's employment with the intent to provide assistance and
guidance to a beginning teacher; this would also include Native
language and culture instructors for their coursework delivery.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Tom Udall to
Mandy Smoker Broaddus
Question. What standards and best practices exist for public
schools to assess highly qualified teachers of Native languages and
culture so that Alaska Native/American Indian pupils (indeed all
students) may learn of and in Native language and culture?
Answer. The Montana Office of Public Instruction (OPI), in
recognition of the status as sovereign nations held by American Indian
tribes, divests authority to recognize and approve all teachers of
Native language/culture to that tribal group. OPI allows tribes to
create their own process for determining what standards are used to
determine who is a ``highly qualified'' instructor of a Native
language. The OPI receives that information from each tribe, and awards
a Class 7 certification for Native American Language and Culture.
However, because Montana's constitutional mandate, known as Indian
Education for All, requires that ALL teachers at ALL grade levels
include appropriate and authentic American Indian content (including
history, culture, contemporary issues, etc.), OPI actively provides
professional development, resources and materials to all teachers and
districts across the state. The OPI leads this effort through funding
from the state legislature but does not assess whether individuals are
highly qualified as a result. OPI efforts require that any and all
teachers should feel comfortable and at ease in teaching American
Indian content so that this important work can reach as many Montana
students as possible.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Heidi Heitkamp to
William Mendoza
Question 1. In November last year I went to the visit Cannon Ball
Elementary School which is located within the Standing Rock
reservation. The school is in dreadful condition; full of mold, rats, a
leaking roof, lack of safe playground equipment. It is 100 percent
federally impacted and so there is no taxable state land nearby to
support this school and thus heavily relies on Impact Aid. This is also
one of the lowest performing schools in North Dakota. I am concerned
about the message we send children about how they are valued when they
show up to learn in these conditions. What is the White House
Initiative doing to improve the conditions of facilities for federally
impacted schools like Cannon Ball?
Answer. We have also heard from tribes about the poor condition of
certain schools on reservations, including tribally-controlled schools
funded by BIE as well as public schools. For the public schools,
section 8007 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965
(ESEA) authorizes the Department of Education (``ED'' or
``Department'') to make grants to support school construction in local
school districts that educate federally connected students or have
federally owned land. The authorizing law provides that 40 percent of
program funds are for formula grants and 60 percent for competitive
grants; however, Congress routinely overrides this statutory
allocation. In the last five years, formula construction grants under
Section 8007(a) were funded in Fiscal Years (FY) 2010, 2011, and 2014,
while competitive grants under Section 8007(b) were funded in Fiscal
Years 2012 and 2013. Formula construction grants generally go to more
districts in smaller amounts, typically in the tens of thousands of
dollars, whereas competitive grants go to fewer districts in larger
amounts, and recently ranged up to $6 million. The Solen (North Dakota)
School District received a competitive grant in FY 2010 to fix a
leaking roof and a malfunctioning HVAC system at Cannon Ball Elementary
School. By August of 2012, the district had used the $215,000 award to
completely replace the roof over part of the school, install new
shingles on other portions of the roof, and replace its HVAC system. It
has not applied for a competitive award since.
For FY 2015, the Administration has requested $17.4 million for
this construction program, the same as the 2014 level. These funds
would be used entirely for competitive grants and would be available
for two years, which is consistent with the Administration's ESEA
reauthorization proposal, which would eliminate the formula component
of the program. By awarding funds through a competitive process, the
Department can ensure that districts with the greatest needs receive
sufficient funds to make emergency repairs.
With regard to other sources of funds to improve school facilities,
most Department formula grant statutes do not authorize the use of
funds for construction purposes. However, there are specific uses that
are possible under various programs. The Department is considering
working with the BIE to issue guidance to both public and BIE-funded
schools on how to leverage existing federal funding streams to improve
school facilities.
Question 2. In November 2009, President Obama signed an Executive
Order requiring Departments and Agencies to submit a consultation
policy within 90 days. In the last five years, many federal agencies
have been able to develop and implement a tribal consultation policy.
Has the Department of Education developed a consultation policy?
Question 2a. If there is a draft, would it be possible to share
with the Committee?
Question 2b. What is the timeline for finalizing the policy?
Answer. Yes, the Department has an existing consultation policy,
developed in 2001, which we have attached. The Department is developing
a revised consultation policy and we are consulting with tribal leaders
and tribal communities on the revised draft. We will provide you with a
copy as soon as it is completed.
Question 3. In your testimony you talk about the vital role the
National Advisory Council on Indian Education (NACIE) plays in
addressing the unique needs of Native students. NACIE submits an annual
report to Congress on specific ways to improve education outcomes for
Native students. When the annual report is submitted each year, how do
you respond?
Question 3a. Can you discuss the steps the White House Initiative
is taking to help implement their specific recommendations?
Answer. We are currently working on a formal response to the list
of recommendations that NACIE submitted to the Department. In addition
to providing support to NACIE in the development of its report to
Congress each year, the White House Initiative (``WHIAIANE'' or
``Initiative'') works closely with various agencies and offices to
address NACIE's specific recommendations. For example, the Initiative
works closely with the Executive Office of the President to help ensure
American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) participation in the
development and implementation of key Administration priorities. The
Initiative also works to strengthen the relationship between the
Department of Education's Office of Indian Education (ED/OIE), and the
Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Education (DoI/BIE), to
draw upon each agency's expertise and resources to help improve AI/AN
education.
The Department's work is directly and indirectly addressing NACIE's
specific recommendations. With respect to the recommendations on which
the Department can have an impact (grouped by subject area), we are
doing the following:
NACIE's priority to raise the profile of Indian education.
The Department has taken steps to strengthen partnerships among the
Federal government, tribes, and States. In 2009, President Obama issued
a Memorandum to the heads of executive departments and agencies
emphasizing his commitment to regular and meaningful consultation and
collaboration with tribal officials in policy decisions that have
tribal implications. The Memorandum called for complete and consistent
implementation of Executive Order (EO) 13175. It also directed each
agency to submit a detailed plan of action to implement the policies
and directives of EO 13175. The Department was quick to respond to the
Memorandum by conducting ten tribal consultations with tribal leaders
and tribal communities in 2010-11. Since then, we have held over 30
national consultations with tribes and tribal communities around the
country. More information on these consultations can be found at:
www.edtribalconsultations.org.
Additionally, in 2012, the Department led development of two major
Memoranda of Agreements (MOA) regarding: (1) strengthening coordination
and collaboration between DOI and ED; and (2) DOI, HHS, and ED working
together to encourage programs and projects that include instruction
in, and preservation of, native languages. In addition to developing a
course of action, these memoranda provide a framework for collaboration
and coordination across Federal agencies to help expand educational
opportunities, improve outcomes for all AI/AN students, and help
preserve and revitalize native languages.
The Initiative leads the DOI-ED Joint Committee on Indian Education
(Committee), which includes tribal leaders from the Tribal Education
Budget Council. The Committee was formed as a result of the 2012 ED-DOI
Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The MOU leverages the expertise of
both departments to improve educational opportunities and outcomes for
AI/AN students. The Committee is developing plans to implement seven
specific goals and activities that are outlined in the MOU.
The President's Interagency Working Group on Indian Education (IWG)
was established by EO 13592. The IWG held its inaugural meeting in
2013. Senior Administration Officials from 29 agencies came together to
begin interagency implementation of the EO. The departments are
developing four-year plans that will focus on expanding educational
opportunities and improving outcomes for AI/AN students, including
helping ensure the opportunity to learn their native languages.
The Native Language Working Group derives from a Memorandum of
Agreement on Native Languages among ED, the Department of Health and
Human Services' Administration for Children and Families, and DOI/BIE.
We are working to achieve the goals of that Memorandum. In addition to
developing a course of action, the MOA provides a framework for
collaboration and coordination across Federal agencies and we have
already taken significant steps in helping to support the preservation
and revitalization of native languages.
NACIE's call for the preservation and adequate funding for
all Indian education programs. The Department has demonstrated strong
support for AI/AN students through formula and competitive grants to
help meet their unique needs. Approximately one-half of the $1.2
billion in Impact Aid Basic Support Payments for FY 2014 will be
distributed to districts that provide free public education to children
living on Indian lands. Title VII, Part A, of the ESEA provides formula
grants to over 1,300 school districts that educate AI/AN students
totaling approximately $100 million for FY 2014. The funds must be used
to meet the needs of those students, including language and cultural
needs, to help them succeed in school. Additionally, several
competitive programs that help improve the quality of education for
Indian students and prepare and train Indians to serve as teachers and
school administrators are supported through Title VII, Part A ,
including Demonstration Grants (Section 7121); Professional Development
Grants (Section 7122); and the State Tribal Education Partnership
(STEP) program (Section 7131). Moreover, the Alaska Native Education
(ANE) program supports activities that provide educational
opportunities that are culturally relevant and beneficial to Alaska
Native Students and the community. In 2013, there were 57 active ANE
grants for a total investment of $31.5 million.
The Department also granted approximately $138.3 million to tribal
colleges and universities (TCUs) in FY 2012. This funding was dedicated
to four activities: (1) improving and strengthening the academic
quality, institutional management, and fiscal stability of TCUs; (2)
grants and loan assistance authorized under Title IV of the Higher
Education Act of 1965 (HEA) to help TCU students pay for college; (3)
grants to prepare and train AI/ANs to serve as teachers and education
professionals; and, (4) grants to Federally recognized Indian tribes,
tribal organizations, Alaska Native entities, and eligible BIE-funded
schools to improve career and technical education (CTE) programs for
AI/ANs.
NACIE's prioritization of early childhood education. The
Department has ensured that tribes and Indian organizations are
eligible early-learning providers in the upcoming competition for
Preschool Development Grants . We intend for high-quality preschool
programs to be located in regionally diverse communities or consortia
of communities in cities, towns, counties, neighborhood, districts, and
rural or tribal areas, with a high level of need or distress as
determined by the State. Programs must use early learning standards
that are developmentally, culturally, and linguistically appropriate.
Our intention is that programs serving Indian children would support
native or home languages.
NACIE's recommendation that the Department place a high
priority on improving technical assistance to Indian Country.
ED's OIE provided approximately $993,000 in FY 2012 funds to
three Regional Comprehensive Centers to improve outcomes for
AI/AN students by providing technical assistance to State
educational agencies (SEAs). This support will amount to nearly
$5 million in technical assistance services, including working
with States to help them gain a better understanding of the
issues and challenges facing AI/AN students, building cultural
competency among staff, and delivering instruction that is
culturally appropriate for students. ED also continues to
partner with the National Congress of American Indians, the
largest member organization of AI/AN educators and advocates in
the country, to deliver high-quality technical assistance
during their annual convention. The fourth annual ED Technical
Assistance Day, ``Strong Partnerships, Successful Students,''
brought over 300 AI/AN educators and advocates together with ED
Senior Officials and program staff to engage on the
Administration's reform agenda, initiatives, programs, and
funds available to support AI/AN students.
NACIE's priority regarding the advancement of
intergovernmental collaboration. Interior Secretary Sally
Jewell and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have convened an
American Indian Education Study Group (Study Group), which is
charged with finding solutions to the challenges faced by BIE-
funded schools. Since September 2013, the Study Group has
developed a draft framework for education reform and conducted
numerous listening sessions with tribal leaders and
representatives throughout Indian Country to determine how to
build the capacity of tribes to operate high-performing schools
that ensure that all BIE students are well-prepared for
college, careers, and tribal and global citizenship. In
response to the many insightful comments presented at the
listening sessions, the Study Group developed and released a
draft framework based on four pillars of educational reform:
(1) Effective Teachers and Principals--Help Tribes identify,
recruit, retain, and empower diverse, highly effective teachers
and principals to maximize achievement in all tribally
controlled schools; (2) Agile Organizational Environment--Build
responsive organizations that provide resources, direction, and
services to Tribes so they can help their students attain high-
levels of student achievement; (3) Budget Aligned to Capacity
Building--Develop a budget that is aligned to, and supports,
BIE's new mission of tribal capacity-building and scaling up
best practices; and 4) Comprehensive Support Through
Partnerships--Foster parental, community, and organizational
partnerships to provide the emotional and social supports BIE
students need in order to be ready to learn. In April and May
of 2014, the Secretaries conducted consultation on the draft
framework and provided tribal leaders with an update on the
work of the Study Group. The Secretaries are reviewing the
recommendations from these consultations.
With regard to public schools serving Indian students, see
``NACIE's priority to raise the profile of Indian education,'' above,
for discussion of recent interagency efforts.
Question 4. An overarching concern from Native education advocates
is the need to elevate Indian education issues. The President has
sanctioned numerous Advisory Councils for other minority groups, yet
the data indicates that Native students are the lowest performing group
served in our public schools. How is the White House Initiative working
to elevate NACIE's work in the Department of Education so the Secretary
and President use them as a resource for public education and Native
education issues?
Answer. In addition to other responsibilities, NACIE serves as the
advisory council to the Initiative, in accordance with Section 5(a) of
EO 13592. The Initiative has taken a number of significant steps to
directly and indirectly engage with NACIE to implement EO 13592. The
Initiative has worked closely with NACIE, and with the Office of Indian
Education within the Department, with other Federal agencies and
offices, especially with DoI/BIE and HHS, and the Executive Office of
the President to help ensure AI/AN participation in the development and
implementation of key Administration priorities.
The President's Interagency Working Group on Indian Education has
also brought together Senior Administration Officials from 29 federal
agencies to implement the President's Executive Order. The development
of the Federal agencies' two-part, 4-year plans is under way and will
focus on the agencies' efforts to help expand educational opportunities
and improve educational outcomes for all AI/AN students. We look
forward to providing you these plans when they are completed.
Question 4a. What structural changes within the Department of
Education are being made to make Indian students a higher priority?
Answer. The establishment of the 2012 MOA with DOI has elevated the
educational issues regarding Indian students within ED. Based on the
MOA, we have established a Joint Committee on Indian Education,
consisting of high-level officials from DOI and ED and additional
subcommittee members, which includes tribal leaders from the Tribal
Education Budget Council. We have established structured committee
meetings that meet at least quarterly to work on the goals and specific
activities designed to reach the stated goals to improve Indian
education. The goals address several major areas that will also
strengthen the relationship between ED and BIE to help improve primary,
secondary, and postsecondary education for AI/AN children and young
adults.
Major areas addressed by the goals include: increasing educational
opportunities and educational outcomes of AI/AN students; enhancing
tribal sovereignty to build the capacity of tribal education agencies
(TEAs); streamlining the agreement process for educational studies
conducted on tribal lands; partnerships to help increase students
completing college; and expanding and merging databases between ED and
BIE to share and implement best practices. Currently, the subcommittees
are working on clarifying the goals and developing long- and short-term
solutions. After the subcommittees complete this work, a final report
will be developed and submitted to the Secretaries for further action,
which will include approval for prioritized implementation.
Question 5. The President's FY 2015 budget slightly increases its
support for historically black colleges and universities to $309
million, while Hispanic-serving institutions would receive $207
million. TRIO and GEAR UP would continue at $838 million and $302
million. In comparison, tribal colleges would only receive $55 million.
The Federal Government has a documented trust and treaty responsibility
to tribes which makes it unique. Tribal colleges play a huge role in
ensuring student success at four year institutions, as well as
assisting parents to obtain their GEDs and continue their education,
which we know is important to ensuring their children succeed
academically. How is the White House Initiative working to ensure there
is more parity in the President's budget to better match the support
given to other minority higher education programs?
Answer. The FY 2015 request would provide a total of $530 million
in competitive funding and $255 million in mandatory funding for the
programs for minority-serving institutions under Titles III and V of
the HEA. The President recognizes that the colleges that participate in
these programs, including tribal colleges, play a unique and vital role
in providing higher education opportunity to institutions that enroll a
large proportion of minority and disadvantaged students. However, due
to current budgetary constraints, the fiscal year 2015 request would
maintain discretionary funding at the fiscal year 2014 level for these
programs. The President's fiscal year 2015 budget request for the Title
III/Title V minority-serving institutions programs includes an increase
because fiscal year 2014 funding for the mandatory programs (mostly
Titles III and V programs) reflected the 7.2 percent sequester that
went into effect on October 1, 2013, pursuant to the Budget Control Act
of 2011 (P.L. 112-25). The 2015 President's Budget does not reflect a
sequester for these programs, resulting in a small increase in funding
over the 2014 mandatory levels.
The FY 2015 request for discretionary funding for the vast majority
of Higher Education programs, including the Federal TRIO Programs and
Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR
UP), is the same as provided by Congress in the FY 2014 appropriation.
The TRIO and GEAR UP programs, for which Tribal Colleges are eligible,
collectively serve and assist hundreds of thousands of low-income
individuals, first-generation college students to help them prepare
for, enter, and complete college and graduate studies. In FY 2013,
fifteen Tribal Colleges and Universities received support from the TRIO
programs and the GEAR UP program totaling approximately $4 million.
The 2015 request for ED's Higher Education Programs supports
programs that help achieve the President's goal that, by 2020, America
will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the
world. To support this goal, the request includes a number of grant
initiatives to improve affordability, quality, and success in
postsecondary education that Tribal Colleges would be eligible to apply
for, including: the First in the World fund, which would make
competitive awards to institutions of higher education to encourage
innovation; College Success Grants for Minority-Serving Institutions
and Historically Black Colleges and Universities, which would be made
available through competitive grants to support implementation of
sustainable strategies for reducing costs and improving outcomes for
students; and the College Opportunity and Graduation Bonus that would
reward colleges that successfully enroll and graduate a significant
number of low- and moderate-income students on time and that would
encourage all institutions to improve performance. Tribal colleges or
universities would also be eligible for funds in States that receive
grants under the Administration's proposed State Higher Education
Performance Fund to support, reform, and improve the performance of
their public higher education systems.
In FY 2015, the White House Initiative on American Indian and
Alaska Native Education will continue to coordinate with the National
Advisory Council on Indian Education and the White House Council on
Native American Affairs; assist the Department as liaison between the
executive branch and the tribal colleges; and work with other Federal
agencies, as well as other public and private partners, to strengthen
the capacity of these institutions, which we regard as vital in
providing higher education opportunity to these institutions.
Question 5a. United Tribes Technical College (UTTC) is one of two
tribal technical colleges authorized and funded under Title V of the
Tribal College Act to provide postsecondary career and technical
education. UTTC provides comprehensive education and training programs
to Indian students from more than 75 tribes. For several years, UTTC
has sought forward funding of its programs to bring it on par with the
other tribal colleges nationwide that received forward funding, at the
Administration's request, in fiscal year 2010. What steps will the
Administration take to make sure UTTC is forward funded like the other
tribal colleges?
Answer. The Department has not requested forward funding for the
Tribally Controlled Postsecondary Career and Technical Institutions
(TCPCTI) program, authorized under Section 117 of the Carl D. Perkins
Career and Technical Education Act, because the timing of the forward-
funded appropriation and corresponding awards under the Bureau of
Indian Education (BIE) is similar to the timing of the appropriations
for Department of Education's Section 117 program. For example, FY 2014
current funding for Section 117 recipients, which provides funds for
the 2014-15 school year, became available on October 1, 2013, well in
advance of the 2014-15 school year. The 2014 forward funding for the
BIE tribal colleges, which is also for the 2014-15 school year, will
become available on July 1, 2014, and awarded to recipients before the
school year starts.
The key factor in determining the TCPCTI award schedule is the
statutory requirement to partially base award amounts on the most
recent school year's Indian student counts. For example, to determine
how much funding each grantee would receive from the FY 2014
appropriation to carry out activities during school year 2014-15, we
must use Indian student counts based on summer, fall, spring, and
continuing education enrollment from school year 2013-14 to make FY
2014 awards for the 2014-15 school year. Generally, the Department
requests Indian student count data from grantees in June. After
grantees submit the counts, Department staff review the data to
determine if there were significant increases or decreases and then
follow up with the institutions to verify the information. On occasion,
the institutions have revised their student counts as a result of these
follow-up conversations. Once we have final student counts, we run the
formula to determine grant award amounts.
In addition, ED regulations require that, before making
continuation grant awards, the Department must also determine that
grantees have made substantial progress toward meeting the targets and
projected outcomes they proposed in their applications, and that they
have used funds in a manner that is consistent with their approved
applications and budgets. We also must negotiate between program staff
and grantees regarding budgets and uses of funds for the subsequent
school year. Generally, all of these activities require several weeks
of back-and-forth communications between program staff and the grantees
during the summer months (again, the process can't start until we
receive updated student counts, which are not available until the end
of the previous school year), with final grant awards made in August or
September.
In recognition of the fact that at least one grantee conducts
preliminary school-year activities in mid-summer (before final grant
awards are made), we often make partial grant awards to the grantees
earlier in the summer to assist them in carrying out these early
school-year activities.
Question 6. In your written testimony you highlight the President's
grant funding initiatives. I support the concept of rewarding high
performance but oftentimes low performing schools are low performing
simply because they lack resources. These low performing schools in
North Dakota often have high percentage of Native students and are in
remote areas so they do not have the resources to put together
competitive grant applications. What is the White House Initiative
doing to expand formula-funded programming to target areas of the
country with the highest need?
Answer. The Administration firmly believes that all children
deserve a world-class education, regardless of their race, ethnicity,
disability, native language, income level, or Zip Code. The focus
should be on schools and students who are at risk, and on meaningful
reforms that will help these students succeed. Historically, the
Federal role in education has been to provide funding for students who
need it most, and the fiscal year 2015 budget continues to protect the
formula funding that supports millions of disadvantaged and vulnerable
learners throughout the country, including Indian students receiving
support through Title VII, Part A of the ESEA. Title VII provides
formula grants to over 1300 LEAs (as well as BIE-funded tribally-
controlled schools, and some tribes that apply in lieu of the LEA) in
their efforts to reform elementary and secondary school programs that
serve Indian students. The Office of Indian Education (OIE) has
implemented recent changes to this formula grant program that emphasize
the use of funds for culturally-responsive education practices and
local coordination among federally-funded education programs in schools
for the benefit of Indian students.
The lion's share of the FY 2015 budget request for K-12 programs-
nearly 90 percent of K-12 discretionary spending-goes to formula funds.
At the same time, competitive funds can drive positive change and there
is a role for competitive funding in education reform. The Department
can target specific areas and reforms through competitive awards that
support State and school district reforms, which will also help them,
and other States and districts, use their formula funds more
effectively for kids.
Question 7. The KIDS COUNT policy report, Race for Results:
Building a Path to Opportunity for All Children report makes four
policy recommendations to help ensure that all children and their
families, independent of race and ethnicity, achieve their full
potential. The report suggests we need to: (1) Gather and analyze
racial and ethnic data; (2) Use data to target investments; (3) Develop
and implement promising and proven programs/practices; and (4) Connect
vulnerable groups to new jobs and opportunities. How does the White
House Initiative use this kind of report to advocate for developing
programs which follow these kinds of recommendations?
Answer. The Department considers input and policy recommendations,
such as those recommended by the KIDS COUNT policy report, from a broad
range of stakeholders in developing programs. These take the form of
reports and policy briefs, public comments on blog posts, letters and
e-mails, public testimony, and meetings. In developing programs, we use
various communication tools to publicly encourage all interested
parties to submit opinions, ideas, suggestions, and comments pertaining
to a particular program.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Tom Udall to
William Mendoza
Question 1. We are concerned about the lack of AN/AI teachers
prepared and able to be hired and retained, especially by LEAs with
large AN/AI student populations. Do you have any estimates on the
proportion of AN/AI teachers compared with AN/AI pupils in public
schools in states with high AN/AI populations?
Answer. We have very limited data on the proportion of AI/AN
teachers in 12 selected states with relatively high AI/AN enrollments.
In those states, the proportion of AI/AN students averages 4.8 percent,
and the proportion of AI/AN teachers averages 1.8 percent. Please see
table provided separately.
Question 2. What are the Administration's efforts to strengthen the
pipeline for AN/AI teachers to be recruited by public schools?
Answer. In our 2010 proposal for reauthorizing the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act (ESEA), we envisioned continuation of formula
and competitive grants to provide strong support to help meet the
unique needs of AI/AN students. The Department's proposal would provide
greater flexibility in the use of funds to carry out programs such as
Native language immersion and Native language restoration programs, as
well as to develop tribal specific standards and assessments. The
proposal would also improve access to funds for Indian tribes under
other ESEA programs, and would recognize and strengthen the role of
tribal education departments in coordinating and implementing services
and programs for Indian students within their jurisdictions. However,
because the ESEA has not been reauthorized, our vision for improving
AI/AN programs through greater flexibility and access to funds has not
come to fruition.
The Office of Indian Education (OIE), in the Office of Elementary
and Secondary Education (OESE), administers Indian Education
Professional Development (PD) Grants under Title VII-A-2 of the ESEA.
The purpose of the PD grant program is to prepare and train American
Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) professionals to increase the number of
qualified individuals in professions that serve AI/AN populations
across the United States, primarily as teachers, school administrators,
teacher aides, language instructors, and ancillary education personnel.
OIE awards grants to institutions of higher education that then provide
supplemental funding and support to undergraduate and graduate students
who are pursuing degrees and/or certificates in education. The
participants who accept funding and training under this program must
perform work that benefits Native people, and is related to their
training, or repay the assistance.
The Department is in the initial stage of rulemaking, and has
consulted to amend the current regulations for the PD program. The
Department consulted with AI/AN tribes to better understand specific
barriers that affect teacher recruitment and preparation. The feedback
that the Department received through consultation is currently
informing the rulemaking for this program. For example, the Department
learned that providing more information about the ``payback''
requirements would help prospective participants make more informed
decisions about participating in the program. The Department will
provide the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to the committee as soon as
it is publicly available.
Question 2a. How successful are the loan repayment programs?
Answer. For OIE's PD program, the Department developed a web-based
data collection system to track and monitor participants' compliance
with the work-related payback requirement, facilitate grantee reporting
of student training costs, and capture data required by the Government
Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA). This system collects real-
time data from the field that provides the Department with an
opportunity to identify ways to provide more timely and relevant
technical assistance, which is expected to improve grantee performance.
A link to the new PD payback system is included here: https://
pdp.ed.gov/OIE/. Regarding the success of the PD program, see the
statistics below.
i. How many teachers does it incentivize?
Answer. Over the past five years of the PD program: 40 grants were
awarded; 100 percent of participants who exited or completed their
program of study are completing the required payback; 44 percent of
participants (148) who have exited or completed their program of study
are completing or have completed a work-related payback.
ii.Is the funding fully spent every year?
Answer. Yes, all funds appropriated for this program were obligated
to grantees.
Question 2b. What suggestions do you have to bolster this program
or other efforts to increase the preparation of AN/AI teachers for
public schools?
Answer. As explained above, the Department is engaging in
rulemaking to further strengthen OIE's PD program and help more
participants find jobs in schools serving Indian children. In addition,
as stated above, the Department, in its 2010 proposal for reauthorizing
the ESEA, proposed continuation of both formula and competitive grants
to provide strong support to help meet the unique needs of AI/AN
students. The Department's proposal would provide greater flexibility
in the use of funds to carry out programs such as Native language
immersion and Native language restoration programs, as well as to
develop tribal-specific standards and assessments. The proposal would
also improve access to funds for Indian tribes under other ESEA
programs, and would recognize and strengthen the role of tribal
education departments in coordinating and implementing services and
programs for Indian students within their jurisdictions.
Question 3. What else can the Administration do to help LEAs on/
near reservations recruit and retain teachers?
Answer. In addition to the discretionary grant program described
above, the Indian Education Formula Grants to Local Educational
Agencies (LEAs) program, authorized by Title VII of the ESEA, provides
grants to over 1,300 local educational agencies (as well as BIE-funded
tribally controlled schools, and some tribes that apply in lieu of the
LEA) in their efforts to reform elementary and secondary school
programs that serve Indian students. All grantees are required to
provide any needed professional development to ensure that teachers and
other school professionals who are new to the Indian community are
prepared to work with Indian children, and that all teachers who will
be involved in programs assisted by the grant have been properly
trained to carry out those programs. Some examples of the types of
professional development that have been funded by Title VII include
integrating Indian-specific content into the general curriculum, Indian
Education-specific PD (e.g. instruction in specific language or Indian
curricula), and cultural awareness education and sensitivity training.
The Department also administers the Title II, Part A program, the
purpose of which is to improve the academic achievement of all students
by helping schools and districts improve teacher and principal quality
and to ensure that all teachers are highly qualified. Through the
program, State and local educational agencies (SEAs and LEAs), and
State agencies for higher education (SAHEs) receive funds on a formula
basis. Eligible partnerships consisting of high-need LEAs and
institutions of higher education (IHEs) receive funds that are
competitively awarded by the SAHE. While these funds can be used to
support preparation of AI/AN teachers for public schools, the programs
do not target any particular group of teachers and funds are not
designed to support teacher preparation programs. The focus is on
supporting all classroom teachers, particularly teachers who are not
deemed highly qualified. However, the BIE receives funds for the Title
II, Part A program and carries out activities consistent with the goals
of the program, targeting teachers in BIE-funded schools.
The Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) is another program designed to
support teachers. One of the key features of the TIF program is to take
teachers who may be effective and move them to being identified as
highly effective by supporting them with professional development, and
teaching in high-need schools. There are TIF projects, such as the
grant awarded to the Maricopa (AZ) County Education Service Agency,
that help support teachers of AI/AN students.
In addition to teacher-related programs administered by OESE , the
Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) funds discretionary grants
through its Personnel Development Program (PDP) to prepare personnel
for careers in the field of special education, early childhood, and
related services. These PDP grants pay for tuition, fees, and books,
for example, to help ensure that students complete the program. In a
recent Fiscal Year, 82 American Indian or Alaska Native scholars were
enrolled in OSEP-funded programs that lead to degrees (bachelor's
through doctoral levels) and/or certification or licensure.
Question 4. What is the Administration doing to disseminate best
practices so that LEAs serving AN/AI students can benefit from
successful approaches elsewhere?
Answer. The Department supports a network of regional comprehensive
and content centers that are committed to supporting the technical and
information needs of SEAs and LEAs in the dissemination of best
practices, including SEAs and LEAs serving AI/AN educators and
students. The Center on Great Teachers and Leaders (GTL Center), a
federally supported content center, is based at the American Institutes
for Research and funded through a cooperative agreement by ED's Office
of Elementary and Secondary Education. The GTL Center is dedicated to
supporting State education leaders in their efforts to grow and retain
great teachers and leaders for all students. The GTL Center continues
the work of the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality (TQ
Center) and expands its focus to provide technical assistance and on-
line resources designed to build systems that:
Support the implementation of college and career standards;
Ensure the equitable distribution of effective teachers and
leaders;
Recruit, retain, reward, and support effective educators;
Develop coherent human capital management systems;
Create safe academic environments that increase student
learning through positive behavior management and appropriate
discipline; and,
Use data to guide professional development and improve
instruction.
For the past 11 years, Tribal Colleges and Universities and other
institutions with high American Indian enrollments have been a priority
for the Monarch Technical Assistance Center funded by OSEP. The goal
has been to create new programs, strengthen existing programs, add
specialized strands, facilitate collaborations among 2-year and 4-year
institutions, and design program structures that will bolster
recruitment and retention of American Indian students who seek degrees
and certification to teach children and youth with disabilities in
their home communities.
Specific foci of the Monarch Center's technical assistance to
Tribal Colleges and Universities include:
Preparation for approval by the National Council for
Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE);
Development of new elementary education/early childhood
education program including program design, state approval
process, course design, and practicum site development;
Facilitation of articulation agreements between 2-year and
4-year colleges/universities;
Creation of a para-educator program to prepare for serving
individuals with disabilities;
Establishing a licensure program that previously depended on
outside non-Tribal college for enrollment;
Provision of leadership and facilitating a process toward
creation of a Tribal Colleges and Universities Consortium
(TCUC) for Teacher Education that will facilitate intercampus
collaboration
The Monarch Center has serviced 17 Tribal Colleges and Universities
and 1 Alaska Native IHE.
Finally, the RESPECT Initiative, captured in the RESPECT Blueprint
for Transforming Teaching, seeks to work with educators to rebuild the
teaching profession along the entire spectrum of recruitment,
preparation, professional development, compensation, and retention by
advocating a higher bar for entry into the field, the establishment of
more excellent teacher-training programs, and the development of
meaningful career-advancement opportunities that offer competitive
compensation and opportunities for increasingly impactful roles and
responsibilities. The goal is to establish a teaching profession--
including teachers on or near reservations--that is prepared and
empowered to help our students meet the demands of the 21st Century.
Over the past four years, this Administration has begun laying the
foundation for RESPECT, including by making some progress on the seven
critical elements set forth in the Blueprint. To more fully realize the
RESPECT vision, the President has proposed $5 billion in one-time 2015
mandatory funds to provide targeted support for teachers and school
leaders by improving preparation and early career assistance, giving
teachers and leaders opportunities to develop and advance as they lead
the transition to college- and career-ready standards, and ensuring
that teachers have a supportive work environment built around shared
collaboration. This request would support up to 1,000 grants to States
and districts to invest in needed improvements to the education
profession, reaching up to 1.6 million teachers. We have held hundreds
of conversations with thousands of educators on how they can implement
RESPECT-like changes in their local contexts and provided capacity-
building resources via www.ed.gov/teaching.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Lisa Murkowski to
William Mendoza
Question 1. Many tribal organizations in Alaska have contacted me
in frustration because, despite working with tribal children in the
public schools, they are often unable to get the district to share the
students' data with them. I am told that the Department has provided
guidance to districts that they may provide student data to tribes in
such circumstances. Has the Department considered offering stronger
guidance, or promulgating regulations that would require districts to
do so? If not, why not?
Answer. Section 444 of the General Education Provisions Act
(commonly known as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act
(FERPA)'' does not require educational agencies or institutions to
disclose students' education records to others (and permits them to do
so only under certain specific circumstances), and the Department
cannot require districts to disclose education records under FERPA.
Instead, FERPA generally permits educational agencies and institutions
to disclose student's education records to others only if the
educational agencies and institutions obtain the written consent of
eligible students or their parents to do so, unless an exception to the
general requirement of consent applies. FERPA applies to educational
agencies and institutions that receive funds under any program
administered by the Secretary of Education. When a student reaches 18
years of age or attends a postsecondary institution, the student
becomes an ``eligible student'' and all FERPA rights transfer from the
parents to the student.
In the preamble to the December 2, 2011, Federal Register notice
that revised the FERPA regulations, the Department addressed a number
of FERPA issues relevant to tribal organizations. The Notice referenced
the agreement between the DOI and ED concerning transfers of funds
under the ESEA. Under that agreement, ED treats the BIE as a ``State
educational agency'' (SEA) for monitoring and compliance purposes, and
each BIE school is treated as an LEA. The Department further indicated
in the 2011 Notice that we similarly would treat BIE schools as
``educational agencies or institutions'' under FERPA and would treat
the BIE as a ``State or local educational authority'' under FERPA.
Further, we indicated that we did not consider TEAs to be a ``State or
local educational authority'' under FERPA. The Department also
explained that, because we had not proposed to define the term ``State
and local educational authorities'' in the Notice of Proposed
Rulemaking, we declined to regulate on this without providing the
public with notice and the opportunity to comment.
The Department, however, implemented a significant change that
impacts tribal organizations in the Department's 2011 amendment to the
FERPA regulations. The Department interpreted the audit and evaluation
exception to consent in FERPA to permit State and local educational
authorities, such as SEAs and LEAs, to designate as their ``authorized
representative'' any individual or entity to assist in the audit or
evaluation of Federal- or State-supported education programs, as long
as certain conditions are met. Accordingly, an SEA or LEA that would
like to work with a TEA to audit or evaluate the effectiveness of a
Federal- or State-supported education program may do so and disclose
education records to the TEA serving as the SEA's or LEA's ``authorized
representative'' under the ``audit and evaluation'' exception to
consent in FERPA. The parties would be required to enter into a written
agreement that stipulates, in part, that the TEA may use any PII from
education records only for the purpose of the audit or evaluation, must
protect the PII from further disclosure, and must destroy the PII when
it is no longer needed for the purpose for which it was disclosed.
In the most recent Memorandum of Agreement between the Department
and the BIE (December 3, 2012), the Department agreed to work with SEAs
to promote greater communication between SEAs and tribes, between SEAs
and BIE-funded schools, and between tribal governments and BIE-funded
schools concerning tribal access to education records of students who
are tribal members, consistent with FERPA and other privacy
protections. The Department agreed to communicate that: FERPA does not
prohibit data-sharing with tribes or TEAs if required steps and
safeguards are followed; while FERPA generally prohibits the disclosure
of PII from students' education records without parental consent, an
LEA or SEA may release information on students to a tribe or TEA in
non-personally identifiable form; and an LEA or an SEA may designate an
Indian tribe or TEA as its authorized representative to audit or
evaluate Federal or State-supported education programs, under the
conditions set forth in the Department's FERPA regulations. (see 34 CFR
99.3, 99.31(a)(3), 99.35). The BIE similarly agreed to work to
promote greater communication between BIE-operated schools and tribes
concerning tribal access to the education records of students who are
tribal members.
The Department has conducted several public information sessions
that address these FERPA-tribal issues. At the annual National Indian
Education Association conference, which grantees of the Department's
Indian Education formula grants attend, the Department sponsors a
series of workshops though video-teleconference with presenters from
the Department. For the last several years, the Department's Family
Compliance Office (FPCO) has presented by teleconference a Q/A session
on FERPA. In addition, on March 20, 2014, the Department conducted a
webinar on FERPA specifically for State Tribal Educational Partnership
(STEP) grantees. During the webinar, which was attended by
representatives of tribes, school districts, and States, the FPCO
addressed the various ways in which school districts or states can
share data on tribal students consistent with FERPA.
The Department also addressed data sharing with TEAs under FERPA in
the STEP Grant competition FY 2012 Frequently Asked Questions,
available at: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/step/faq.html#9. The
Department's Office of Indian Education (OIE), working with the FPCO,
also plans to issue further guidance to Department grantees regarding
options for data-sharing with tribal entities under FERPA.
Question 2. Why does the Department house Title VII Part A Indian
Education program staff in the Office of Indian Education and Title VII
Part C Alaska Native Educational Equity Program (ANEP) staff in the
Office of Elementary and Secondary Education? If the Department has
decided not to locate ANEP program staff under OIE, please explain why.
Answer. The Alaska Native Education Program (ANEP), authorized
under Title VII, Part C of the ESEA is administered by the Academic
Improvement and Teacher Quality (AITQ) section of the Department's
Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE). The Office of
Indian Education (OIE) is also located in OESE. The Department is
committed to administering programs in as seamless a manner as possible
while, at the same time, working together to continually improve cross-
program coordination, collaboration, and overall program effectiveness.
For example, the policy decisionmaking process for all Indian education
programs authorized under Title VII of the ESEA includes an inter- and
intra-program staff team with representatives from the WHIAIANE, the
OIE, and staff who administer the ANEP and the Native Hawaiian program.
Question 3. Neither the 2011 National Indian Education Study nor
the recently released Office of Civil Rights data breaks out the data
for Alaska Native students as distinct from the American Indian/Alaska
Native subgroup. Does the Department have plans to change that? If so,
please describe them.
Answer. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is responsible
for establishing government-wide standards for reporting data by race
and ethnicity. In 1997, OMB published revised standards for the
collection of data on race and ethnicity. In accordance with these
standards, the Department published final guidance in the Federal
Register on October 19, 2007 on the collection and reporting of racial
and ethnic data by educational institutions and other grantees. The
2007 Final Guidance applies to all major Department of Education data
collections, including the Civil Rights Data Collection.
One of the data categories included in the Department's 2007 Final
Guidance is the category of American Indian/Alaska Native. The
Department's 2007 Guidance did not provide for separate reporting for
Alaska Native students. Therefore, the Civil Rights Data Collection
collects data on the combined category of American Indian/Alaska Native
and does not collect separate data for Alaska Natives.
The first year for full implementation of the requirements of the
2007 Final Guidance was the 2011-2012 school year. This gave States and
school districts time to implement the necessary changes to their data-
collection and recordkeeping systems.
Ultimately, the Department's final requirements aim to strike the
balance between minimizing the burden for local education agencies
while also ensuring the availability of high-quality racial and ethnic
data for carrying out the Department's responsibilities in areas
including civil rights enforcement, program monitoring, the
identification and placement of students in special education, research
and statistical analysis, and accountability for student achievement.
We are not planning to change the guidance at this time. However, so
long as they can still aggregate the data into the format required by
ED, schools districts and States already have the flexibility to
collect racial and ethnic data on sub-categories of students to better
meet the needs of their local communities.
Question 4. In your written testimony, you noted that since the
President signed Executive Order 13592, the following actions have
occurred: the White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska
Native Education was formed and has engaged in Listening Sessions with
tribes. The President's Interagency Working Group on Indian Education
has been formed and 29 agencies met in 2013 to begin interagency
implementation of the Executive Order. The Native Languages Working
Group was formed and is planning a Native American Languages Summit for
this June to discuss ways to measure successful Native language
preservation and acquisition. A joint DOl-ED Committee on Indian
Education has been formed, which has developed a Memorandum of
Understanding to leverage both departments' expertise. The joint
Committee has also ``started working on developing plans to implement
seven specific goals and activities''. After the formation of all of
these groups, the listening sessions, and the work to develop plans and
summits, what, specifically, has resulted that has impacted schools,
tribes, and, most importantly, American Indian/Alaska Native students,
in public schools across America?
Answer. In addition to working closely with the Executive Office of
the President to help ensure AI/AN participation in the development and
implementation of key Administration priorities, the WHIAIANE
coordinates with the Department's Director of Indian Education on
programs administered by the Department and also serves as a liaison
with other executive branch agencies on AI/AN issues and advises those
agencies on how they might help to promote AI/AN educational
opportunities.
Through these efforts, the OIE has made several important changes
to the application for Title VII formula grants for FY 2014 in order to
emphasize the statutory requirement that grant funds be used as part of
a comprehensive program to meet the culturally-related academic needs
of Indian students, including the language and cultural needs of the
children. In 2013, there were approximately 1,300 Title VII programs
and 500,000 students served nationwide.
The Interagency Working Group on Indian Education has developed the
tools to gather information from agencies and is working with agencies
to develop and submit their Federal agency plans. Each agency's plan
includes annual performance indicators and appropriate measurable
objectives with which the agency will measure its success as well as
information on how the agency intends to increase the capacity of
educational agencies and institutions, including public schools and
tribal colleges and universities, to deliver high-quality education and
related social services to all AI/AN students.
To gather the information needed to achieve the seven goals of the
MOA, the Joint Committee created an assessment document that was
disseminated throughout all three agencies. We have received responses
to the assessment document and have begun to review the information.
In addition to the Native Language Summit, the Native Language
Workgroup (NLW) has developed a resource assessment document to gather
information from federal agencies to identify barriers, levers, and
best practices within each agency that will help the Federal agencies
further the goals described in the MOA. These findings are being
reviewed and will be used to replicate successful programs, implement
quality-improvement efforts, and disseminate information and provide
technical assistance to Federal, State, and tribal governments;
schools; or other entities carrying out Native language activities.
The NLW is identifying research that explores educational
attainment and Native language retention and/or revitalization and is
reviewing current training and technical assistance related to Native
language preservation and maintenance. The NLW is gathering data about
effective or exemplary Native language instruction, both in terms of
the administration of funds and programs, as well as program impact on
educational achievement.
Also, the Office of Postsecondary Education has included an
Invitational Priority to support activities that strengthen Native
language preservation and revitalization in institutions of higher
education in the Title III Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian-Serving
Institutions 2014 grant competition.
Consistent with the President's ESEA reauthorization blueprint, a
pilot competition was designed to increase the role of TEAs in meeting
the educational needs of students attending public schools on tribal
reservations. The State Tribal Education Program (STEP) is the result
of this effort. Through ED's Investing in Innovation program, the
Parents as Teachers National Center replicated a program called
BabyFACE. The evidence-supported, home-based service of the successful
Family and Child Education (FACE) program serves approximately 1,000
children annually over the five-year grant in 22 BIE-funded schools. In
year three, nearly 900 families were served by parent educators at the
22 BIE sites through home visitations where children received books and
annual health screenings.
Question 5. You referenced the National Advisory Council on Indian
Education in your written testimony as playing ``a vital role in how we
address the unique needs of Al/AN students.'' Please describe which
NACIE recommendations have been adopted or otherwise acted upon and
which recommendations have been either been rejected or not acted upon
during this Administration.
Answer. Please see the response above to question 3 from Senator
Heitkamp
Question 6. You noted in your testimony that the President has
requested funding for a number of new programs, including Race to the
Top Equity and Opportunity, College Success Grants for Minority-Serving
Institutions Initiative, and First in the World. You also spoke about
Impact Aid, Title VII and Title II programs that serve American Indian
and Alaska Native students. The Committee has been informed by
witnesses at today's hearing of the importance of Impact Aid funding in
schools' efforts to improve American Indian and Alaska Native students'
outcomes. Yet, the President has proposed to flat fund Impact Aid Basic
Support Payments, Payments for Students with Disabilities, Facilities
Maintenance, and Construction in FY15. Which of the proposed new
programs could be put aside in order to increase funds for Impact Aid
and other Title programs that have been shown to be so important to
serving Native students?
Answer. The President's Budget Request reflects the
Administration's best effort to balance existing commitments with
support for innovation aimed at addressing gaps in current Federal
education programs. We continue to believe that Congress should fund
our proposed Race to the Top incentives that target the many inequities
in educational opportunity identified by the Equity Commission and
amplified in recent data from the Civil Rights Data Collection, the
related expansion of support for minority-serving institutions, and
First in the World efforts to improve postsecondary outcomes through
increased emphasis on college affordability and completion. We also
believe that each of these initiatives holds the potential to deliver
benefits for American Indian and Alaska Native students.
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