[Senate Hearing 113-510]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 113-510
S. 1948 AND S. 2299
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HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 18, 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 June 18, 2014.................................... 1
Statement of Senator Barrasso.................................... 3
Statement of Senator Begich...................................... 19
Statement of Senator Heitkamp.................................... 15
Statement of Senator Johnson..................................... 3
Statement of Senator Murkowski................................... 17
Statement of Senator Tester...................................... 1
Witnesses
Brockie, Clarena, Dean of Student Affairs, Aaniiih Nakoda College 28
Prepared statement........................................... 30
Delgado, Hon. Ed, Chairman, Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin. 41
Prepared statement........................................... 43
Mendoza, William, Executive Director, White House Initiative on
American Indian and Alaska Native Education, U.S. Department of
Education...................................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 5
Rawlins, Namaka, Director of Strategic Partnerships and
Collaboration, Aha Punana Leo, Inc............................. 46
Prepared statement........................................... 49
Roach, Sonta Hamilton, Elementary School Teacher, Innoko River
School; Board Member, Doyon Limited............................ 21
Prepared statement........................................... 23
Robinson, Hon. Lillian Sparks, Commissioner, Administration for
Native Americans, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 7
Prepared statement........................................... 9
Shortbull, Thomas, President, Oglala Lakota College.............. 35
Prepared statement........................................... 36
Appendix
Ammann, Brooke Mosay, Director, Waadookodaading Ojibwe Language
Immersion School, prepared statement........................... 79
Bundy, J. Michael, Ph.D., Superintendent, Two Eagle River
Alternative School for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai
Tribes, prepared statement..................................... 65
Harper, Leslie, Director, Niigaane Ojibwemowin Immersion,
prepared statement............................................. 77
National Indian Education Association (NIEA), prepared statement. 69
Response to written questions submitted by Hon. Brian Schatz to:
Hon. Ed Delgado.............................................. 94
Clarena Brockie.............................................. 93
William Mendoza.............................................. 117
Namaka Rawlins............................................... 96
Hon. Lillian Sparks Robinson................................. 112
Thomas Shortbull............................................. 90
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Jon Tester to
William Mendoza................................................ 114
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Tom Udall to Hon.
Lillian Sparks Robinson........................................ 111
Roman Nose, Quinton, Executive Director, Tribal Education
Departments National Assembly (TEDNA), prepared statement...... 81
Schatz, Hon. Brian, U.S. Senator from Hawaii, prepared statement. 65
Sullivan Sr., Michael D., Professor, The College of St.
Scholastica, prepared statement................................ 80
Support letters submitted by:
Pam Agoyo.................................................... 86
Kamana`opono M. Crabbe....................................... 89
Jennifer Hall................................................ 87
Nokomis Paiz................................................. 88
Elizabeth Sahkahtay Strong................................... 87
United Tribes Technical College (UTTC), prepared statement....... 85
Wilson, Ryan, President, National Alliance to Save Native
Languages, prepared statement.................................. 73
S. 1948 AND S. 2299
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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, 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 call this meeting of the Committee on
Indian Affairs to order.
Today the Committee will discuss two bills that address an
issue that is very important to me and to many of my colleagues
on this Committee: Native student achievement. The first bill
is S. 1948, the Native Language Immersion Student Achievement
Act. The second is S. 2299, a Bill to Reauthorize the Native
American Language Program of the 1974 Native American Programs
Act. Both of these measures share a similar goal of increasing
Native academic achievement through supporting Native language
instruction and ensuring Native students are college and
career-ready.
Language matters. It is how we as human beings convey our
ideas, our feelings and our hopes. I think about the power of
language and words and the impact they have to effect change.
Just think about Lincoln's Gettysburg Address or Martin Luther
King's I Have A Dream speech. Words comfort and uplift us. That
is why we sing lullabies to our children and Christmas carols
during the holidays.
I am struck by what Chairman Delgado said in his testimony.
He said that language is medicine. And when Oneida teaches
their children of this medicine, the children in the community
begin to heal. This is why these bills we are talking about
today matter.
The history of Native languages in this Country is one of
great tragedy and also great triumph. In the early years of
this Nation, the Federal policy toward American Indians was
forced assimilation designed to eradicate tribal cultures.
Children were forced into boarding schools, and among other
things, forbidden to speak their Native languages. Years later,
however, during both world wars, the contribution of Native
American code talkers speaking in their native language was
instrumental in helping the Allied forces preserve freedom and
democracy. To honor these American heroes, their people and
their long histories, we must preserve and maintain these
languages.
Later this week, hundreds of Native language experts will
convene in Arlington, Virginia, for the 2014 Native American
Languages Summit, which is being held by the Departments of
Interior and Education and Health and Human Services. This
collaborative summit the interagency roles and responsibilities
in support of Native language and Native language learning as a
pathway to social and academic success for tribal communities.
I applaud the efforts these agencies have made in moving toward
an understanding of just how vital Native languages are, and
for working on strategies to support language acquisition and
revitalization.
We will hear from several tribal witnesses today who are on
the ground and doing the hard work of saving tribal languages,
which, as many of you know, is often a daunting task. Through
decades of failed Federal policy, Native languages have been
pushed to the brink of extinction. Some of the folks we have
here with us today are working to change that. I would like to
especially welcome Clarena Brockie, who comes from the Aaniiih
Nakoda College at Fort Belknap Reservation in my home State of
Montana. Clarena not only serves as dean of students at the
college but she is also a State representative in the Montana
legislature and represents her tribal community to the entire
State. I want to thank you for coming and sharing your
experiences on Native languages with us today, Clarena.
The two pieces of legislation that we will focus on
represent a commitment to the language, culture and education
of Native students and investment in Native communities.
Language is at the very heart of culture. There is power in a
child speaking the same language that her ancestors spoke. And
any child's sense of self and where she comes from is enhanced
by speaking her language.
At a time when there are too many words that tear
communities down, it is important to have a language that helps
to build up not only Native children, but all children. This is
what these bills do and why they have widespread support of
tribes. I look forward to hearing from the Administration and
tribal leaders today about how those two bills will impact
their respective agencies and communities.
Before I turn it over to Senator Barrasso, I just want to
say thank you all for being here. Lillian, not to put you on
the spot, but the testimony from your agency came in at 11:30
this morning. That is unacceptable. If you would take that back
to them and tell them it is unacceptable.
I sit on Appropriations. If we can't get this stuff in time
to fully analyze, we will deal with it through the
Appropriations process and give them a reason not to get the
stuff in on time. So please pass that along. It is unfair to
the people on this Committee and totally unfair to the staff.
Ms. Sparks. I apologize.
The Chairman. That is fine. Senator Barrasso?
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO,
U.S. SENATOR FROM WYOMING
Senator Barrasso. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
agree with your comments completely.
Today, Mr. Chairman, we are going to examine two bills that
are intended to support and promote Native American languages.
Native American languages are an important component of Indian
communities and of American history. Native Code talkers were
used in World War I and World War II to transmit coded messages
in their native language. Over time, the fluent use of these
languages has diminished, in some cases almost to the point, as
you said, Mr. Chairman, of extinction. Fortunately, tribes have
worked diligently to preserve these languages in schools and in
their communities.
I look forward to hearing today how our Native languages
are contributing to students' academic success and
recommendations for improving the programs. I welcome the
witnesses and look forward to the testimony.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Barrasso.
Senator Johnson?
STATEMENT OF HON. TIM JOHNSON,
U.S. SENATOR FROM SOUTH DAKOTA
Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Vice Chairman
Barrasso, for holding this important hearing on two pieces of
legislation that aim to revitalize Native American languages.
I would like to give a very warm welcome to our witnesses
who have strong ties to my State of South Dakota: Bill Mendoza,
Lillian Sparks, and my good friend, Thomas Shortbull. All of
our witnesses today have a deep understanding of the importance
of education and the preservation of Native languages. The
Native American Languages Reauthorization Act, which my fellow
colleague, Senator Murkowski, and I introduced this year, will
reauthorize the Native Languages grant program that is
administered by the HHS Administrations for Native Americans.
The Native American Languages Act was established in 1992
and was recently reauthorized by the Esther Martinez Native
American Languages Preservation Act of 2006. This grant program
is vital to tribal communities struggling to maintain their
Native languages. Across Indian Country, tribal organizations,
tribal colleges and universities and Native American
organizations access these important funds to create and
implement programs that are saving Native languages from the
brink of extinction. ANA has also demonstrated the significant
impact this native language grants program has in Indian
Country. In their 2012 Impact Report, ANA evaluated one-third
of its grantees and found that nearly 5,000 youth and adults
increased their ability to speak a Native language or achieved
fluency. One-third of the total grantees also trained 178
Native language instructors.
The Native Languages Act has helped to save Native
languages and encourages both young children and adults to
develop fluency in their Native language. Across South Dakota
and Indian Country, this vital grant funding gives the
opportunity for our cherished Native elders to sit down with
the younger generation to pass on Native languages. We must
continue our efforts to promote Native language revitalization
programs to ensure the preservation of Native American
cultures, histories and traditions.
The continuity of Native languages is a link to previous
generations and should be preserved for future generations. I
look forward to the testimony today. Thank you again, Mr.
Chairman, for holding this hearing.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Johnson.
I want to now welcome our first panel to the Committee
hearing today. First we have Mr. William Mendoza, who is the
Executive Director for the White House Initiative on American
Indian and Alaska Native Education at the Department of
Education. Welcome. Next we are going to hear from Ms. Lillian
Sparks, who is the Commissioner for the Administration for
Native Americans, at the Department of Health and Human
Services. Welcome, Lillian.
I would ask you to keep your verbal comments to five
minutes or as close to that as you can. Your entire testimony
will be part of the record, and your full written statement
will be entered in. With that, Mr. Mendoza, you may begin.
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, Senator
Barrasso and distinguished members of the Committee. I greet
you all in the Lakota language, I greet you all as relatives,
both with my Lakota name, His Shield is Lightning, as well as
my non-Indian name. I extend my heartfelt handshakes to all of
you. I am learning the Lakota language, and please forgive me
if I offend anybody by expressing the desire to learn my
language.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on S. 1948,
the Native Language Immersion Student Achievement Act. Although
the Administration has not taken a formal position on this
bill, we welcome the opportunity to voice our support for its
goals; namely, working to meet the unique educational and
cultural needs of American Indian, Alaska Native and Native
Hawaiian populations.
Today, there are only 375,000 American Indian language
speakers remaining in the United States. As Secretary Duncan in
his commencement address last year to the College of Menominee
Nation in Keshena, Wisconsin, the loss of Native languages has
alienated many American Indians from their own history and
culture. It has taken away the path to knowing their own
heritage. Revitalizing Native languages is the first step
toward preserving and strengthening the culture, societal unity
and self-sufficiency of tribal nations.
Research shows that being bilingual increases a child's
mental flexibility and improves performance on academic
assessments. Bilingual students tend to have better creativity
and problem-solving skills and other research supports well-
implemented language immersion approaches. In light of this
important information, the Department has engaged in many
activities designed to stem the decline of Native languages. As
you mentioned, Senator Tester, the Native Language Working
Group will bring together over 300 culturally-diverse
participants from all over the Country during our Native
Languages Summit. These participants will share the challenges
of teaching and preserving Native languages as well as the
paths to success.
Additionally, the Department of Education administers a
number of Federal grant programs designed to support this work.
For example, Title VII of the ESEA provides funding to over
1,300 school districts and BIA-funded schools serving
approximately 477,000 American Indian and Alaska Native
students. Grant funds are used as a part of a comprehensive
program for the linguistic and cultural academic needs of
Indian students. Through ESEA's Title III, the Office of
English Language Acquisition, we also administer programs that
support schools in the pursuit of this goal. Title 3 formula
grants permit schools to support efforts to increase the
proficiency of American Indian and Alaska Native students in
both English and Native languages.
The Office of English Language Acquisition's Native
American and Alaska Native Children in School program provides
$5 million in discretionary grants to support the teaching and
studying of Native languages. The program supports teacher
training, curriculum development and evaluation and assessment.
Funding for this program is contingent on participating
students' simultaneous increase in English language
proficiency. Additionally, under the Tribally-Controlled
Colleges and Universities program funded under the Higher
Education Act, many tribal colleges and universities have
implemented Native language programs, including Chief Dull
Knife College on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana.
They offer Cheyenne language courses and a summer language
immersion program, and the Fort Berthold Community College in
Newtown, North Dakota, is working to prevent the loss of the
Mandan language.
Title III also provides funding support to Alaska Native
and Native Hawaiian-serving institutions in this area.
Moreover, the Department of Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs
and Bureau of Indian Education have a number of programs that
promote Native languages from cradle to career. These programs
also provide funding to public schools, teaching American
Indian and Alaska Natives through Johnson-O'Malley Assistance
education grants. It is critically important that we work to
preserve and maintain the unique education and culture of every
American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian. We look
forward to working with the Committee on how best to meet the
goals of S. 1948. After my analysts, whom I also want to thank
for having the privilege to present, I will be happy to answer
any of your questions, Senator Tester and other members.
[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, Vice Chairman Barrasso, and
distinguished Members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity
to testify today on S. 1948, legislation introduced by Senator Tester
and cosponsored by many members of the committee. The Administration
has not taken a formal position on the bill but welcomes the
opportunity to work with you and your staff to help meet the goals of
this proposal--to improve educational outcomes for American Indian/
Alaska Native (AI/AN) and Native Hawaiian populations by helping to
revitalize Native languages.
S. 1948, ``Native Language Immersion Student Achievement Act''
S. 1948 would amend Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act of 1965 to establish a grant program to support schools
using Native language ``immersion'' education programs for preschool,
primary, secondary, and postsecondary education. Such schools use
Native languages as the primary language of instruction for all
curriculum taught. S. 1948 would authorize $5 million for fiscal year
2015 for such grants.
Today, only 375,000 American Indian language speakers remain in the
United States. Recently we learned that the last remaining Navajo
``code talker,'' instrumental in affecting the outcome of World War II,
passed on. As Secretary Duncan stated in his commencement address last
year to the College of the Menominee Nation in Keshena, Wisconsin, the
loss of Native languages has alienated many American Indians from their
own history, culture, and ways of knowing their heritage. Revitalizing
Native languages and ensuring their continuity are the first steps in
preserving and strengthening a tribal nation's culture and encouraging
social unity and self-sufficiency.
In addition, research shows that being bilingual increases a
child's mental flexibility and improves performance on academic
assessments, and that bilingual students tend to have better creativity
and problem-solving skills. Other studies support well implemented
language immersion approaches.
The Department of Education (ED) is engaged in a variety of
activities to promote the preservation and revitalization of Native
languages, including the following:
Native American Languages Memorandum of Agreement: We are
partnering with the Departments of Health and Human Services
and Interior to encourage programs and projects that include
instruction in, and preservation of, native languages, as a
part of the goal of the Native American Languages Memorandum of
Agreement, signed in November 2012, which established the
Native Language Workgroup. This Workgroup is planning a Native
American Languages Summit this month that will bring together
grantees of federal Native language programs across agencies to
share challenges and paths to success. We expect over 300
participants to attend, representing Native languages from
across the country. ED will also provide technical assistance
to school districts to address the unique educational and
cultural needs of Native students, and examine current and
future funding programs to identify additional support and
resources.
Title VII Formula Grants: The Office of Indian Education has
made important changes to the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act (ESEA) Title VII formula grant applications for
FY 2014 in order to emphasize the statutory requirement that
grant funds be used as a part of a comprehensive program for
meeting the linguistic and cultural academic needs of Indian
students. Title VII grants provide funding to over
approximately 1,300 districts and BIE-supported schools that
educate approximately 477,000 AI/AN students.
Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions
Grant: The Office of Postsecondary Education included an
Invitational Priority to support activities that strengthen
Native language preservation and revitalization in institutions
of higher education in the Higher Education Act's Title III
Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions grant
competition in fiscal year 2014.
Alaska Native Education Program: The Alaska Native Education
program (ANEP) under the ESEA supports efforts to help meet the
unique educational and cultural academic needs of Alaska
Natives and to support the development of supplemental
educational programs to benefit Alaska Natives. In the fiscal
year 2014 competition, ANEP included an Invitational Priority
for preservation of Native languages. The goal of this priority
was to stem the decline of Alaska Native languages by providing
teachers with the skills they need to incorporate Native
languages into formal instruction.
Native American and Alaska Native Children in School
Program: Authorized under Title III of the ESEA, ED's Office of
English Language Acquisition (OELA) administers a $5 million
discretionary grant program, the Native American and Alaska
Native Children in School program. The program provides grants
to eligible entities to support the teaching and studying of
Native languages, contingent on a simultaneous increase in
English language proficiency for participating students.
Schools use these grant funds for teacher training and
curriculum development, evaluation, and assessment to support
student instruction and parent and community participation.
There are currently 25 grantees under the program. The program
does not prescribe any particular method for teaching Native
languages, but some projects use dual language approaches.
English Language Acquisition State Grants: The English
Language Acquisition State grants, also under Title III of the
ESEA, permit school districts to use the federal funds to teach
Native languages to AI/AN students who are English Language
Learners, as long as the outcome of the program is to increase
those students' English proficiency.
Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities Program: Many
tribal colleges that receive funding under Title III of the
Higher Education Act have implemented Native language programs.
For example, the Chief Dull Knife College on the Northern
Cheyenne Reservation in Southwest Montana offers Cheyenne
language courses, in addition to a summer Cheyenne language
immersion program for youth. And the Fort Berthold Community
College in New Town, North Dakota, is working on a project that
will provide linguistic training to tribal members aimed at
preventing the loss of the endangered Mandan language.
In addition to the Department of Education activities, Department
of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and Bureau of Indian
Education (BIE), have a number of programs that support Native
languages:
The majority of American Indian and Alaska Native students
attend public schools and the Johnson-O'Malley Assistance
Grants provide funds to public schools to promote Native
languages.
In school year 2013-2014, the Indian School Equalization
Program (ISEP) provided $23.3 million for language development
in BIE-funded schools.
The BIE's Early Childhood Development integrates Native
language, culture and history in the preschool programming.
Again, we look forward to working with the Committee on how best to
meet the goals of this proposal to preserve and revitalize Native
languages.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I am happy to
answer your questions.
The Chairman. Thank you for your testimony, Bill.
You may proceed, Lillian.
STATEMENT OF HON. LILLIAN SPARKS ROBINSON,
COMMISSIONER, ADMINISTRATION FOR NATIVE
AMERICANS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Ms. Sparks. Chairman Tester, Vice Chairman Barrasso,
Senator Johnson, Senator Heitkamp, my name is Lillian Sparks
Robinson and my Lakota name is Flower Woman. It is my honor to
testify before this Committee on behalf of the Department of
Health and Human Services on the Native American Languages
Revitalization Act.
We apologize for the late submission of the testimony. This
topic is incredibly important, not only to our agency, but to
myself. We will prioritize finalizing testimony at a much
earlier pace to make sure that you and your staff receive it in
a timely manner.
ANA's mission is to support Native communities, including
American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians and Native
Pacific Islanders to be self-determining, healthy, culturally
and linguistically vibrant and economically self-sufficient. We
support three programs, Native American languages,
environmental and regulatory enhancement as well as social and
economic development strategies. We are pleased that this
Committee is considering reauthorizing the Native Language
provisions of the Native American Programs Act of 1974, which
is the statute that authorizes and governs ANA programs. ANA
believes language revitalization is essential to continuing
Native American culture and strengthening a sense of community.
ANA funding provides opportunities to assess, plan, develop,
implement, projects to ensure the survival and vitality of
Native languages.
We have funded many successful projects that resulted in
increased usage and fluency of Native American languages and
are happy to see that the second panel includes many of our
former grantees. For example, the Lower Brule Community College
in South Dakota received an ANA grant to certify the Lakota
language instructors for the Lower Brule education system,
create a K through 12 Lakota language curriculum meeting State
and national standards for language certification instruction,
and promote Lakota language and culture in the Lower Brule
community. Before the project, the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe had
no language curriculum for K through 12 students. At the
project's end, there were four trained, certified, experienced,
motivated and skilled instructors, all capable of making Lakota
language classes meaningful and accessible to youth on the
reservation.
Similarly, the Yakutat Tlingit Tribe of Alaska used its ANA
language grant to integrate Lingit classes into the Yakutat
public school system, build the capacity of the tribe's Lingit
language teachers, and develop electronic resources to be used
by students and teachers. This project has resulted in 102
youth and 40 adults increasing their ability to speak Lingit.
Finally, an ANA grant helped the Fort Belknap College in
Montana, who I am happy to see will be presenting on the second
panel, produce young White Clay language speakers, building on
the initial success of the White Clay Immersion School. At the
end of the three-year project, the College held 185 language
classes, trained two language teachers, and developed a
language curriculum. As a result, nine people achieved fluency
in the language.
Since 2010, ANA has held two separate annual competitions
for language projects, those being the Native American Language
Preservation and Maintenance Program and the Esther Martinez
Initiative. Between 2006 and 2013, ANA has received 853
applications for all of our Native American language projects.
Of those, 80 applications were for Esther Martinez Initiative
projects.
Although Congress has not made additional appropriations to
expand ANA's discretionary program, ANA has doubled the funds
for Native language programs by shifting funds from Environment
and Regulatory Enhancement and Social and Economic Development
Strategy competitions.
Listening sessions and tribal consultation indicate that
the extra investment in Native American languages is critical
to our communities. However, the Social and Economic
Development Strategies program continues to be the grant
program for which we receive the most applications. In fiscal
year 2013, we reviewed a total of 298 applications, of which
192 were for Social and Economic Development Strategies. Of
those 192 applications, we were able to provide funding for 39
new awards.
In fiscal year 2014, we expect to fund approximately 20
percent of our Esther Martinez applications and 60 percent of
our Preservation and Maintenance grants. The unmet demand in
both categories does remain high. In addition, based on grantee
interviews, we believe the authority to fund Esther Martinez
and Preservation and Maintenance projects for longer periods,
up to five years, rather than the current three years, would
result in increased sustainability of the gains made. Grantees
would have more time to build a community of speakers, to
strengthen partnerships and secure additional funding as
projects move beyond planning and initial stages of
implementation.
Additional feedback from our grantees also indicates that
lowering the required number of participating students from 10
to 5 for language nests and from 15 to 10 for language survival
schools would allow more communities to apply.
We are thankful for the continued support of this Committee
in achieving the ANA mission. We look forward to working with
Congress to reauthorize the Native American Programs Act, which
does continue to receive appropriations. From a program
administration perspective, reauthorizing NAPA as a whole would
also provide an opportunity to update program regulations which
track our current statute, which is necessary for improved
program oversight and accountability.
We look forward to the day when all Native communities are
thriving, and we look forward to working with you to make that
happen. I am happy to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Sparks follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Lillian Sparks Robinson, Commissioner,
Administration for Native Americans, U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services
Chairman Tester, Vice Chairman Barrasso, and members of the
Committee, it is my honor to testify before this Committee on behalf of
the Department of Health and Human Services on S. 2299. I am a member
of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, which is located in South Dakota. I serve
as the Commissioner for the Administration for Native Americans (ANA),
which is part of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF).
ANA's mission is to support Native American communities to be self-
determining, healthy, economically self-sufficient, and culturally and
linguistically vibrant. We achieve our mission by providing
discretionary grants, training, and technical assistance to tribes and
Native American communities, including American Indians, Alaska
Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Native Pacific Islanders. ANA supports
three program areas: Native American Languages, Environmental
Regulatory Enhancement (ERE), and Social and Economic Development
Strategies (SEDS). We are pleased that this Committee is considering
reauthorizing the Native American language provisions of the Native
Americans Programs Act of 1974 (NAPA), the statute that authorizes and
governs ANA programs.
For fiscal year (FY) 2013, Congress appropriated approximately
$45.5 million to ANA, which distributed nearly $40 million to Native
American communities competitively. Funding for FY 2014 is $46.5
million, which is an increase from FY 2013. In addition to providing
competitive grants, ANA uses its funding to provide training and
technical assistance to Native American communities, as required by
Section 804 of NAPA. As a result of this training and technical
assistance, 80 percent of applications for FY 2013 were considered of
sufficient quality to be funded had additional funds been available.
ANA believes that language revitalization is essential to
continuing Native American culture and strengthening a sense of
community. Use of Native American languages builds identity and assists
communities in moving toward social cohesion and self-sufficiency. ANA
encourages applicants to involve elders and other community members in
determining proposed language project goals and implementing project
activities. ANA funding provides opportunities to assess, plan,
develop, and implement projects to ensure the survival and vitality of
Native American languages.
For over a decade, ANA awarded Native American language
preservation and maintenance funds to eligible entities under the
Native American Languages Act of 1992, but utilization of Native
American languages continued to decline for a variety of reasons. In
response to this dramatic and continued decline, Congress passed the
Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act of 2006. The
law amended NAPA to provide grants for language immersion and
restoration programs, two methods that have proven to be highly
successful in creating fluent speakers.
ANA has funded many successful projects that have resulted in
increased usage and fluency of Native American languages. For example,
the Lower Brule Community College in South Dakota received an ANA grant
to certify Lakota language instructors for the Lower Brule education
system, create a K-12 Lakota language curriculum meeting state and
national standards for language instruction, and promote Lakota
language and culture in the Lower Brule community. Before the project,
the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe had no language curriculum for K-12
students. At the project's end, the Tribe had four trained, certified,
experienced, motivated, and skilled educators, all capable of making
Lakota language classes meaningful and accessible to youth on the
reservation.
Similarly, the Yakutat Tlingit Tribe of Alaska used its ANA grant
to integrate Lingit classes into the Yakutat Public school system,
build the capacity of Lingit language teachers, and develop electronic
teaching and learning resources. As a result of the project, 102 youth
and 40 adults have increased their ability to speak Lingit.
Finally, an ANA grant helped the Fort Belknap College in Montana
produce young White Clay language speakers, building on the initial
success of the White Clay Immersion School. An objective of the project
was to hire and train two language teachers, develop curriculum and
training materials, and develop an advisory council to provide guidance
on the curriculum. At the end of the three year project, the College
held 185 language classes, trained two language teachers, and developed
a language curriculum. As a result of these efforts, nine people
achieved fluency in the language.
Since 2010, ANA has held two separate annual competitions for
language projects, the Native American Language Preservation and
Maintenance Program and the Esther Martinez Initiative (EMI). Between
2006 and 2013, ANA received 853 applications for all Native American
language projects. Of those, 80 applications (received between 2008 and
2013) \1\ were for EMI projects. In 2014, we saw an over 100 percent
increase in EMI applications, from 14 applications in 2013 to 30
applications reviewed this year. The total number of language
applications received is close to the same as previous years, at 94
applications.
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\1\ The Esther Martinez Initiative was enacted in 2006, but it was
not its own funding category in ANA until FY 2008.
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Although Congress has not made additional appropriations to expand
ANA's discretionary program, the ANA has doubled the funds available
for Native language programs by shifting funds from ERE and SEDS. In FY
2014, we provided nearly $13 million ($12,820,867) to roughly 60
communities, up from approximately $6 million in FY 2010.
In FY 2014, we expect to fund approximately 20 percent of EMI
applications and 16 percent of Preservation and Maintenance projects.
The unmet demand in both categories remains high. In addition, based on
grantee interviews, we believe that the authority to fund EMI and
Preservation and Maintenance projects for longer periods (up to five
years, rather than the current three years) would result in increased
sustainability of the gains made. Grantees would have more time to
build a community of speakers, strengthen partnerships, and secure
additional funding as projects move beyond the initial planning and
implementation stages. Additional feedback from ANA grantees also
indicates that lowering the required number of participating students
from ten to five for language nests, and from fifteen to ten for
survival schools, would allow more communities to apply. ANA's total
investment in Native American language projects for FY 2010 to 2014
will be approximately $60 million.
Listening sessions and tribal consultation indicate that the extra
investment in Native American language programs is critical to our
communities. The Social and Economic Development Strategies program
continues to be the grant program for which we receive the most
applications. In FY 2013, ANA reviewed a total of 298 applications, 192
of which were for SEDS. Of these 192 applications, ANA was able to
provide funding for 39 new awards at approximately $10 million. This
provided funding for one in five applications. This total included
special initiatives like the Native Asset Building Initiative and the
Sustainable Employment and Economic Development Strategies grants that
target ANA investment towards economic empowerment, but still within
the framework of community-driven projects.
We are thankful for the continued support of this Committee in
achieving the ANA mission. We look forward to working with Congress to
reauthorize the Native American Programs Act including the Esther
Martinez Native Languages Act, which continues to receive
appropriations. From a program administration perspective,
reauthorizing NAPA as a whole would also provide an opportunity to
update outdated program regulations which track the current statute,
which is necessary for improved program oversight and accountability.
ANA looks forward to the day when all ``Native Communities are
Thriving,'' and we look forward to working with you to make that
happen.
I would be happy to answer any questions.
The Chairman. Thank you for your testimony, Lillian.
I am going to start with you, Mr. Mendoza. Your testimony
was supportive of the language bills. Yet you led off your
testimony by saying that you had no position on either of the
bills. Could you tell me why wouldn't your testimony reflect
that support?
Mr. Mendoza. I think, Senator Tester, we have not yet had
an opportunity to review these bills formally, between Congress
and the Department. So we welcome that opportunity. We
certainly wholeheartedly agree with the importance and the need
to preserve and revitalize Native languages. I think the goals
of this bill, both bills, are consistent with what we are
hearing from both tribal leaders and tribal educators across
the Country.
The Chairman. Okay, so at what point in time would be a
reasonable amount of time to give you to come back with either
a yea or nay recommending on these bills from the Department?
Mr. Mendoza. I can assure you, Senator Tester, we will make
it a top priority, given the importance of this issue, the
current momentum. So I couldn't venture to give you a timeline
right now, without coordination with some other program offices
that I can't speak for right now. We will make sure we give you
both an estimated timeline and ensure that it is a priority for
us.
The Chairman. Here is what I would like to see. We are
going to be in next week, and then we are going to be off a
week for the 4th of July. If you could give us your
recommendation, could you give us the recommendation that the
Department has when we come back the first week we are back in
July? That gives you two or three weeks to get it done. Thank
you.
ESEA, I am sure you are aware, many folks are watching the
reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
as to whether it is going to be supporting or not supporting
Native American students. How is your Department, or is your
Department working with the Health Committee to ensure that
Native students and Native languages are supported through
ESEA?
Mr. Mendoza. Certainly through the ESEA Blueprint, we have
already committed to the importance of looking at Title VII,
looking at strengthening Title VII and the levers that
immediately can affect the needs to address the unique cultural
language-related needs of students. And one of the key areas
for us from the standpoint of the White House Initiative is the
work that is happening under numerous working groups, the
culmination of some early activity on our Memorandum of
Agreement is the Summit itself.
So some of these activities we point to in our testimony,
and those are areas that we are building on. We have already
invested tremendously in terms of technical assistance through
regional comprehensive centers. Over five years, that will be a
$5 million investment. We are seeing activities in the South
Central Comprehensive Center where they have already looked at
the languages being spoken in the State of Oklahoma and
developed an alternative certification process for those
teachers.
These regional comprehensive centers are also looking at
data assets and how we can strengthen the information around
these issues, including the definition of the English learners,
the Office of English Language Acquisition has also made this a
priority for them. And we have looked at every lever early on
here as grant cycles are coming up, and looking at prioritizing
the significance and importance of Native languages.
The Chairman. Okay. There are those in the Native academic
community who contend that reauthorization of the ESEA has
complicated efforts to support Native languages because of
conflicts between the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
and the Native American Languages Act. Has your department
received any of those concerns? And if you have, how are you
dealing with them?
Mr. Mendoza. I am not aware of specific comparisons in that
regard. I could be wrong. There is an abundance of consultation
and testimony related to the importance that tribal leaders and
educators place on Native languages. The Native Languages Act,
and its importance, was certainly a big part of our response to
what we heard in consultations, and was therefore a critical
component of our Memorandum of Agreement with our partners at
HHS as well as Interior.
The Chairman. But you have not heard about the conflicts
between ESEA and NALA?
Mr. Mendoza. I have not, to the best of my knowledge.
The Chairman. Senator Barrasso?
Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Continuing with
you, Mr. Mendoza, your written testimony noted that school
districts may use certain Federal funds to teach Native
languages. And the outcome, however, of the program, must
increase the students' English proficiency. Can you elaborate a
little bit on what outcomes you are seeing from these programs?
Mr. Mendoza. Certainly. One of the things that we remain
very committed to is how we can utilize these programs to
achieve the goals of not only strengthening Native languages
but also ensuring that our students are college and career-
ready. We know that there are concerns in this area, whether we
are talking about graduation rates, enrolment rates or
retention rates. We certainly have concerns that although we
are talking about achievement measures, we know they will look
at the National Indian Education study that that area of the
achievement gap, in some ways, has done better, in others is
still stagnant.
So the performance of these programs related to that and
how they relate to the measures for each individual program
vary. I would feel more comfortable sharing with you follow-up
information on each of these programs' performance relative to
those Government Accountability measures.
Senator Barrasso. I would appreciate that, as well as where
you see it working, where you see it not working, what the best
practices are and how you can share that with others, so you
can get the desired outcomes in all locations. That would be
helpful.
Ms. Sparks, the written testimony from Mr. Mendoza, he
notes that the research shows being bilingual has multiple
benefits. I think you referred to that as well. It increases a
child's mental flexibility, it improves performance on academic
assessments. Can you talk a little bit about what type of
academic achievements you are seeing from students who are
served by the Esther Martinez Native Language program that you
administer?
Ms. Sparks. Sure. So, the ANA Native Language programs are
community-driven and community designed. So we don't have the
same types of benchmarks that a program funded by Title VII at
Department of Ed may have. And there aren't the same types of
standards or assessments that are required. But what we do is
support the community, developing what their baseline language
fluency may be and then helping them to achieve. That is one of
the things we have incorporated, with regard to the three
objectives, there also have to be some impacts they are hoping
to be able to achieve.
We would like to see, for all of our immersion projects,
whether they are funded under Esther Martinez or Native
Language, that they indicate what their level of fluency will
be after the end of the three-year project. And we provide
training and technical assistance.
I can't give you any solid data with regards to the gains
that we have seen. But I can tell you that we have seen an
increased number of teachers trained. Our impact repots have
indicated an increased number of students actually being able
to use their Native language.
And I can tell you, outside of ANA, what the research has
shown is that students definitely, by the time they reach third
grade and they have been instructed in their Native language,
that they are almost on par with their counterparts who are not
receiving instruction in Native language. By the time they
reach the eighth grade, they have certainly met and many times
surpassed their counterparts. And by the time they graduate
high school, they have just taken off and really are exceeding
all expectations.
So we support the research. And one of the things that we
are trying to achieve under that memorandum of agreement that
we have with the Department of Ed and with Interior is actually
being able to take a deeper dive into the research to support
Native language immersion activities.
Senator Barrasso. I think Senator Heitkamp mentioned this
in a previous hearing, of that younger age group, the students
are running to school, and then a little later on they are
walking to school, and then a little later they are running
away from school. It would seem that if we could continue with
what you are proposing here, in a way that makes that student,
increases mental flexibility, interest, interaction,
engagement, that that may help in a lot of different ways, not
just in this one specific language component of it, so that
student would continue with that eagerness to go to learn.
Ms. Sparks. Absolutely. That is something we want to be
able to continue to support. We also want to be able to find a
way that the communities aren't having to piecemeal some of
their language programming. That is one of the goals under our
Memorandum of Agreement, is to find a way where a community or
a school that is receiving Title VII funding or receiving BIA
school funding, whether it is Johnson O'Malley or contract or
compact or direct funding from the BIE, that they are able to
apply their Native language grants to those settings as well.
And also with Head Start, we are finding that a lot of our
best partnerships start in the Head Start classrooms, using
Native Language funding from ANA.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Johnson?
Senator Johnson. Ms. Sparks, in your testimony and in Mr.
Shortbull's testimony, it is stated that the projects should be
authorized up to five-year periods versus the current three-
year periods. How would this impact the total grants awarded by
ANA if changes were made to the program? Please elaborate.
Ms. Sparks. Thank you for that question. So ANA strives to
meet the required appropriations and the repot language every
year with regard to providing at least $12 million to Native
language activities, which at least $4 million of that will go
to immersion activities. We are happy to say that we have
surpassed those levels every year since 2010 when we first
started the Esther Martinez initiative.
What we have found, talking with our grantees, is that
three years really allows them to be able to start and
implement a project and really begin to see the gains, but five
years would allow for the sustainability for the program to be
even more sustainable, and for them to be able to really think
about their planning after the five years. We did do some
preliminary analysis on what it would look like three years to
five years. We are anticipating that the level of funding would
remain the same, but we would probably be able to fund about
two to three less Esther Martinez Initiative projects a year. I
think it is about five to six, and I can get you the exact
number, for Preservation and Maintenance.
So new awards would be lower each year, because our
continuations would be higher each year.
Senator Johnson. Mr. Mendoza, teacher preparation,
recruitment and retention for tribal immersion programs is
difficult at best. Aside from Title III discretionary grants,
what efforts has the Department made to award tribal immersion
programs in their efforts to hire and retain qualified
teachers?
Mr. Mendoza. I appreciate the question, Senator Johnson.
As you all know, all too well, it is tremendously difficult
to recruit and retain highly-qualified teachers in general to
some of the areas of the Country where these languages are
thriving, in an effort to preserve and revitalize them.
Especially in some of the areas such as up in Senator
Murkowski's State, where the extreme conditions make it
tremendously difficult.
As we look at the challenges around, regardless of the
models of approaching preservation and revitalization of Native
languages, those mechanisms, that capacity for that teacher
preparation is just not there. One of the key areas for us, in
addition to Title III, to focus on the dual goals of English
and Native languages, is Title VII professional development
grants. Those are designed specifically to bring teachers,
prepare teachers and bring those teachers in-service to tribal
communities.
So we remain committed on working to try to address this
issue in a new and different way. We are looking at it through
our broader teacher preparation programs. Certainly this is a
big part of this work that we are doing with regional technical
assistance centers, as well as our State and Tribal Education
partnership grants, to make sure that we are working with those
critical networks, establishing that national network for
individuals, being purposeful about that work. That is
embodied, certainly, in some of the recommendations that have
addressed BIE, they are a critical partner in that. Those
teachers who are in those school systems as well as these
tribally-connected school districts that are on or near
reservations, we need to have greater definition around that
area.
So Title VII professional development, as well as the Title
III professional development program, as you just named, are
the primary levers for this work.
Senator Johnson. Ms. Sparks, you mentioned that in order to
increase the number of Esther Martinez Initiative grant
applicants, we must consider lowering the required number of
participants in language nests and survival schools. Can you
expand on the reasoning behind this suggestion?
Ms. Sparks. Thank you for that question. In my role as
Commissioner, I have had an opportunity to visit numerous
communities that are on the verge of doing Native language
immersion or have been doing Native language immersion
activities. But they just cannot meet the student threshold of
a minimum of 10 students in a language nest or a minimum of 15
students in their survival school. Just like my colleague, Mr.
Mendoza, said, I think the greatest examples are probably in
the State of Alaska, where there are numerous remote and rural
villages, where the school in itself might be 15 students, all
of which may not be in immersion classroom settings.
I can give you an example of one community where they have
applied several times and they are just on the verge of maybe
being able to meet 15 students or 5 students for the language
nest. They are doing some really remarkable things in that
community and with their language. They have a dedicated
administration, a dedicated tribal council, dedicated classroom
teachers and dedicated parents. It is a shame for them to not
be able to be eligible to apply just because they don't meet
the student threshold. Certainly we want this to have the most
impact and increase as many speakers as possible. But we also
don't want to rule out communities that could still benefit
from this Esther Martinez Initiative.
Senator Johnson. Thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Heitkamp?
STATEMENT OF HON. HEIDI HEITKAMP,
U.S. SENATOR FROM NORTH DAKOTA
Senator Heitkamp. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
A couple of questions, but before I start, I do want to
remark that I had a meeting with a couple of elders on one of
the reservations who was concerned about the quality of the
education, the quality of whether in fact these Native American
languages that were being taught and spoken in immersion school
was in fact traditional enough. So I want to raise that concern
because I think it is really critically important that Native
speakers, traditional speakers actually are involved in the
creation of these programs, monitoring the quality. That is
what you don't want to lose, it is such a critical part of the
culture itself.
Mr. Mendoza, your written testimony details how the
Department of Education is working, obviously, to support
Native languages through ten separate programs in conjunction
with three separate agencies. I think the tribes that I talk to
would like to see more consistent funding streams to support
these Native American immersion programs. Have you explored
ways to consolidate these funding streams and programs to
create flexibility in them so tribes can better utilize them?
Mr. Mendoza. I appreciate the question, Senator. The short
answer to that is no, we have not. It has been clear to us that
in looking at the comprehensive needs of these learners and the
complex issues related to not just teaching in a linguistically
sound manner, but also the rich diversity that is across the
Country, 566 different tribes, and the diversity even within
that, which you pointed out, which I wholeheartedly agree with,
that we need more information before we even talk about trying
to collapse, consolidate, move. That is a big part of why we
have invested in this collaboration with our partners, to bring
together, and the 300 participants who will be joining us here
in D.C., that represents our grantees, the people who have been
navigating those funding sources that you mentioned.
So it is a critical first step for us to hear from them, to
assess from what we are learning from them, to try to piece
with what we have learned through consultation and then to look
within to try to address those areas.
Senator Heitkamp. And I can understand what you are saying.
But I think all of us would agree that we would like to see as
much efficiency in these programs, because those limited
dollars will go a lot further.
Also in your testimony you highlight how the loss of Native
languages can separate many Native Americans from their culture
and their history. I have seen that directly. I think many
languages have lost their last Native speaker, which creates
challenges in finding classroom instruction. What efforts are
you doing to identify and preserve the most vulnerable of
languages? Do you prioritize the vulnerable languages? And how
are you supporting instruction for Native languages, which, in
my previous example, where you have somebody who can judge
whether in fact that is the right program, whether that
language actually reflects the language that is the traditional
language? Here you don't even have that kind of ability to
audit or to hold accountable those programs. How do you fix
that issue?
Mr. Mendoza. I appreciate that, it is such an expansive
question there and one that I have to kind of err on the same
side as your previous question. I apologize, there is just a
lot more work here that we need to do than answers at this
juncture. One of the statistics I cited is the 375,000 language
speakers. If we take those numbers and apply that to the Native
population as a whole, we come up with approximately 7.2
percent, and the percentage goes up even incrementally as we
look at constraining the definition of who is an Indian based
off of that.
So the important work about identifying these languages is
something that the Initiative has really been trying to grapple
with and that we are talking about with our partners in the
Memorandum of Agreement, particularly around the idea of less
commonly taught languages that we currently look at for world
languages. Where do Native languages fit in a conversation such
as less commonly taught, where we have as many as 200 living
languages right now that at various stages are in a state of
crisis, if not extinction, where we have as well as areas of
strength, where we are talking about the Anishinabe language,
the Blackfeet language or else the Dine language as well, which
Dine language constantly makes it onto the list of, when we
look at State and the languages they speak.
So it is an issue that we are looking at really closely. It
is only a matter of conception at this point in how we are
grappling with that issue across Federal agencies.
Senator Heitkamp. If I could just make one last comment. I
think all of us who have spent time in Indian Country
understand the significance of understanding the language to
understanding the culture, the nuances and the variances. So if
we are going to hopefully build our hope as a result of
reestablishing or working toward building out community, the
preservation of these languages is absolutely an essential
building block to doing that. We are very interested in how we
can participate, and I share Senator Tester's urgency that we
get a response very quickly to the Administration's position.
Mr. Mendoza. If I may, Senator Heitkamp, when we visited
with the President to your State, we also were able, had the
fortunate opportunity to visit the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's
partnership with Sitting Bull College as well as the Lakota
Language Consortium. What is happening there is for all intents
and purposes happening in touch and go ways with our programs,
either in ANA grantee at a certain point, in the Office of
Indian Education grantee at some point, but clearly the tribes
are investing in this area. That is what really keeps me up at
night around these issues, is that we are going to miss the
analysis of just the Federal impact of this, where there is
such rich innovation and opportunity that is happening among
tribes across the Country.
The Chairman. Senator Murkowski.
STATEMENT OF HON. LISA MURKOWSKI,
U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate
that you have both of these bills before the Committee. I am a
proud co-sponsor, the lead Republican on these and share
certainly the comments that so many have made here today about
the significance, the real urgency as we work to ensure that
our Native languages, our cultural heritage languages are not
only preserved but that they are living. We are not locking
them up, we are allowing our children to be immersed in the
language of their culture, the language of their heritage,
develop pride in that and pride in who they are. So as we work
to help foster these initiatives, know that I am committed to
making it happen.
Commissioner Sparks, you mentioned the Esther Martinez
grants. It is my understanding from data from HHS that we don't
have any Esther Martinez grants in our State. Yet as you know,
we have agreement of language preservation and education work
that is going on within our regions. I am going to be asking
our Native educators, our school districts, our tribal
organizations, what barriers they are experiencing in trying to
access these very important grants. You have mentioned the
issue just of the small numbers that we have in some of our
villages. That is true. But we have many other areas where we
have, of course have significant numbers of students within our
schools, whether it is in the immersion school in Bethel. So
the number ought not be the barrier.
So I am going to try to drill down with this. I would ask
that you as well work with us to see where we are putting these
barriers up.
Mr. Mendoza, I didn't hear your oral testimony here today.
I did read your statement. I have perhaps more of a statement
than a question today. Your testimony really provides the whole
array of Federal efforts on Native education. But I think there
is a big picture that is missing from at least your written
testimony. If I may be so bold as to offer some guidance here,
I think that the White House Initiative on Indian and Alaska
Native Education has to aggressively demonstrate the nexus
between Native language revitalization from within our schools
and increased academic achievement and the well-being among our
Native youth. What I would have liked to have seen from your
testimony is the strong reference to the very tremendous body
of research that exists, whether it is drawing from the
experience of the Maori in New Zealand to our own language
revitalization efforts that we have in Alaska to what we will
hear from our Native Hawaiian witness. In my mind, language
immersion, culturally-relevant curriculum and place-based
education are among the most important solutions to addressing
low achievement and poor educational outcomes to many of our
Native youth. Those responsible for improving the educational
outcomes of our Native students I think have to understand and
really take action, knowing the moral gravity of inaction is
another generation that we would fail.
So I think we have clear opportunity here. I really would
encourage the White House, through this initiative, to look to
help States, educate States, educate school boards and those
within the Administration regarding this very, very relevant
and important link between our Native language revitalization,
culturally-relevant curriculum and increased academic
achievement. Hopefully what you are gaining from this hearing
this afternoon is that urgency that Senator Heitkamp has
mentioned. I certainly share in that.
Comment if you are inclined, but I would hope that you
would take that back with you.
Mr. Mendoza. Thank you, Senator. And you missed it, my oral
statement was tremendously inspiring.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Mendoza. But on a serious note, I just want to thank
you for your conviction and that call for action around this.
That is certainly felt and understood and at the forefront of
the initiative's work. We are trying to approach this issue in
as systemic of a way as we can, knowing that there are lots of
moving parts to this work, lots of areas of the Country that
are just not having the opportunity to leverage what
opportunities we do have in front of us.
So we know there is a shared responsibility in this work,
because it has an added value to the Nation as a whole to have
this rich diversity within us and who we are as a Country. This
really comes back to a statement made in my recent visit to
North Dakota, where this is not an issue of knowing a language
to get into college or knowing a language to expand your world
view or enhance your skill set as an individual. It is about
life and death. That is exactly how it was expressed to us. Our
elders are dying and our children are killing themselves. We
have to have this as a foundation to addressing these other
critical issues in regard to who we are.
So I just heed that call to action from you and hope that
we can continue to work together. That is the commitment that
we are here to express, to continue to look at these issues
with you all and to act on them for the future of our youth.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Murkowski.
Senator Begich?
STATEMENT OF HON. MARK BEGICH,
U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA
Senator Begich. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just
have a couple of questions. Ms. Sparks, here is the question.
We have a few schools that are kind of struggling financially.
One of the issue is with Preservation and Maintenance grants at
ANA. My question is, and we are trying to figure out some
flexibility in this legislation that would allow us to go to
potentially five years, more stability, more sustainability.
Three years seems long to some, but for this kind of
programming, it is somewhat short.
Do you think there is flexibility within the legislation or
do you think we need to tweak it to create some different
language in there to create that ability to go to five years?
Ms. Sparks. Thank you for the question. We certainly have
heard this, during the ACF tribal grantee meeting, that
stability is very difficult to achieve in three years. So this
message is coming across loud and clear to us at ANA.
With regard to the Preservation and Maintenance Grants,
which you asked about specifically, we do have some flexibility
for those grants. They can be one year to five years for
Preservation and Maintenance. The Esther Martinez, we are tied
to three years, because when it was drafted, by way of
background, I worked extensively on Esther Martinez.
Senator Begich. So you drafted it for the three years.
Ms. Sparks. I worked on it.
[Laughter.]
Ms. Sparks. And I helped work with a lot of other people
that are sitting behind all of you today. But we didn't realize
that we were tying our hands to three years with Esther
Martinez.
Senator Begich. You are in support of seeing it moved to
five?
Ms. Sparks. We are supportive of seeing it move to five.
And down to one as well, because we are hearing from some
communities that three years is too long to do some of the
activities they would like to do under Esther Martinez, and for
some, three years it not enough. So if we could have the same
flexibility for Esther Martinez as we do for the Preservation
and Maintenance Grants, I think that would make our grantees
very happy.
Senator Begich. Very good. Let me ask you, Mr. Mendoza, and
you may have answered this, I got in late because I was coming
in from another event. Can you just give me a sense of how and
what your engagement is with working with our Alaska tribes as
well as, and I say tribes, as well as our village corporations
and so forth? Because have a different set up. But our tribes
specifically, can you give me kind of a sense on that?
Mr. Mendoza. I appreciate the question, Senator. Our
primary mechanism is of course through a number of programs
that spend certainly Title VII as well as Title III HEA aid for
strengthening institutional programs. And an overarching
initiative as a whole, transition from building upon the
success of the Tribal Colleges and Universities Initiative to
looking at the comprehensive challenge and successes of
American Indian and Alaska Native students nationwide. So in
each step of our looking at what does that work look like,
whether it is through the DOI Ed Memorandum looking at our
Native Language Working Group, the other working groups that we
are a part of, and certainly outreach and engagement primarily
our responsibility to consult with Indian tribes around the
Country. That work is threaded throughout there and in Alaska.
We have made trips to Alaska, my office has. I was just
there for National Congress of American Indians to talk to both
corporations and those villages that were able to make it.
Through the Alaska Native Education Program, as well as the
Alaska Native-Native Hawaiian Program in HEA Title III, we make
sure we keep those conversations close in looking at how we can
strengthen those programs to be consistent with what is
happening and unique where it needs to be in regard to the work
of the Initiative.
Senator Begich. Do you think as you are having those
discussions or participating in those groups that will have
Alaska Natives on them, do you feel there is some uniqueness to
the way Alaska has to deliver some of its programs, from the
way you handle others? Is that coming out or is it pretty much
what you see is pretty consistent across Indian Country in the
Lower 48 and Alaska Native communities?
Mr. Mendoza. Tremendous uniqueness, not only geographic but
diversity as well. The challenges facing Alaska Natives are
very different, certainly, when you are talking about urban and
rural. The notion of rural becomes to the extreme when you are
talking about Alaska Natives. Urban, not necessarily on the
same lens as a Seattle or Denver. So there are nuances in that
regard as well. We see activity for the corporations in some of
the urban areas, whereas we are really interested in looking at
the partnerships and the strength of collaboration between the
villages and some of the normal ways of looking at Lower 48
interests, local education agencies, what do private and
philanthropic collaboratives look like there.
And the one that always stands out the most with Alaska are
certainly costs related to that. Certain geographical
difference related to infrastructure realities. Accessibility
around the same kind of assumptions that even our rural
instances here in the Lower 48 enjoy, such as access to
internet, libraries. So those challenges are very real, and
those are some of the uniquenesses that I have been exposed to
in my work. That guides the work of the Initiative.
Senator Begich. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I just appreciate
especially your summary there of the recognition that there is
some uniqueness, which means maybe there will be initiatives or
policies or laws or regulations, we have to keep that all in
mind when we are dealing with the Alaska perspective. Thank
you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Begich.
I want to thank the two witnesses. I will be presenting
some written questions for the record and there may be others
up here too. Thank you both for your testimony. I appreciate it
very, very much. If you can stick around for the tribal
witnesses, it may be beneficial, but that is your call.
We will go to our second panel now. There are some
logistical problems, so we are going to run this a little bit
differently than what I had originally thought. We are going to
hear from Sonta Hamilton Roach. Sonta is an elementary school
teacher at the Innoko River School in Shageluk, Alaska, and a
board member of Doyon Limited. What we are going to do, unless
there is objection from the panel, Sonta is going to give her
testimony first. Because of logistical problems, we will ask
questions. I will start with Senator Murkowski and Senator
Begich and the rest of us. Then she will be excused to be able
to catch her flight.
Then we are going to hear from Ms. Clarena Brockie, who is
the Dean of Students at Aaniih Nakoda College, in Harlem,
Montana. Then we are going to hear from Thomas Shortbull,
President of Oglala Lakota College in Kyle, South Dakota. We
will also hear from the Honorable Ed Delgado, Chairman of the
Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin in Oneida, Wisconsin.
Finally, we are going to hear testimony from Namaka Rawlins,
who serves as Director of Strategic Partnerships and
Collaboration, with `Aha Punana Leo, in Hilo, Hawaii.
I want to welcome all the witnesses. I would ask that your
verbal testimony be five minutes, and we are going to enter
your entire written testimony for the record. Sonta, you can
start.
STATEMENT OF SONTA HAMILTON ROACH, ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER,
INNOKO RIVER SCHOOL; BOARD
MEMBER, DOYON LIMITED
Ms. Hamilton Roach. Thank you very much. The logistical
challenge is I have a nine and a half month old waiting back
home in Alaska.
Hello, everyone, Mr. Chairman and members of this
Committee. My name is Sonta Hamilton Roach, and I live in
Shageluk. I am Deg Hit'an Athabascan. In my community of
Shageluk there are approximately 80 people, who are primarily
Athabascan. It is very isolated, as was talked about earlier,
and is only accessible by air or by boat. I am happy to say
that I returned home and am currently working as an elementary
classroom teacher.
It is truly an honor to be here today, to carry the Alaskan
torch, and to testify in support of Senate Bill 1948 and Senate
Bill 2299, fostering the revitalization efforts of Native
American language programs. At this point in time, and in the
history of indigenous languages, these two bills will strongly
and positively impact revitalization efforts. I would say that
the timing is perfect, but in the same breath, I'd say that it
is unfortunate that our languages were ever so endangered and
that this time had to come at all.
Today across Alaska, the seeds have been planted and there
are several successful language models and programs that have
been developed, but only at a small scale. These seeds need
water. To be successful in revitalization, we need systemic
change from systems of power that includes schools, tribes,
Native corporations and non-profits to work together in
partnership with State agencies and the Federal Government.
In Alaska, we have made significant headway in adopting 20
indigenous languages as official languages of Alaska. This bill
will also allow for that to happen.
Our indigenous languages have been endangered for
generations. Our languages were especially impacted when that
young girl or boy was first punished for speaking their
language in BIA and mission-run schools. Language, being the
closest thing to our identity and knowledge base we have, was
stripped from us, for talking Deg Xinag, my people's language.
This wasn't eons ago, this was my grandpa, this was my grandma.
These were our grandparents. As children, they were not allowed
to speak our languages all because they went to school.
This is the legacy I am living with as a teacher today. And
today, we are a new generation, those of us in this room, we
share a new and exciting view of ourselves, of our communities,
and of our Nation and the potential that exists in all of us to
speak and celebrate our languages. It is the view that we as
Native people have to impact language learning from our
cultural lens. It is the hook to keep students in school.
Schools in the Yupi'k region have very successfully
developed and implemented early childhood education immersion
models in early childhood education, and it is directly linked
to higher student achievement and success rates. I had the
privilege to visit Ayaprun Elitnaurvik Immersion School in
Bethel, Alaska, and I have never felt so privileged to step
into anyone's classroom before. The environment encouraged and
nurtured cultural values, self-identity, and language. The
sense of place was sacred, holistically nurturing students in
their learning. It has helped to keep the language in the
community alive. The proposed legislation can grow this
experience, fostering success in our students.
Language is just like looking through the lens of someone's
culture, the depth of who they are and their experiences, their
relationship to the land and animals. Place-based and cultural-
based education keeps students engaged. It is the hook that
increases student achievement. This is known.
In rural Alaska our communities are plagued with high
suicide rates, high dropout rates, which correlate directly
with a loss in culture and loss of language. The key to
changing this is support for relevant curriculum, support for
programs like those in Bethel. If this Committee can encourage
these efforts, we will have strengthened Native American
languages across the Country.
Like our national parks, our indigenous languages and
cultures are our national treasures. The ecological knowledge
and understanding of living off the land and using resources is
a treasure. The oral and traditional stories, told through the
language, is precious and valuable. These bills will ensure
that our precious treasures will not be lost, but used daily in
the lives of many.
Michael Krauss, a linguist and expert in Alaska Native and
indigenous languages, said that out of 300 North American
languages, only 200 or 210 languages are spoken today, and in
Alaska, there are 18 without any children speakers at all,
including my own. In conclusion, this legislation is a positive
turning point in our Nation that acknowledges the grassroots
efforts that are being made to continue keeping languages alive
today. It brings light to those elders who were beaten for
speaking, and it empowers the young people to take the lead in
solidifying our languages as national treasures.
It is my hope that this legislation is passed quickly and
my belief that Native Americans will take this opportunity to
truly revitalize indigenous languages to the fullest extent
possible, that systemic change will occur, and elders will hear
their grandchildren and great-grandchildren speaking their
language once again. Our children will go to school not having
to change thinking caps, or change the lens in which they view
the world every single day. But rather, the systems are put
into place to promote and foster educational and economic
advancement that truly benefits the next generation.
I would say thank you, but historically in our language
there is no word for it. Our relationship is based on
reciprocity. I know that our relationship will continue to
grow. [Word in native tongue.] That is good enough.
Goodbye.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Hamilton Roach follows:]
Prepared Statement of Sonta Hamilton Roach, Elementary School Teacher,
Innoko River School; Board Member, Doyon Limited
Ade' (hello) Chairman and members of this Committee. My name is
Sonta Hamilton Roach, and I am Deg Hit'an Athabascan from Shageluk.
Shageluk is my hometown, with roughly 80 people, and where I currently
work as a teacher. Add Shageluk info, more picture. Add words and
language in Athabascan.
It is truly an honor to be here today, to carry the Alaskan torch,
and to testify in support of Senate Bill 1958, and Senate Bill 2299,
fostering the revitalization efforts of Native American language
programs. At this point in time, and in the history of indigenous
languages, these two bills will strongly and positively impact
revitalization efforts. I would say that the timing is perfect, but in
the same breath, I'd say that its unfortunate that our languages were
ever so endangered and that this time had to come at all.
Today across Alaska, the seeds have been planted and there are
several successful language models and programs that have been
developed. But only at a small scale. These seeds need water. To be
successful in revitalization, we need systemic change from systems of
power that includes schools, Tribes, Native corporations and non-for
profits to work together in partnership with state agencies and the
federal government. These bills allow for that to happen!
Our Indigenous languages have been endangered for generations. Our
languages were especially impacted when that young girl or boy was
first punished for speaking their language in BIA and mission run
schools. Language, being the closest thing to our identity and
knowledge base we have, was stripped from us--for talking Deg Xinag, my
people's language. This wasn't eons ago, this was my grandpa, this was
my grandma. These are ``our'' grandparents. These children cannot speak
our languages all because they went to school. This is the legacy I am
living with as a teacher.
And today, we are a new generation, those of us in this room. We
share a new and exciting view of ourselves, of our communities, and of
our nation and the potential that exists in all of us to speak and
celebrate our languages. It's the view that we as Native people have to
impact language learning from our cultural lens.
So what does language learning include? Language learning includes
immersion camps, language nests, distance delivered language learning,
and more! For example, schools in the Yupi'k region have very
successful immersion models for early childhood education, and its
directly linked to higher student achievement and success rate. Add
citation for written record. I've had the privilege to visit Ayaprun
Elitnaurvik immersion school in Bethel, Alaska, and I've never felt so
privileged to step into anyone's classroom before! The environment
encouraged and nurtured cultural values, self-identity, and language.
The sense of place was sacred, holistically nurturing students in their
learning. The proposed legislation can grow this experience, creating
success in our students.
Language learning also includes the Koyukuk Athabascan language
program through the Yukon Koyukuk School District that is taught via
video conferencing to several isolated sites across the district, and
very successfully. The Gwich'in have also recently taken significant
strides in their language efforts, and have new programs underway. And
in the North Slope Borough School District, students learn their
Inupiaq language dialects online! And finally, just this spring the
Alaska state legislature passed House Bill 216 adopting Native
languages as official languages of the State of Alaska. Representative
Johnathan Kriess-Tomkins stated for the record that the bill was, ``An
important step in recognizing the living, breathing Alaska Native
languages of the state of Alaska, which continues to grow into daily
use by many speakers around the state who both practice and teach and
has been done for millennia prior to statehood.''
How will this legislation change, impact, or improve language
learning? First, it will be that hook that teachers use in the
classroom to engage students in their lesson. It will keep students
coming into school each and every day, that motivates them and maybe
even gives them something to live for, literally. It's more than just
cultural pride, or just learning a language, it's learning a knowledge
base, a skill-base, and learning who they are!
Language is just like looking through the lens of someone's
culture, the depth of who they are and their experiences, their
relationship to land and animals. Place-based and cultural-based
education keeps students engaged and increases student achievement. In
Rural Alaska our communities are plagued with high suicide rates, and
high drop out rates, which correlate directly with a loss in culture
and language. The key to changing this, is support for relevant
curriculum, support for programs like those in Bethel at Ayaprun. If
this committee can encourage these efforts, we will have strengthened
Native Americans across the country.
Like our national parks, our indigenous languages and cultures are
our national treasures. The ecological knowledge and understanding of
living off the land and using resources is a treasure. The oral and
traditional stories, told through the language, is a treasure. These
bills will ensure that our precious treasures will not be lost, but
used daily in the lives of many.
Michael Krauss, a linguist and expert in Alaska Native and
Indigenous languages said that out of 300 North American languages,
only 200 or 210 languages are spoken today, and in Alaska, there are 18
without any children speakers at all.
In conclusion, this legislation is a positive turning point in our
nation that acknowledges the grassroots efforts that are being made to
continue keeping languages alive today, it brings light to those Elders
who were beaten for speaking, and it empowers the young people to take
the lead in solidifying our languages as national treasures.
It is my hope that this legislation is passed quickly and my belief
that Native Americans will take this opportunity to truly revitalize
indigenous languages to the fullest extent possible, that systemic
change will occur, and Elders will hear their grandchildren and great-
grandchildren speaking their language once again. Our children will go
to school not having to change thinking caps, or change the lens in
which they view the world every single day. But rather, the systems are
put into place to promote and foster educational and economic
advancement and truly benefit the next generation.
I would say thank you. But historically, in our language there is
no word for it. Our relationship is based on reciprocity, and I know
our relationship will continue to grow. I appreciate your time.
Language addition.
The Chairman. Thank you, Sonta. Before we go to the other
panel members, we are going to ask you questions, then we will
release you to make your flight. Senator Murkowski?
Senator Murkowski. Sonta, first of all, thank you for
making the long trip back here. I can't imagine how stressful
it is leaving a 10-month old behind, and certainly understand
your urgency on getting on that Alaska Airlines flight here
very shortly. So we will keep our comments brief.
I appreciate what you have said about the significance of
this systemic change and also how you have outlined what we
have seen as a State with repression of Native language
historically. Not only were children discouraged, they were
punished for speaking their Native languages. And then how you
come back out of that hurt and repression is very difficult. It
is generational.
But I do think we are beginning to see that change, and it
feels so good. I too have been out in the Yupi'k school
district and been to the immersion programs there. It is
phenomenal what you see. But you also appreciate that what they
are doing is they are building their own curriculum. They are
working with elders, they are designing the flash cards. They
are building it on their own.
I wonder, when you talk about support for relevant
curriculum, we are making headway. But I also know that we do
not have a number of Native, Alaska Native teachers within our
schools. We don't see as many back in our villages as we would
like. And I know that so many of our administrators, whether
they are superintendents, our administrators, our principals,
they are coming to Alaska from outside. They might not have
that connection about how significant and how important it is
to really make these languages come alive to these children.
Do you feel that you are getting the support to build these
relevant curriculums, the support within the Administration to
do the change that we need to see so that translates down to
each student? Where are our barriers now?
Ms. Hamilton Roach. Thank you so much for that insight.
Absolutely, you bring such an important point and question
forward. There does need to be, we are on the cusp of so much
more, I feel like the potential is really huge. We have a lot
of young people who are leading and spearheading these new
programs. There are kinds of these language nests or different
models that are looked at. There is not one model that applies,
and we can understand that today, to everybody, to these remote
sites where I have 10 students. There are models where they are
teaching students via distance delivery, video conferencing,
Yukon Koyukuk School District. Languages and dialects are
accessible online, students can click on their dialect and
learn actively.
In terms of teacher preparation and maybe we have so many
teachers that are not from the area. I am, it is a privilege to
be teaching in my own community. So there is that need of
teaching teachers about the culture. Just recently, with the
teacher evaluation for the State of Alaska, they now have to be
evaluated on cultural standards and how they are acknowledging
and celebrating culture in the classroom. So with this effort
in language, I really see that blossoming and becoming more.
The potential is out there. I don't think we are where we
want to be yet. There are barriers. I think getting the elders
involved, the partnerships will be huge. I also want to stress
the flexibility with these funds. I do like the idea of the
five-year, the granting cycle. But the flexibility to have
changes made I think would be critical for our communities and
those elders that they work with.
Senator Murkowski. I appreciate what you do as a teacher
and again, the opportunity to be back in your village is so
important. I wish that we could encourage more, I think we are
making that change.
I asked about the support from superintendents and
principals, because my children went to an immersion school in
Anchorage. It was a time when immersion schools were not yet
that highly thought of. It was very difficult in those initial
years to get basically the respect from the district as to what
it is that we were trying to do. And they wanted to take those
very preliminary test results wherein the early years, when you
have a child in an immersion program perhaps they are not
performing at the same level that a child in an English-
speaking program is. We had to demonstrate it.
But when you have resistance from the top, it makes it
difficult. Know that we want to work with you to encourage our
administrators to make the commitment to our immersion programs
that will allow for, again, the successes that I think we will
see within our particularly remote villages.
So thank you for what you are doing. I know, I think this
is pretty neat that there is no work for thank you, it is based
on reciprocity. What you are giving to your students is the
most beautiful example of giving and thanks. So thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Begich?
Senator Begich. Thank you very much.
I know you have to catch your plane, you are probably a
little nervous about getting there. It is 15 minutes from here,
that is the good news.
First, thank you very much for being a teacher. My parents
were teachers, my two sisters are teachers, my sister-in-law
just retired after 27 years of teaching in Anchorage. So we
have very broad-based education in our household. And of course
again, thank you very much.
Second, I have a question and you kind of hit on it, I just
want to make sure there is enough of it. You mentioned some of
the new technologies being utilized to explore and learn
cultures, but also reminding us no matter where we live, we can
access this information. It is a struggle in rural Alaska to
have the right kind of technology, even the speed, the fiber
and all the other pieces that get it to your classroom. Do you
think we are making the right movements here, making sure we
have enough technology, so when you want to access some of this
for our students that it is there, not having to struggle
waiting to get connected? And there is not enough space on the
line, tell me your thoughts there.
Ms. Hamilton Roach. Thank you for that. Definitely
technology in our school district, we have several different
villages. And small in scale, like Shageluk, with 15 students.
I know that some districts have already successfully adopted
the curricula that is tied to technology and learning online
and also via distance delivery. There are gaps that exist that
need to be addressed with certain districts. I think it is all
uniquely there; in partnerships, those can be resolved. But the
successful models are there for us to use. High speed internet
connection is always an issue. That is something that is being
looked at something that can be improved.
Senator Begich. And I am assuming, I think I know the
answer, but for the young people that are getting connected,
that is not an issue?
Ms. Hamilton Roach. Right.
Senator Begich. When they get the moment, they are beyond
us.
Ms. Hamilton Roach. They are very connected, and they are
totally, they love to have access. I just want to also stress
that that technology piece, for them it is the social part of
their day. Because they are surrounded by their cousins and
family or maybe younger grade levels. So that opportunity to
connect via distance bridges their social interactions and
allows for more of that to happen.
Senator Begich. I have a question, I am curious about your
response. I agree with you, what the legislature did this year
in Alaska was an incredible thing, we hope the Governor signs
the bill. I think he will. But the grass roots effort was
really unbelievable. And knowing that there is a continuing
grassroots effort within the Alaska Native community to
recognize the culture, the language, that it is not just about
some people, everyone should understand it, know it and be part
of it. One of the things I did when I was mayor, we built a
convention center. It was another building, but we did
something different. We named it after the Dina'ina people. But
we also made sure every room had the native language for the
description of that room. And people have told me, I know in
Hawaii their convention center there is very similar. People
say, well, people will never learn to pronounce these names. So
that is part of the process of learning the culture, of
understanding where the generation of the names comes from and
so forth.
Do you think there is enough, and that was to me an
experiment, to be honest with you. Because sure, we did have
some conflict, to be frank with you. We tried to create, you
have seen the facility has the rugs, to the colors, everything
is about what the environment is about and what the culture is
about. Do you think there is enough within Alaska and others
that are not only educating Alaska Native people on regaining
the culture, but non-Native people to understanding the
culture? I was born and raised in Alaska, so I believe I
understand it. But there are so many that may not understand it
because they are not connected to it. Do you think there is
enough of that, or are there some strides we need to be
thinking about? It is critical that the Alaska Native people
understand and know their own culture. There is no question
about it. Yet there are so many that live in Alaska who have no
clue.
Ms. Hamilton Roach. Absolutely.
Senator Begich. Do you get my question?
Ms. Hamilton Roach. Yes, I completely do, and the short
answer is no, we need more. I can say that because the part
about language or culture, recognizing it, the first thing you
do is acknowledge that they exist and give it a voice. The
second thing is using it and celebrating it, like I do in the
classroom, dusting off those 1980s bilingual tools to use in
reading. My students can read that level. So we go through it.
But it is celebrating it, using it, keeping it alive that
doesn't just educate anybody in Alaska, but those kids who
strongly need it. This also goes back to the need for more up
to date, relevant curriculum that is alive, not stick figures
in those books.
Senator Begich. Some real stuff.
Ms. Hamilton Roach. Yes, some new up to date, keeping in
mind student learning and best practices.
Senator Begich. I will end by saying, that is the power of
the technology, too. You can move that new information quicker
than a textbook being printed and going through all that
process. There is so much available online if you just have the
high speed connectivity. You can access it and then your
students will have more options and more choices and more
opportunities. Is that a fair statement?
Ms. Hamilton Roach. Absolutely, and cost efficient as well.
Senator Begich. Thank you very much. I know what the
distance is like. So both Senator Murkowski and I have to fly
back and forth to Alaska. So having you here, we cannot say
enough to thank you.
Ms. Hamilton Roach. It is an honor. And thank you to the
rest of the panel for allowing me to go.
The Chairman. Thank you, Sonta. We appreciate your
testimony and appreciate your answers to the questions. As a
classroom teacher, like yourself, we will say, you are
dismissed.
[Laughter.]
The Chairman. We will move on to the other panel members.
We will have all your testimony then we will ask questions when
you are all done. Representative Brockie, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF CLARENA BROCKIE, DEAN OF STUDENT AFFAIRS, AANIIIH
NAKODA COLLEGE
Ms. Brockie. Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting me to
address the Committee today.
My name is Clarena Brockie and I am Aaniiih from the Fort
Belknap Indian Reservation. Both of my parents are Aaniih. I am
also a proud member of the Montana House of Representatives. I
represent House District 32, which includes the Rocky Boy
Indian Reservation and the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. I
am also the Dean of Students at Aaniiih College.
Aaniiih College is a small school with a big mission,
serving 225 students each semester, most of whom are members of
one of the two tribes on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation.
The Committee knows the dire situation we face as Indian
people in terms of the loss of our languages, so I will not
recite all the statistics. When Christopher Columbus and other
Europeans first came to Indian Country, more than 300 different
languages were spoken here. Today, less than half remain. This
tragic outcome is a direct result of prior U.S. government
policy of assimilation, which sent many Indian children to
boarding schools, where they were prohibited and often fiercely
punished for speaking their own languages. This legacy is made
even worse when you consider that once a language becomes
extinct, it takes with it much of the history, the philosophy,
ceremonies, culture and environmental and scientific knowledge
of the people who spoke it.
It is difficult to imagine the degree to which such a loss
will impact our Indian children and youth who already suffer
from generational poverty and oppression, violence, abuse,
neglect, a lack of self-esteem and lack of hope. Doing research
for my graduate thesis on the oral history of the Gros Ventre,
I learned how meticulously and systematically my own language
had been removed from our homes and schools. It had a profound
effect on me.
The Aaniiih nin became one of the many tribes that was in
danger of joining the group of vanishing Indians. In 1997, only
25 Aaniiih speakers were alive and no children kindergarten
through 12th grade spoke the language. Despite this, the
Aaniiih nin have survived. Today, our language is beginning to
thrive, thanks to an important project at Aaniiih Nakoda
College.
In the late 1990s, our college wrote a grant to save our
language through an immersion elementary school on our college
campus. In 2003, we opened the White Clay Immersion School.
Today the largest group of Aaniiih speakers are White Clay
students. Since our immersion school began, Native children
speakers has gone from zero to 30. Students attend a full day
of White Clay Immersion classes, teaching and learning rely on
Native knowledge and Native ways of knowing and being. Non-
native ways of learning are incorporated to offer students the
best of both worlds. The curriculum emphasizes the
interconnections between the physical, mental, and spiritual
well-being through cross-disciplinary integration, inter-
generational learning and field-based learning experiences and
community projects. This innovative partnership involving a
tribal college taking ownership of K through 8 education is a
transformative model for other American Indian communities.
White Clay graduates transition to public schools and are
recognized as leaders in student government, academics and
sports. For example, students graduating from White Clay in
2013 won the science, math, English literature and art awards
as sophomores last year at their new off-reservation high
school.
Unfortunately, financial support for White Clay Immersion
School is sporadic. Most of our funding comes from private
foundations and local support. In addition, we receive funding
from the Department of Health and Human Services and
Administration of Native American Programs, ANA. However, this
is a competitive program and in some years, White Clay received
no funding. White Clay does not receive funding from the State
of any Federal formula funding. Instead, staff holds
fundraisers to support school trips, lunch, supplies and other
activities. Although it is always a struggle, our college is
committed to the survival of our Aaniiih language. We know that
because they are grounded in their culture and confident in
their language, our White Clay students will ensure that our
people, our language will thrive for many generations to come.
In closing, I want to join President Shortbull and all
tribal colleges in making these recommendations. One, the
Committee should include tribal college Native language
research and education programs as an amendment to S. 1948.
This is a provision that Chairman Tester included in a
legislation introduced previously as part of his bill, THE
PATH.
To revitalize our languages, we must work at all levels,
pre-K to college, and we must continue to expand the critical
need for Native language research. Second, to achieve lasting
results, the ANA language grant program should award grants for
10 years or alternative, five years with an option to renew
upon the demonstration of success.
Finally, I will echo the words and frustration which I
heard from members of the Committee during your hearing last
week on Indian higher education. It is so incredibly
frustrating to know that the need is so great and the models of
success exist to know that tribal colleges, more so than any
other entities, are working to transform Indian Country,
achieving success but being rewarded only with flat line or
decreased funding. We are accountable institutions; we need the
Administration to be accountable as well.
Mr. Chairman, we need your help, not just to acknowledge
our treaties and the Federal trust responsibility, but take
concrete action today to advance the proven successes of tribal
colleges and increase our capacity to do even more in Indian
Country. And we have a word for thank you, [thank you in native
tongue.]
[The prepared statement of Ms. Brockie follows:]
Prepared Statement of Clarena Brockie, Dean of Student Affairs, Aaniiih
Nakoda College
Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the Committee, my name is
Clarena M. Brockie, and I am Aaniiih (Gros Ventre) from Montana. Both
of my parents are enrolled as Gros Ventre. I am proud to represent
Montana's 32nd District, which includes the Fort Belknap and Rocky Boy
Indian Reservations, in our state's House of Representatives. I am also
the Dean of Students of the Aaniiih Nakoda College in Harlem, Montana.
Aaniiih Nakoda College was chartered by the Fort Belknap Indian
Community Council in 1984. We are a small school with a big mission,
serving approximately 225 students per semester, most of whom are
members of one of the two tribes on our reservation.
Thank for inviting me to testify at this hearing examining
legislation to strengthen efforts to preserve and revitalize our Native
languages. It is an honor to be given an opportunity to speak on behalf
of the many people who cannot stand here today, but I know they are
with me in spirit.
Aaniiih Nakoda College, along with the nation's other 36 Tribal
Colleges and Universities, which collectively are the American Indian
Higher Education Consortium, AIHEC, support S. 1948 and S. 2299, both
of which would help us as we work to ensure the survival and continuing
vitality of Native American Languages.
Current Status of Native Languages
The Committee knows the dire situation we face as Indian people in
terms of the loss of our languages, homelands, and identity, so I will
not recite all of the statistics. I will just mention that when
Christopher Columbus and other Europeans first came to Indian Country,
more than 300 different languages were spoken here. Today, well less
than half remain. Most of these are spoken only by a handful of elders
and are in serious danger of disappearing--in fact, all but 15 or 20 of
our Native languages are spoken only by adults who are not teaching
their younger generations the language. This tragic outcome is a direct
result of prior U.S. government policies, including assimilation which
sent many Indian children to government-run boarding schools where they
were prohibited from--and often fiercely punished for--speaking their
own languages, their last tie to their homelands and their very
identity. This terrible legacy is made even worse when you consider
that once a language becomes extinct, it takes with it much of the
history, philosophy, ceremonies, culture, and environmental and
scientific knowledge of the people who spoke it. It is difficult to
imagine the degree to which such a loss will impact our Indian children
and young people, who are already suffering from generational poverty
and oppression, violence, abuse and neglect, lack of self-esteem, and
most tragic, lack of hope.
Fortunately, over the past few decades, greater attention has been
focused on the need to preserve our Native culture and language, and a
few modest pieces of legislation have been enacted at the federal
level, including the Native American Languages Act of 1990 and
inadequately funded Esther Martinez Native American Languages
Preservation Act of 2006.
The Survival of Native Languages
My graduate school thesis focused on the Oral History of the Gros
Ventre, and in the process of conducting research, I learned how
meticulously and systematically our own Gros Ventre language had been
removed from our homes and schools. We were even prohibited from
conducting our ceremonies. The Aaniiih nin became one of the many
tribes that was in danger of joining the group of ``Vanishing
Indians.'' In the early 1600s, there were more than 15,000 Aaniiih nin
(White Clay People), but by 1903, there were less than 300.
Anthropologist Al Kroeber visited the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation
to collect as much of the culture and history of the Aaniiih as he
could. He was soon followed by Clark Wissler, another noted
anthropologist known for his work with supposedly dying tribes.
In 1997, the Aaniiih language, which is one of two Native languages
spoken on the Fort Belknap reservation, was in the last stages of
survival. Only 25 speakers existed, and no children--kindergarten
through 12th grade--spoke the language. But despite the grim
predictions and statistics, the Aaniiih nin have survived. Today, our
language is beginning to thrive with more young language speakers,
thanks to an important project at Aaniiih Nakoda College.
In the late 1990s, I was employed by Aaniiih Nakoda College (then
called Fort Belknap College) as the Development Officer, and we decided
it was time to write a planning grant proposal for a project to try to
revive our language. At ANC, students are required to take language and
tribal history classes for one or both tribes. In addition, Aaniiih and
Nakoda language and culture classes are taught in the local public high
schools and evening classes are held for community members who want to
learn the Aaniiih and Nakoda languages. A speaker-learner project was
also pursued. However, none of these efforts achieved the level of
fluency we needed to ensure the continued vitality of our language into
the future. It seemed that to be truly successful, the Native language
needed to be spoken consistently in the home and at school. Without
some kind of consistent reinforcement, many students retain only a
portion of the words taught. I wrote the grant proposal, entitled
``Speaking White Clay,'' with all of this in mind; and we prepared it
with input and support of the Gros Ventre Cultural committee and Native
language speakers.
Fortunately for us, the funder stressed the need to focus on our
youth and asked in the review process, ``What are you doing for the
youth?'' The goal of our grant was to ensure the survival and
continuing vitality of our language and culture. With a funded plan,
Aaniiih Nakoda College President Dr. Carole Falcon Chandler, along with
staff and faculty, set out to fulfill the dream of our elders to
protect our language.
After researching the issue, we determined that our best hope for
success was in the establishment of a full day immersion program. In
2003, Dr. Janine Pease, who conducted an extensive study of Native
American language immersion initiatives entitled ``Native American
Language Immersion: Innovative Native Education for Children and
Families,'' writes:
``Most intriguing about the Native and Indigenous language
immersion models is the clear and positive connection between
Native and Indigenous language and culture with educational
achievement.''
``For indigenous people, Native American language immersion
activities hold great promise in the development of children,
youth, family and community.'' \1\
\1\ Pease-Pretty On Top, Janine. ``Native American Language
Immersion: Innovative Native Education for Children and Families.''
Publication of the American Indian College Fund with support from the
W. K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek MI. 2003. Page 12.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Establishment of the White Clay Immersion School
In 2003, the White Clay Immersion School was established under the
Aaniiih Nakoda College. The goals of the school are to: (1) promote the
survival and vitality of the White Clay language; (2) provide
culturally based educational opportunities that build cognitive skills
and foster academic success; (3) instill self-esteem and positive
cultural identify; and (4) prepare students to become productive
members of society.
Unfortunately, since we wrote our proposal in 1997, we have lost
our oldest Native speakers. Today, no fluent elder Aaniiih speaker
lives on the Fort Belknap Reservation. There are a few younger people
who have learned the language and speak it well. However, today the
largest generation of Aaniiih speakers comprises the students of
Aaniiih Nakoda College's White Clay Immersion School (WCIS). Since WCIS
began, child Native speakers has grown from none to 30. Students at
WCIS attend a full day of classes in an immersion setting. Teaching and
learning focus on the White Clay language and rely heavily on Native
knowledge and Native ways of knowing and being. Non-Native ways of
learning are incorporated to offer students the best of both worlds and
to help them become positive and successful members of the larger
community. WCIS's curriculum emphasizes the interconnections between
physical, mental and spiritual well-being through cross-disciplinary
integration, intergenerational learning, and field-based learning
experiences. Students participate in community projects, public events,
and international exchanges.
The White Clay Immersion School is the first, and now one of two,
full day Native language immersion schools operating within a Tribal
College. Oglala Lakota College in Kyle, South Dakota operates the other
TCU-based immersion school, through grade 5. WCIS now includes both
elementary and middle school. The school is housed in the beautiful
Aaniiih Nakoda Cultural Building. This unique and innovative
partnership in educational self-determination serves as a
transformative model for other American Indian communities across the
United States that is facing the impending loss of their own Native
language.
Administrative Leadership and Quality of WCIS Staff
The White Clay Immersion School operates within Aaniiih Nakoda
College's central administration, under the direction of the college
president. Dr. Lynette Chandler serves as the director of White Clay
Immersion School since its inception in 2002. She has extensive
knowledge of and training in immersion teaching practices and has
working with indigenous language experts from Montana, Wyoming, Hawaii,
Peru, and Guatemala, Australia and New Zealand. Dr. Chandler earned her
B.S. (English) and M.A. (Native American Studies) at Montana State
University and her Ed.D. (Educational Leadership) at the University of
Montana. Her accolades include being named ``Montana Indian Educator,''
in 2012; awarded the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Career Enhancement
Fellowship by the American Indian College Fund; and, in 2008 the White
Clay Immersion School received the Commissioner's Outstanding Project
Award from the Administration for Native Americans. Two of the
classroom instructors have graduated from the Office of Indian
Education Teacher Training Program. Both of the Aaniiih language
teachers have their doctorate degrees, are fluent in Aaniiih.
Success and Academic Achievement for WCIS students
Graduates from the White Clay Immersion School have transitioned to
public schools and are recognized by these schools as leaders in
student government, academics, and sports. For example, students
graduating from WCIS in 2013 are now sophomores at a local off-
reservation public school. Last year, two students from the White Clay
Immersion Class received the Science Award, Math Award, English Award,
Literature Award and Art Award for their grade at their new off-
reservation high school. They also excelled in athletics, receiving the
varsity basketball awards and were on the honor roll throughout the
school year.
Of the original 2011 graduating class for WCIS who have gone on to
local public schools, three of the four students have been inducted
into the National Honor Society. All four are on the honor roll; they
excel in sports and are involved in community activities; they work
after school and will be employed this summer. All of these students
will be seniors in fall 2014. For the last three years, these students
have been at the forefront of leadership within their school. They are
on the student council; participate in Jobs for Montana Graduates,
Indian Club, Yearbook, volunteer programs and lead the class awards at
the end of school year. Two of three students who have graduated from
WCIS in 2012 have been inducted into the National Honor Society and all
are on the honor roll. They have received numerous awards in high
school and are working summer jobs current for the City of Harlem.
These students excel in their specific clubs, are managers on sports
teams excel in track, basketball and volley ball. They volunteer in the
community or school on a regular basis.
Financial Security for WCIS
Financial support for the White Clay Immersion Schools has been
sporadic. The bulk of funding has come from private foundations and
local support. In addition, we have received funding from the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services' Administration of Native
American (ANA) program. However, this is a competitive program and in
some years, WCIS has not been funded.
WCIS does not receive funding from the state or any federal formula
funding. Instead, the staff host fund raisers to support schools trips,
lunches, supplies and other school activities. Although it is a
struggle at times, Aaniiih Nakoda College remains committed to our goal
for the survival of our Aaniiih language, and we remain committed to
all current and future students of the White Clay Immersion School, who
hold the future of our people in their hands and hearts. Grounded in
their culture and confident in their language, we know that through
them, our people and our language will thrive for many generations to
come.
Other Successful Native Language Models: TCUs Lead the Way
American Indian education scholar Jon Reyhner brings perspectives
from American Indian leaders and educators on the critical role and
value of tribal languages in the lives of tribal people and the health
and well-being of their communities:
Cecelia Fire Thunder, former Oglala Sioux Tribal President,
stated ``I speak English well because I spoke Lakota well. .
.our languages are value based. Everything I need to know is in
our language. It is bringing back our values, and good things
about how to treat each other.'' (2005 at NIEA).
Richard Littlebear, President of Chief Dull Knife College
said, ``Our youth are apparently looking to urban gangs for
those things that will give them a sense of identity,
importance and belongingness. . .But we (the Cheyenne) have all
the characteristics in our tribal structures that will reaffirm
the identities of our youth.''
Vine Deloria and Daniel Wildcat, in Power and Place: Indian
Education in America, 2001, outline a framework for Indigenous
language revitalization programs. Deloria writes, ``power and
place produce personality. . . .the Native American sacred view
contrasts with the material and pragmatic focus of the larger
American society.''
Lanny Real Bird, Crow and Arikara Professor at Little Big
Horn College notes, ``Many of the participants, facilitators,
or teachers of the native languages are elders, who bring a
wealth of knowledge not just limited to the languages. Their
experience provides interaction with cultural practices or
experiences, values, protocol, and holistic awareness that
includes spiritual and traditional teachings.'' \2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Reyhner, Jon. ``Indigenous Language Immersion Schools for
Strong Indigenous Identities.'' Northern Arizona University. 2011. Page
8-10.
Yet, despite the documented need and proven value, funding for
language immersion and revitalization programs has been particularly
problematic for American Indian people, particularly because funding
sources are categorical (have specific departmental priorities, have
extreme dollar limitations, and are short-term). A study conducted by
Dr. Janine Pease in 2003, and discussed above, reports on 50 language
immersion projects in Indian Country and documents the serious
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
challenges language program have in acquiring sustained support:
American Indian language revitalization programs are a
difficult fit for programs most often designed for other
language groups, Hispanic serving schools, colleges and
communities.
Language programs funding is several federal agencies have a
severe limitation in funding, making competition stiff and
discouraging applications altogether.
Grant terms of three to five years limit the language
programs sustainability, thereby limiting language learning as
well.
Granting agencies have little or no support for planning or
start-up costs; language programs benefit from plans well-done
and substantial startup cost support. \3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Ibid. Pease-Pretty On Top, Janine. 2003
Despite these difficulties, some excellent programs are in place at
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tribal Colleges, which can serve as models for others.
Aaniiih Nakoda College's White Clay Immersion School, our
own highly successful full-day immersion school, on the ANC
campus, for kindergarten through 8th grade--the successes and
challenges of our program are discussed above.
Little Big Horn College and Fort Peck Community College in
Montana have developed a tribal languages acquisition program
using the Plains Indian Sign Language as the means for learning
and using four hundred terms and phrases in the Crow, Nakona
(Assiniboine) and Dakota languages. This initiative has
classroom strategies, DVD for viewing at home on the TV and CD
for listening in the car or on mobile listening devices.
The Piegan Institute of Browning MT developed three K-8
language immersion schools: Cuts Wood, Moccasin Flat and Lost
Child. The schools instruct all subjects in the Blackfeet
language. Founder Darrell Kipp says, ``the school's graduates
are the first young fluent speakers of the Blackfeet language
in a generation. . .the school is not only resuscitating the
language, but also help to preserve Blackfeet culture.
At Turtle Mountain Community College in Belcourt, North
Dakota, a key institutional goal is for all college employees
to engage in 100 hours of language instruction, with 20 percent
of staff reaching fluency.
Aaniiih Nakoda College and six other TCUs in Montana have
collaborated in the Learning Lodge Institute to develop best
practices in language teaching and to create a certification
process to enable language instructors to teach in public
school classrooms.
Oglala Lakota College, in Kyle, South Dakota, has also
established a successful k-5 Lakota language immersion school,
while also working to expand the number and effectiveness of
language instructors through inter-departmental collaboration
of the Lakota Studies and teacher training programs.
As these examples demonstrate, preserving, revitalizing, and
teaching Native languages are fundamental priorities of the nation's
Tribal Colleges. In fact, many were established specifically to protect
and preserve a tribe's language. Over the years, the TCUs have
broadened their programming beyond college-aged students to impact
younger children.
Closing Recommendations
Mr. Chairman, I join President Shortbull and all of the Tribal
Colleges, in making these recommendations:
(1) Include Senator Tester's TCU language research provisions:
The Committee should include the important Tribal College
Native language research and education programs, which he
included in legislation he introduced in the 110 and 111th
Congresses as part of THE PATH legislation, as an amendment to
S. 1948. To revitalize our languages, we must work at all
levels, pre-K to college, and we must continue to expand
critically needed Native language research.
More support is needed for Native language immersion programs,
classes, community-based programs, and enrichment activities.
However, equally important is the need to invest wisely in
research and pedagogy and how Native Language use improves the
academic achievement of Native American students. Tribal
Colleges simply cannot continue to be asked to do more with
less.
(2) Increase ANA language grant periods: To achieve significant
results that will truly impact the future of our people, the
DHHS-ANA language grant program should be modified: rather than
awarding grants for a period of three years, grants should be
awarded for a period of 10 years. Alternatively, DHHS-ANA could
adopt the model used with success by the National Science
Foundation. NSF currently makes awards under its Tribal College
and University program for period of five years, with the
option to award an additional 5-year grant upon a demonstration
of adequate progress. NSF has determined that to address
systemic challenges, sustainable funding for at least 10 years
is needed.
In closing, I will simply echo words of frustration, which I heard
from many members of the Committee during your hearing last week on
American Indian higher education: it is so incredibly frustrating to
know that the need is so very great and the models of success exist; to
know that Tribal Colleges--more so than any other entities--are working
every day to transform Indian Country, achieving success but being
rewarded only with flat-line or decreased funding; to be asked by our
people, the Administration, and Congress to do more and more with less
and less. We are accountable institutions. We need the Administration
to be accountable as well.
Mr. Chairman, our struggles will continue. We need your help and
that of the Administration not just to acknowledge the existence of
treaties and the federal trust responsibility, but to take concrete
action--starting right now--to advance the proven the successes of the
Tribal Colleges and increase our capacity to do even more for the
betterment of Indian Country. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Representative Brockie.
Mr. Shortbull?
STATEMENT OF THOMAS SHORTBULL, PRESIDENT, OGLALA LAKOTA COLLEGE
Mr. Shortbull. Mr. Chairman, I am Thomas Shortbull,
President of Oglala Lakota College. Thank you for inviting me
to address the Committee today. I appreciate the opportunity to
personally acknowledge my good friend, Senator Tim Johnson, and
to thank him for being a dedicated champion of the Nation's
tribal colleges and universities during his 28-year tenure in
Congress. I speak for all the members when I say he will be
greatly missed when he retires later this year.
Mr. Chairman, the tribal colleges support passage of S.
2299. This modest legislation is helping tribal colleges as we
work to preserve and sustain our tribal languages and cultures.
Greater funding is needed now because once the language is
gone, it is lost forever. Ironically, in some ways the loss of
our Native languages mirrors that experience by immigrants who
came to this Country more than 200 years ago. When immigrants
spoke broken English, they were made fun of. As a result,
almost all immigrants chose not to speak their native language
to their children and grandchildren. This is the same choice
that many American Indian parents made generations ago, because
they were made fun of and worse, summarily punished for
speaking in their native languages around non-Indians.
These immigrants and American Indians concluded that to
succeed in this Country, there was no choice but to forego
speaking their native language. The result is that native
languages have all but disappeared on some reservations. This
is not the case on Pine Ridge, where most elders still speak
our language, but not our children. Today on 5 percent of 4 to
6 year olds on my reservation can speak Lakota. This change in
only two or three generations is a direct effect of the
cultural genocide which was perpetrated against Native people.
The Federal Government has a moral and legal responsibility
to correct the consequences of its appalling practices of the
past. Native language programs need to be immediately and
adequately funded, so that future generations of Indian people
will be able to experience their own Native language and
culture and know where they come from and who they are. Several
years ago, OLC staff began to notice a troubling trend. Every
year, fewer of our entering students could speak Lakota. Most
of these students had attended local schools, some of them
speaking Lakota language classes for 8 to 12 years. They could
recite on average about 20 words and a few phrases.
However, the sad fact is that on my reservation, language
instruction in our K to 12 schools has not produced any Native
language speakers over the last 40 years. We knew that if our
people had any hope for reversing this trend, it was up to OLC.
It was time for OLC to open our own elementary Native language
school. We applied for the first of two three-year grants from
ANA, but we spent most of the first three years of our project
researching methods for achieving greater Lakota language
proficiency while teaching the language.
We came to understand that to maximize our effectiveness
and make systematic change, an immersion program is the only
solution. Based on our experiences, we have two
recommendations. First, the ANA language grant program should
award grants for a period of 10 years or in two five-year
periods, rather than the three two-year periods. It takes at
least 10 years to establish a strong and successful program.
Second, the TCUs, as Clarena said, we need to follow your
recommendation in THE PATH so that we can be included in S.
1948.
I would like to use my final minute of time to bring to the
Committee's attention a very important issue. Adult education
is critically important for adults seeking a second chance in
life. That chance was given to our World War II veterans right
after World War II, when they could get GEDs and go on to
college. American Indians have the highest high school dropout
rate, highest unemployment and poverty rates in the Nation. I
strongly support dedicated Federal funding to tribal colleges
to provide adult education programs, including GED training.
Today we have no dedicated funding. It all goes to the States,
even though they count our people in a State funding formula.
I want to alert the Committee to a very serious threat to
the success of any GED seekers. This January 8th, the
organization entrusted with creating the GED exam over 70 years
ago unveiled a new GED test that focuses heavily on math skills
and it excessively difficult. In my view, the new requirement
would be at the expense of those seeking to join the military,
attend a vocational school or take advantage of other
employment opportunities that require a high school diploma
These people would likely have the skills needed to pass the
old GED test, but the doors of opportunity will be closed to
them because they may not pass the new GED exam.
We asked graduating high school seniors on the Pine Ridge
Reservation to take the new GED practice test. The result, 61
percent could not pass it, yet they are graduating from high
school. This experiment demonstrates that the new GED exam
could negatively impact American Indians and other minorities,
and will greatly reduce employment opportunities for the poor
in this Country. I ask that this Committee and other committees
of jurisdiction examine the ramifications of the new GED exam,
including the impact on Americans who are at the greatest
danger of having doors of opportunity closed to them, simply
because they cannot pass the new GED exam. We need to ensure
that the GED and other equivalency tests are fair and relevant
to all Americans.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Shortbull follows:]
Prepared Statement of Thomas Shortbull, President, Oglala Lakota
College
Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the Committee, on behalf
of my institution, Oglala Lakota College in Kyle, South Dakota and the
36 other Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) in the U.S. that
compose the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC), thank
you for inviting me to testify at this hearing examining legislation to
strengthen efforts to preserve and revitalize our Native languages.
My name is Thomas Shortbull. I am a member of the Oglala Lakota
tribe, President of Oglala Lakota College in South Dakota, and a member
of the Board of Directors of AIHEC. It is an honor to speak with the
members of this Committee about Tribal Colleges and the work we are
doing to transform Indian Country. I am grateful to have this
opportunity to recognize my good friend, Senator Tim Johnson, with whom
I served in the South Dakota State Senate in the mid-1980s, and to
thank him for being a dedicated champion of the nation's Tribal
Colleges and Universities during his 28-year tenure in the United
States Congress. I speak for all of the AIHEC member institutions in
wishing him a retirement that is all he envisions and indeed, deserves.
He will be greatly missed.
Mr. Chairman, this afternoon, I will speak briefly about the Tribal
College Movement and the legislation that is the subject of this
hearing, including some recommendations that we are confident will
advance our collective efforts to preserve and strengthen Native
languages and culture. I will also take this opportunity to discuss the
need for Adult Basic Education programs in Indian Country, and lastly,
I will describe some of my concerns about the newly implemented GED
test. I ask that my written statement, submitted on behalf of Oglala
Lakota College and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, be
included in the Hearing Record.
Background: The Tribal College Movement
Mr. Chairman, you and the members of this Committee have visited
Tribal Colleges; you have walked on our campuses, met with our
leadership, and spent time with our students. All of this must have
given you a fairly clear picture of the often tenuous financial
situation facing many of our TCUs, when compared to state colleges and
universities. Through visits to our campuses, you have gained an
appreciation for the danger that inconsistent and inadequate funding
presents to our efforts to attract and retain American Indian students
and high quality faculty, to hire grant writers with the ability to
compete against Research 1 institutions (as we are required to do), and
to learn about and adopt the latest teaching, data collection, and
management strategies required to maintain accreditation with regional
accrediting bodies. These are issues we grapple with on a daily basis,
even as we work to rebuild self-esteem and instill hope, a strong work
ethic, and purposeful engagement within our students, many of whom have
known little except lives of extreme poverty, unemployment, violence,
abuse, and neglect. We are doing all of this work and more in
conditions that rival third world countries--amidst often dysfunctional
governments and failing social systems, broken families, and oppression
from both without and within. Yet, we are resilient, and we are
succeeding. We are changing the lives and futures of students and their
families for generations to come through a holistic and supportive
educational environment that is culturally-based and relevant to our
students and their families. We are building stronger and more
prosperous Tribal nations through the restoration of our languages,
community outreach programs and applied research on issues relevant to
our land and our people, workforce training in fields critical to our
reservation communities, and community-centered economic development
and entrepreneurial programs. We are transforming our education
systems--training early childhood educators, successfully managing once
failing Head Start programs, rebuilding schoolhouses and children's
lives; reforming K-12 science and math programs and providing summer
and Saturday enrichment alternatives; preparing an American Indian K-12
teacher workforce; and transforming Native language instruction at all
levels. We are growing a Native health care workforce--from behavioral
health to emergency room nursing, to serve our people and provide care
in our language and according to our customs.
We must be doing something right, because despite the lack of
adequate funding and many other challenges we face, the Tribal College
Movement has grown tremendously since Oglala Lakota College was
established by my tribal leaders 43 years ago. To support our young and
developing institutions, in 1973, Oglala Lakota College and the five
other TCUs in existence at the time came together to establish the
American Indian Higher Education Consortium--AIHEC--enabling us to more
effectively address the unmet higher education needs of American
Indians and Indian country.
Today, 37 Tribal Colleges operate more than 75 sites in 16 states.
TCUs are located in the Plains, the Southwest, the Great Lakes, the
Northwest and even the North Slope of Alaska and have advanced American
Indian higher education--and all Indian people--significantly since we
first began in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Let me give you just one
example: before Oglala Lakota College launched our nursing program,
none of the nurses employed by the Indian Health Service to work on the
Oglala reservation were American Indian. Today, more than 50 percent of
the nurses on our reservation are American Indian and 85 percent of
them are graduates of Oglala Lakota College.
Yet despite these advances, the lack of adequate funding that I
mentioned earlier remains a serious obstacle to the sustainability,
independence, and competitiveness of TCUs. A number of factors
contribute to our ongoing funding challenges.
While Tribal Colleges are public institutions, they are not
state institutions, and consequently, we receive little or no
state funding. In fact, very few states provide support for the
non-Indian state residents attending TCUs, which account for
about 20 percent of all Tribal College students. However, if
these same students attended a state institution, the state
would be required to provide the institution with operational
support for them. This is something we are trying to rectify
through education and public policy change at the state and
local level.
The tribal governments that have chartered Tribal Colleges
are, for the most part, not among the handful of enormously
wealthy gaming tribes located near major urban areas that one
reads about in the mass media. Rather, they are some of the
poorest governments in the nation. In fact, seven of the 10
poorest counties in America are home to a Tribal College.
Finally, the Federal Government, despite its trust
responsibility, binding treaty obligations, and the exchange of
more than one billion acres of land, has never fully-funded our
primary institutional operations source, the Tribally
Controlled Colleges and Universities Assistance Act (TCU Act),
and overall, funds TCUs at levels far below that of other
institutions of higher education. Today, the TCU Act is
appropriated at about $5,850 per full time Indian student,
which after more than 30 years is still only about 73 percent
of the level authorized by Congress to operate these Tribal
institutions. Faced with ever rising costs of day-to-day
operations, to continue to thrive and expand as community-based
institutions, TCUs must stabilize, sustain, and increase our
basic operational funding. While our per student funding is
higher than it has been at times in the past, it is still
considerably lower than the operating support received by other
public 4-year institutions, which is the direction that many
TCUs are evolving. In fact, 13 TCUs currently offer several
bachelor's degrees each and five, including Oglala Lakota
College, offer master's degrees.
Tribal Colleges are first and foremost academic institutions, but
because of the number of challenges facing Indian Country--high
unemployment, poorly developed economies, poor health status, and lack
of stable community infrastructures, Tribal Colleges are called upon to
do much more than provide higher education services. Tribal Colleges
often run entrepreneurial and business development centers; many TCUs
are the primary GED and Adult Basic Education provider on their
reservations, and most if not all TCUs offer a variety of educational
and training programs for tribal employees, BIA and IHS staff, K-12
schools, tribal courts and justice system staff, and many others in a
manner to suit their work schedules. TCUs run day care centers,
elementary immersion schools, Head Start programs, health nutrition
education programs, community gardens, and often, the only community
library and tribal museum or archives. Mr. Chairman, Tribal Colleges
are by any definition engaged institutions, intricately woven into the
fabric of our respective communities.
S. 2299: Reauthorizing the Native American Programs Act of 1974 to
continue a provision to ensure the survival and continuing vitality of
Native American languages. We strongly support this reauthorization,
and we urge the Committee to work toward its enactment this year.
Tribal Colleges are actively and aggressively working to preserve and
sustain our tribal language and culture. All TCUs offer Native language
courses. In some cases, the tribal language would have been completely
lost if not for the local Tribal College. Turtle Mountain Community
College in Belcourt, North Dakota, was established primarily for this
purpose, and over the years, its success in writing and revitalizing
the Turtle Mountain Chippewa language has been truly remarkable.
Aaniiih Nakoda College in Montana runs a K-6 language immersion school,
right on campus. At the White Clay Immersion School, children learn the
White Clay language and culture in addition to subjects they would
routinely study at any other school. Oglala Lakota College does the
same, operating the successful Lakota Language Immersion School for
kindergarten through fifth grade, next door to our main campus. Other
TCUs are teaching and providing care in our Native language to our
youngest children, as a regular part of the college's day care program
for infants and toddlers.
Additionally, many TCUs offer unique associate and bachelor degree
programs that include Native language instruction, as well as in-
service teacher training in language and culture. At the TCUs, teacher
education programs follow cultural protocols and stress the use of
Native language in everyday instruction.
Some Committee members might wonder why Tribal Colleges, as
academic institutions of higher education, would be focusing on
language revitalization, running Head Start and day care programs, and
establishing our own elementary immersion schools. Why? Because we are
holistic institutions. TCUs focus on the whole student--mind, body,
spirit, family, and community. We know that just as we are succeeding
in higher education, we can ``put our minds together'' and implement
strategies of success for our babies and children. Where others might
fail, we have the commitment and the stability to succeed.
Several years ago, we began to notice a troubling trend at Oglala
Lakota College: every year, fewer and fewer of our entering students
were fluent in--or could even speak--our Lakota language. The vast
majority of these students had attended schools in the local area, some
of them taking Lakota language courses for eight, 10, or even 12 years.
Yet, their mastery of the Lakota language was missing. They could
recite a few words, ina--ahte (mother--father) and some simple phrases,
sing a few Lakota songs, and count waancci--wikceemna (1-10). The sad
fact is that is that on my reservation language instruction in the K-12
schools has not produced any language speakers over the last 40 years.
Even more troubling, we conducted our own survey within our local
communities and learned that while 70-80 percent of our elders could
speak Lakota, only about 5 percent of our tribe's 4- to 6-year-olds
could speak the language.
We at Oglala Lakota College knew that if our people had any hope
for reversing this trend, it was up to our college. The
responsibility--and what's more, the will--to act was ours. It was time
for OLC to open our own elementary school.
Oglala Lakota College applied for and received the first of two 3-
year grants from the Department of Health and Human Services'
Administration on Native Americans. Because of the depth and complexity
of the language issues facing our people, we spent most of the first
three years of our project (Grant 1) researching different methods for
achieving greater Lakota language proficiency. We opened our Lakota
School teaching about one-half of the curricula in Lakota and the other
half in English. However, after studying other elementary education
programs, including highly successful Maori and Native Hawaiian
programs, as well as monitoring the progress of our own students, we
realized that to maximize our effectiveness and make systemic change,
an immersion program is the solution. Last fall, in the second year of
Grant 2, our Lakota Immersion School provided Lakota language immersion
instruction to our K-5 students.
Based on our experience at Oglala Lakota College, we have two
recommendations for this Committee:
(1) To achieve significant results that will truly impact the
future of our people, the DHHS-ANA language grant program
should be modified: rather than awarding grants for a period of
three years, grants should be awarded for a period of 10 years.
Alternatively, DHHS-ANA could adopt the model used with success
by the National Science Foundation. NSF currently makes awards
under its Tribal College and University program for period of
five years, with the option to award an additional 5-year grant
upon a demonstration of adequate progress. NSF has determined
that to address systemic challenges, sustainable funding for at
least 10 years is needed.
(2) Because of the extensive work that Oglala Lakota College
and the other TCUs are already doing to determine the most
effective strategies for teaching our children and preserving
our endangered languages, and more important, to expand this
urgent work, a TCU research grant program should be included in
S. 1948, the Native Language Immersion Student Achievement Act.
Such a program would enable TCUs to continue to work to
identify the best language pedagogy to achieve systemic change
and ensure the survival and revival of our Native languages.
Indeed, Mr. Chairman, we believe that you understand the
critical need for this type of program because in both the
110th and 111th Congresses, you included such a provision in
legislation you sponsored known as THE PATH. This legislation
was developed to support the work of TCUs in Native language
research and practice; health professions workforce
development; and Native health and wellness health research and
programs. We strongly urge you to include the Native language
provisions of THE PATH in S. 1948. It is vital that TCUs be
included in this legislation, which currently excludes us.
American Indian Adult Basic Education and the New GED Test
In the mid-1990s, Congress eliminated a modest set-aside within the
Adult Basic Education (ABE) block grant program, which funded vitally-
needed TCU GED and ABE training programs. These programs had a specific
purpose: to help put more unemployed American Indians--who had little
or no chance of getting a job--into the workforce. With the elimination
of this modest set-aside, all federal funding for ABE, literacy
training, and GED preparation goes to the states, which rarely fund
tribal GED programs.
Despite the absence of dedicated funding, TCUs have attempted to
find means, often using already insufficient institutional operating
funds, to provide adult basic education and GED preparation for
American Indians in need of a second chance: young or old, all of whom
the K-12 Indian education system has failed. Oglala Lakota College has
done its share. Over the past 43 years, OLC has awarded more than 3,000
GEDs to our people. Three thousand tribal members now have a chance to
go on to college or to simply get a job, pay taxes, and contribute to
the future of this nation because of OLC's GED program.
As this Committee knows, many more of our people are in need of a
second chance. American Indians have the highest high school drop-out
rates in the nation. On some of our reservations, well more than 50
percent of all youth drop-out. Later, often when it is too late, they
realize that they need a high school degree to secure even a low level
job. So they turn to the only alternative: the GED.
This is exactly the intent of the GED program. Since it was
developed in the 1940s, the GED has always been a second chance. First,
it was designed to be a second chance for returning GIs, men who left
high school before graduation to become the Greatest Generation. When
they returned home, they found that they could not take advantage of
their GI Bill education entitlements because they lacked a high school
diploma. So the GED was developed to be their second chance. Congress
created the program and the American Council on Education (ACE) was
entrusted to develop the test and preparation program.
For decades, the GED has served as a second chance for thousands
and thousands of American Indians, many of whom join the work force
immediately or go on to become Tribal College graduates, often
continuing their education to earn bachelors' and advanced degrees. In
fact at OLC, some of our most successful students hold a GED. But
today, our ability to continue to provide GED preparation and testing
is tenuous. In fact, some TCUs have already stopped providing this
vital service, including several in the Chairman's home state of
Montana. They simply cannot afford to provide it any longer,
particularly with recent sequestration cuts on top of years of flat-
line funding and labor-intensive reporting requirements imposed by
states (if the state even allows TCUs to participate).
As I mentioned earlier, American Indians have the highest high
school drop-out rates, highest unemployment, and highest poverty rates
in the nation. We ask only for the same opportunity for a second
chance--the same chance to succeed--that is available to others in this
country through the federal ABE block grant program. Tribal Colleges
must have sufficient and stable funding to continue (or resume)
providing essential GED and ABE services.
The New GED: Congressional Oversight Needed
With the launch of the new GED, the need to address this challenge
is even more critical. Today, adequate funding is only part of the
problem. Tribal Colleges are concerned about the significant changes
made to the GED test in 2013. The new GED exam, which was instituted in
January 2014, has shifted its focus from being ``second chance'' for
those who did not complete high school to being an academic, college
preparatory examination. With a much stronger focus on mathematics,
science, and writing, the new GED is widely acknowledged as being
significantly more difficult to pass than the previous test. In fact,
the 7.5 hour exam has become so difficult that even high school
graduates often cannot pass it. This May, we conducted an experiment
involving seven feeder high schools to Oglala Lakota College. We asked
graduating seniors to take the official, ACE-developed practice exam
for the new GED test. Of the 68 graduating seniors who took the test,
61 percent did not pass. Yet, they all earned a high school diploma. If
those of us in this room today took the exam, the results would
probably be similar, if not worse. Some states have become so concerned
about the shift in focus and difficulty of the GED that they are
abandoning it in favor of other high school equivalency tests.
As Tribal Colleges, the new GED poses a serious dilemma for us.
Without question, we want students to enter our institutions
academically prepared for higher education, and the new GED test may
help ensure this. But it also may ensure that many, if not most, of our
tribal people will never have the opportunity for a second chance. They
will never gain the most basic tool needed to lift themselves out a
cycle of generational poverty and oppression: a high school equivalency
diploma. Currently, about 70 percent of entering TCU students need
developmental courses in math and more than half must take one or more
developmental courses in reading and writing. The fact that these
students would not pass the new GED exam may not be significant
nationally. But in communities with 50 to 80 percent unemployment,
extreme poverty, the nation's highest suicide and domestic violence
rates, the impact could be devastating.
The academic focus and rigor of the new GED is not our only
concern. The new exam is fully electronic, and it is costly. While
younger GED seekers may be comfortable with computer-based testing,
older members of our community are not, yet their need for employment
and their desire to make their lives better is real. To adequately
prepare them academically and at the same time develop their computer
literacy will require greater preparation, in terms of training and
practice, which will be an unfunded expense for our institutions.
Finally, the fees for taking preliminary practice tests and the actual
GED exam have risen sharply, placing yet another obstacle to low-income
individuals, or in our case, to the Tribal Colleges.
We ask that the Committee work with the Tribal Colleges and our
AIHEC Office to make the GED and other equivalency exams fair and
relevant to all Americans. We urge you to hold oversight hearings on
the implementation of the new exam. I believe we may even need to
consider two or three tiers of tests, which individuals could take
depending on their aspirations and needs. This may be viewed as a
controversial statement, and it is not one with which all of my
colleagues agree, but it may be a reality, and it certainly should be
discussed, depending on the outcome of this year's GED exams.
Mr. Chairman and Senator Johnson, thank you for this opportunity to
share our story, successes, and concerns with you today. We look
forward to enactment of legislation to advance the preservation and
revitalization of our Native languages and to a day when all
Americans--including the first Americans--seeking to further their
education and career goals have full and fair chance at success.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Shortbull. I appreciate your
bringing up the GED situation. That definitely gets it on our
radar screen.
Now, Ed Delgado, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF HON. ED DELGADO, CHAIRMAN, ONEIDA TRIBE OF INDIANS
OF WISCONSIN
Mr. Delgado. I don't know if I heard this story a few years
ago or if I read it. But I recall during a period in Gallup,
New Mexico, the Navajo Code Talkers walked, had a parade. And
there were a couple of young Navajo youth there, troubled
youth, gang member youth. Where the Code Talkers walked, there
was one youth who said to the other, take off your hat. Those
are Code Talkers, Navajo Code Talkers, show respect. In that
one moment, those tribal youth became better. They became
people that we would be proud of in that few moments.
I say that because there are things in my culture, in
Indian culture and in Indian language that we hold dearly. And
language and culture is truly good medicine. It makes you
better.
Chairman Tester, Ranking Member Barrasso and members of the
Committee, Shekoli. I am Ed Delgado, I am from the People of
the Standing Stone, the Chairman of the Oneida Tribe of Indians
of Wisconsin. I want to thank you for the opportunity to
testify about the importance of preserving Native languages.
With the enactment of S. 1948 and S. 2299, this Committee will
have helped to achieve that goal.
We continue to feel the negative impacts of our
grandparents and our great-grandparents being taken from their
families, sent away to boarding schools and punished if they
spoke the Oneida language. We were forced to assimilate into a
non-Indian culture because, as they were told, it was best for
their future. Thus, they refused to speak and teach the
language to their children, and as a result, our language,
culture and traditions have suffered.
It is our belief that the Oneida language is a key
component of our cultural identity. We are slowly regaining
what we lost. But we need our help to continue our long-term
commitment to language revitalization. Today, the Oneida
currently have only six functional speakers in our community,
as the last fluent speaker passed away one year ago. The Oneida
language has not been the first language spoken by our people
in over a century. And we continue to face obstacles to keep
our language alive.
The majority of Oneida children attend public schools and
are faced with their own challenges of meeting curriculum
goals. Our language is simply not a top priority in those
schools. Fortunately, progress has been made with the local
university and some of the local public school districts to
offer accredited Oneida language courses. Recently, the
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction awarded the Seymour
and Pulaski Community School Districts with a grant. Both
partly reside within the reservation boundaries. The grant is
used for the Oneida language curriculum as an elective course
for high school credit.
The legislation under consideration today will advance
Oneida into a new era of language preservation. S. 1948 will
help students learn native languages by funding language
immersion programs, such as those our tribe has put in place.
We share your view, Mr. Chairman, that this instructional
method enhances participation in educational outcomes, and we
commend you for encouraging other tribes to adopt this model.
We agree, as stated in the bill, that tribes must be
responsible for certifying that the school has the capacity to
provide the Native American language education. The
stakeholders involved in the planning and development of
Oneida's language program in 2010 reached a similar conclusion.
We sincerely appreciate this acknowledgement in the bill.
S. 2299 will reauthorize a number of the important programs
that are being successfully used in Indian Country. Funds from
the Native American Programs Act will provide for the continued
development and success of our language program. One approach
that could be incredibly beneficial is the opportunity for paid
internships and job opportunities for young people working in
the language department. Students who possess a passion for
learning the language would become vested in the future of the
Oneida language. Unfortunately, Oneida's job training program
has a waiting list and we have had to turn away several star
pupils as the language department lacks the resources to hire
them.
In closing, our language is a necessary component to the
very being of our people and our tribe. Unfortunately, we do
not possess enough resources to accommodate the need. We so
desperately need the legislation and the support of members of
Congress who share our values.
Further, it is our hope to continue to refine our language
program and close the Oneida achievement gap in public schools.
With additional resources, not only can the Oneida language be
sustained, but the People of the Standing Stone will persevere.
Yaw-ko, thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Delgado follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Ed Delgado, Chairman, Oneida Tribe of
Indians of Wisconsin
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you, Ed.
Namaka Rawlins, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF NAMAKA RAWLINS, DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS
AND COLLABORATION, AHA PUNANA LEO, INC.
Ms. Rawlins. Greetings, good afternoon Chairman Tester, and
I see that the others have left, but Vice Chairman Barrasso,
and members of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. My name
is Namaka Rawlins, and Senator Tester, and I see that Senator
Johnson has also left, but I want to thank you very much for
introducing S. 1948 and S. 2299.
It is an honor to testify before you in support of these
bills. My full testimony was provided.
I am the Director of Outreach and Partnerships for the `Aha
Punana Leo. The `Aha Punana Leo is the oldest Native American
language immersion non-profit organization in the United
States. Over 30 years ago, our organization grew out of a dream
to save our language. We started with non-certified but highly-
qualified and knowledgeable elders and teamed them with
dedicated, youthful language learners to run our preschools.
Our curriculum was and is grounded in best practices relevant
to our own language and culture.
Those Hawaiian-speaking preschoolers moved into the public
schools, following our same successful teaching methodology of
exclusive use of Hawaiian. In 1999, we graduated our first
seniors, who by the end of high school were highly fluent and
literate in both Hawaiian and English. Today there are 2,500
children in such schools in Hawaii, by far the largest number
of any Native American language program.
We have also established a Hawaiian language college within
the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Besides the undergraduate
program, it has three graduate degrees and an immersion
teacher, education certification program, all taught in
Hawaiian. Our organization worked with the college to develop a
total Hawaiian immersion laboratory school. That laboratory
school has a record of 15 consecutive years of 100 percent
graduation rate. That laboratory school has an 80 percent
college-going rate.
The student population for that school is 95 percent Native
Hawaiian and 75 percent qualify for free and reduced lunch.
These two bills are very important for the survival of
Hawaiian and all Native American languages. Every one of our
Native American languages are at various stages of
endangerment. Some only have one or two elder speakers
remaining. For Hawaiian, there were less than 50 children 18 or
younger fluent in our language when we began. We now have
several thousand. Native language immersion and revitalization
efforts have had a positive impact on communities that extend
beyond proficiency to include cultural and family engagement
and community support. And they have had very positive academic
outcomes.
Senator Tester, when your press release was read to our
21st Annual Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium held
earlier this year in our town of Hilo, resounding applause
erupted from the general assembly, consisting of representative
from 25 States and 10 countries. In attendance were the
majority of the representatives from Native American schools
and programs using their languages as the medium of education.
They included Bureau of Indian Affairs schools, other charter
schools, regular public schools and non-profit administered
schools. Those schools held a special meeting at the symposium
to review your bill, S. 1948, and decided to focus its
potential to further align the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act with the Native American Languages Act.
Like S. 2299 and S. 1948, NALA, the Native American
Languages Act, was a product of this Senate Indian Affairs
Committee. NALA resulted from a bipartisan response supported
across Native America. We indigenous peoples, Native Hawaiians,
American Indians and Alaska Natives, worked together at a grass
roots level to pass NALA. NALA established the United States'
Native American language policy including educational policy
but NALA was not fully reflected in the ESEA. Attached
amendments to S. 1948 were developed as a result of our January
symposium and provide for distinctive Native American language
pathway for education. Such a distinctive Native American
language pathway would be parallel to the distinctive pathway
accorded by NCLB to education in Puerto Rico through its
official language, Spanish.
Senator Tester, Hawaiian is the official language of our
State. Other Native American languages are also official of
their State and their reservations and villages. At present,
because NCLB is not fully compliant with NALA, NCLB has
presented huge discriminatory challenges to all of our Native
American language schools throughout the Country. Those
challenges, I believe, are due to an oversight when NCLB was
drafted over a decade ago. That oversight result in applying an
inappropriate one size fits all to our highly distinctive
schools taught through indigenous Native American languages.
That one size fits all approach ignores our needs for
distinctive standards and assessments and determining qualified
teachers for our Native American language schools.
That one size fits all approach is moving our languages
back toward extinction. One size does not fit all.
All me to give you a specific example of the importance of
the proposed amendments to S. 1948. Our Hawaiian medium
preschool to grade 12 laboratory school, described earlier, is
where we demonstrate best practices in education through a
Native American language. Again, this school boasts a record of
50 consecutive years of 100 percent high school graduation rate
and 80 percent college enrolment rate. Our students graduate
full fluent and literate in both Hawaiian and English, with an
additional six years study of Japanese, a foreign language of
unique importance to our State.
Yet, under NCLB and its flexibility waiver, this same high
achieving laboratory school has incredibly been designated as
the second lowest performing school in the State. NCLB
threatens the very existence of our school. The one size fits
all educational pathway set out in NCLB needs to be changed if
existing Native American language immersion schools are to
survive and continue their good work. That one size fits all
needs to be changed so that more communities throughout the
Country can provide a future for their children based on the
knowledge and language of the ancestors.
I heard it earlier stated that this is an important
solution that we find, is a way going forward. Our amendments
align NCLB to NALA and make it possible for Native American
language medium programs to collaborate with higher education,
tribal colleges, experts, therein aligning accountability
measures to the unique linguistic and cultural features of the
language of instruction, including assessment of academic
content through the language of instruction. Realigning the
accountability framework of NCLB supports the good work being
accomplished across the Country to reverse language loss and to
save our Native American languages.
Mahalo, thank you very much. We do have a word, it is
mahalo. Mahalo, Senator Tester and members for holding this
hearing and we ask for our support to move these bills forward
I assure you that schools taught through Native American
languages, grounded in the policies of NALA, will not only
reverse the effects of past policies of government bans on the
use of our languages but will also produce higher outcomes in
terms of high school graduation, college attendance, community
service and national service.
Mahalo.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Rawlins follows:]
Prepared Statement of Namaka Rawlins, Director of Strategic
Partnerships and Collaboration, Aha Punana Leo, Inc.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you, thank you very much. Thank you all
for your testimony. I very much appreciate it.
Don't let the fact that there aren't a lot of people up
here discourage you. The important time for them to be up here
is when we vote for these bills and pass them out of Committee.
So it is good.
This is a question for all of you, so we will start with
Clarena and just go down the line. At this point in time, I
don't think it is any surprise that many Native language
programs struggle with finding teachers who are not only
qualified to teach but also have the required certification
from the State boards of education to do so. Hopefully this
will change over time as your programs become more successful.
The question is this. Would you support legislation that
would exempt teachers of Native American languages from needing
to be highly qualified under State certification standards, and
allow them simply to be highly proficient in a Native language?
Ms. Brockie. Mr. Chairman, I think they can already do that
in Montana. You can get certified through the State, I think it
is called Class Seven, and teach in the colleges. But at
Aaniiih Nakoda College, we have used our Indian teacher
training program and we have hired both of the teachers there
that are teaching currently. The two teachers are from the
teacher training program and so they are certified.
But for language, yes, we would support that. I know in
Montana you can already do that.
The Chairman. Mr. Shortbull?
Mr. Shortbull. I think that you need to probably not exempt
them but to have them have a college degree and also their
language emphasis be enough to certify them to teach in the
school system. So not an exemption, but a special category for
them.
I want to take this opportunity to deal with one more thing
with GED. That is, I think that they should have done a random
sampling of 100 high schools in this Nation to see how many of
the high school students could have passed it. I believe that
as much as one-third of the 100 schools, the students would not
be able to pass the exam.
And also at this time I want to issue a challenge. I want
to ask all the U.S. Senators to take the new GED exam and let's
see how many of the U.S. Senators can pass it.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Shortbull. And two, the staffers are laughing, and I
would ask all the staffers to take the new GED exam and see how
many of you can pass it. I think the results will be pretty
alarming, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. We will give it a go.
[Laughter.]
The Chairman. Ed, the question about teacher certification,
do you want to take that up?
Mr. Delgado. As a classroom teacher for 17 years, all 17
years, one non-Oneida, non-Indian student, the rest are all
Indians. I would, like Mr. Shortbull, there have to be
parameters there. Learning the languages is very fundamental.
But you also have other qualities, too. You have the
temperament, and you learn that often in your classes. You have
to know about the certain techniques about kindness and
understanding and patience.
So maybe they didn't have to have a four-year degree, but
maybe there is something else they could use.
The Chairman. Ms. Rawlins?
Ms. Rawlins. I guess I am going to go in opposition. That
is how we started. We started, as I explained earlier, our
elders were not certified. We needed to get that exemption so
that we could get them into our schools and be counted as our
teachers in our preschools. So we were bringing them in as
language speakers first, because that is the first thing that
you need, you need to have that high fluency in the classroom.
Then we brought them together with the youthful learners to
run the schools. Eventually, as time goes on and you start to
have those youthful learners who end up becoming teachers,
certified teachers, getting degrees, then you can kind of move
on and then you keep building up. You have to have a way of
bringing in those that will take over, and you need to keep
replacing them with your highly fluent first teachers. Then
find a pathway for them to continue the skills.
I agree with you, you need to have some of that passion for
teaching. Our teachers need to first of all love our children
and take care of our families and be able to work with families
and take care of the children that you are responsible for in
providing an education. So you identify those skills and look
at high language fluency, then you build your program to
continue the education and what-not to get them further.
The Chairman. Thank you. This question is for Clarena.
Tribal colleges and universities play a critical role in
keeping Native students connected to their culture as well as
providing necessary educational options in Indian Country. So
the question is, what role do tribal colleges and universities
have in Native language preservation and revitalization in
Indian Country?
Ms. Brockie. For Aaniiih Nakoda College, part of the
mission is to try to retain the culture. When you talk about
the culture, you are talking about the language, the history,
their ways of how they live, going and being. So that is really
important, I think, as a tribal college. I think they have to
maintain it. I believe that most tribal colleges' mission
statement is the same.
The Chairman. Okay. Following up on that, and this question
is for all of you, what kind of success have you folks observed
in academic behavior of students who are enrolled in immersion
and dual language programs?
Ms. Brockie. If you look at my testimony, it really makes a
difference, it really does. We had two groups of students this
year who are going to be seniors this fall and we have another
group who have just finished their sophomore year. These
students are on the honor roll, three-fourths of them have been
inducted into the Honor Society and all of them who are on the
honor roll have done well in math, science, they are active in
sports, they are on the student council. So you know that this
immersion school, including their culture and history, it is
important to children as they are growing up.
If I could have brought two of our students, I would have
sneaked Cici and Serena in my luggage with you, so they could
have stood here and told you all the things that they know.
These are fourth graders and they know about our history, it is
not just limited to the classroom, but they know where all our
scared sites are, they know where to go get roots. They know
the roots. They know how to do sweetgrass, they dry tobacco,
they know the historical stories, our cultural mythical
characters. They know the trickster stories, they know about He
Who Starved Himself to Death.
To grow up and know the same things that their great-
grandfathers and mothers knew is really something. They know
these stories. Twenty years ago, not even 20, 10 years ago if
you asked someone about, who is He Who Starved Himself to
Death, they wouldn't even know about it. The average student
wouldn't have known about it. But you are seeing more of this
history, culture being taught, not just in immersion school but
in the local schools as well.
So I think it is important for them, and I think once they
are grounded in that, I think they become really secure in who
they are and they advance from there. I have big hopes for
those students when they graduate next year.
The Chairman. We will get them to testify next time,
Clarena.
Mr. Shortbull?
Mr. Shortbull. Mr. Chairman, I would prefer to speak to
your previous question. It may be only tribal colleges or some
grassroots efforts that are going to save our languages in this
Country. The reason for that is the schools are now into what
is called Common Core. They have to meet all of these
requirements and it is going to be, the schools make the
choice, do they want to preserve the language or do they want
to meet Common Core. Most schools are going to choose Common
Core over the language.
So that is the reason I believe that it will end up being
either tribal colleges or grassroots organizations like Namaka,
whom I consider a legend as far as language preservation and
revitalization. We really respect the work that she does.
The Chairman. Ed?
Mr. Delgado. Since my mid-30s, and I am almost 70 now, I
have been an Oneida first and an American citizen second.
Before that, I was an American citizen first. And that was it.
I was heavily grounded in American, my American history. And
that made me a better person.
But being Oneida also makes me a better person, to know
about our cultural stories and our cultural heroes and there
are many. And our history helping create the United States.
That is something that makes me better, knowing that. Just like
prior to my mid-30s, learning all George Washington and Abraham
Lincoln and all that stuff made me better.
So learning about where you where you are and about your
people and your history makes both Indian people proud and
better, just like American people. Your proud history makes all
of you better.
The Chairman. Ms. Rawlins?
Ms. Rawlins. I want to focus, I consider that our students
who have graduated have done well. We usually give the
statistics on the colleges they have attended and from. They
have attended some of the most prestigious colleges. A former
student today is a professor at Oxford. I don't know how much
more we can be providing that information.
And this year we have our first doctor. We have a medical
doctor who has graduated. She will be doing her internship some
place in Virginia.
But more than that, what we find and what our teachers tell
us is that our students are very respectful, they are engaged,
they are eager to learn. Somebody said earlier, they run to
school and then they walk to school and then they run away from
school. That was said earlier, and when I heard that I was
thinking about our school and our laboratory school program.
Our children come to school, our families are engaged and we
get them right through.
It is not only what we find but here in the audience today
we have other school representative who came from the
conference down at Crystal City who are here. I want to
recognize them, because this is hard work. I believe that
because of the dedication, but I know all of you here today are
the cheerleaders for our programs back home. So I want to
recognize and give honor to the work that has been done, all
the good work, and just share the need. We find our students,
as I said, the teachers are telling us that they are very
respectful and eager to learn.
The Chairman. Just for the heck of it, if you are
representing a school that teaches Native languages anywhere in
the Country, stand up.
[Some audience members stand; applause.]
The Chairman. Just for the record, there are too many to
ask where you are all from. I would run out of time. Thank you.
For the panelists, raise your hand if you have ever run out
of ANA funding. Clarena, if you have ever run out of ANA
funding.
[Show of hands.]
Mr. Shortbull. We are about to, Senator.
The Chairman. So you all can answer this, because you can
talk about it. What do you do? What are your options if you run
out of ANA funding? Clarena, we will start with you?
Ms. Brockie. We struggle, of course, but we have people who
are committed to keeping the program open. As I said in my
longer testimony, we have private donors. We have foundations
that are funding us. But we don't have any Federal or State
dollars, and we do our own fundraising for school supplies, for
lunches. Donations are made in that way.
The Chairman. Mr. Shortbull?
Mr. Shortbull. Well, right now the issue is, when our
funding runs out it is going to be a dilemma for us. Right now
we can support it. But if we go through another sequestration
bout, or we go through some Congressional people are on a
different bent on things, we get loss of funding, then there is
really going to be a question mark as to if we can sustain
these programs, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Mr. Delgado?
Mr. Delgado. As stated earlier, we lost our last two
speakers a year ago. When I was teaching, we had three in the
school who taught us, so we could teach our students. We also
took students in and taught the functional speakers, who now
teach. Without them, without our functional teachers, without
being able to create more, we will be handicapped in being able
to transmit our language, not only to our schools but to our
elders and those who want to learn.
The Chairman. Ms. Rawlins?
Ms. Rawlins. We also fund-raise, as a non-profit. We are
fundraising all the time. And we stretch our dollars. When we
get an ANA grant, it is for a specific project to develop what
is a need at that point.
But I do know that there are programs that when they lose
that funding or when they end their grant, they have no way of
sustaining, we may have to let go their director or some very
crucial part of leadership in the program. That is not good.
That is not sustaining some of the good work, some of the good
momentum.
The Chairman. Losing continuity.
Ms. Rawlins. Yes.
The Chairman. So this question is for those who want to
answer it. I don't know if it applies to you or not, Ms.
Rawlins, but it might. By more securely tethering Native
students to their heritage, immersion programs may also be able
to connect speakers of Dakota and Salish and Cherokee and other
languages across Native communities. I say it may not apply to
you, but it might, too. And if it does, I want you to answer
this.
Do you believe that immersion programs serve to connect
Indian students throughout Indian Country in addition to
strengthening inter-tribal connections? Clarena?
Ms. Brockie. I am not sure I know what you mean.
The Chairman. What I mean is that you are teaching White
Clay, the fellow beside you is teaching Lakota. Are there
connections between those two languages and between those two
heritages that allow the tribes to inter-connect?
Ms. Brockie. Well, we are both in the Plains area, we have
some connection. But I think that, I don't know how I would say
this, but we share a lot of ceremonies together with other
tribes. I think these people who are sitting up here know that.
You go to a lot of people in our areas, we have sweats and we
have pipe ceremonies, powwows. We have the Pan Indian thing
going on that everybody does the jingle dress. So yes.
The Chairman. Mr. Shortbull?
Mr. Shortbull. In the 1970s, Dr. Bride wrote a book that
said, once the students take the first four grades, they do
very well. And all of a sudden, an identity crisis hits. We
don't want that identity crisis to hit our Indian students. We
want them to be strong in their culture.
As it relates to the interconnectivity between tribes, you
see it at powwows all the time. People talk about their
language, their culture. So there is that connection that they
have in both trying to preserve their culture.
The Chairman. Okay, anybody else?
This is a question for you, Mr. Delgado, but it could be
for any of you. Have you seen interest from non-Native folks in
learning your language?
Mr. Delgado. I understand that in Pulaski, there are some
classes going on right now and that some non-Indian students
are participating in those, because they have friends who are
Indians, and there are Indians and non-Indians going to school
together, with a reservation right next to them. Also if you go
back to 40 or 50 years ago, the Oneida Reservation, we were
just formulating into a constitutional reservation.
Ther were actually, non-Indians and Indians all speaking
the language.
The Chairman. Very good.
Mr. Delgado. They worked together, really close together.
The Chairman. Mr. Shortbull?
Mr. Shortbull. Mr. Chairman, a great irony of this, and
there are American citizens, but we get a lot of Europeans that
come to our Country and they live with Indian families. They
become fluent speakers. The great irony is that the American
citizens don't want to do that. But the Germans, they dress up
like us, they have clubs and all of this stuff. So we have kind
of an international impact on the reservation, but not an
American impact.
The Chairman. Clarena?
Ms. Brockie. Mr. Chairman, I think in a way, you have to do
something to protect your culture, your families, so they are
not exploited. That is my way of thinking. There are some
ceremonies that you have that non-Indians are not allowed to go
into. And some ceremonies on some tribes that non-members are
not allowed to go into. That is part of your tribal
sovereignty. You have to decide for yourself what you are going
to protect.
The Chairman. Okay.
Ms. Rawlins. For us in Hawaii, we have a history of island
and kingdom and nation of Hawaiian as the language. So we had
commerce and people all over, Hawaiian was the language of the
land.
The Chairman. This is a question for you, Ms. Rawlins. Some
of the discussion around my bill, S. 1948, revolves around
distinction of funding for only immersion programs, rather than
funding alternative methods of language instruction. Could you
explain the importance of using immersion in teaching Native
languages and how this method impacts language acquisition and
learning?
Ms. Rawlins. The method of full immersion of the use of the
language of instruction, that is the method, the methodology is
the use of language and instruction in all content area. So
over the 30 years we have been doing this, the best practice is
the full use of the language in reversing language loss and
increasing fluency, and being able to deliver that all the way
through in the curriculum through high school.
The Chairman. Basically as a technique, immersion and its
effect versus other methods of teaching tribal languages that
are out there.
Ms. Rawlins. Right. That is our best practice, is full
immersion.
Mr. Shortbull. Mr. Chairman, I would like to answer that
question. In the first year that we had our language program,
we went bilingual, 50-50. Then the next year we said the
majority will be in Lakota. But we finally concluded that the
only way to learn the language effectively is through
immersion. So that is where we are today. I believe that no
other program will produce fluent speakers other than through
immersion.
The Chairman. Good. Thank you.
I want to touch on this very quickly, Ms. Rawlins, if you
could. You touched on it in your testimony a little bit. Could
you elaborate on some of the difficulties created or aggravated
by ESEA as it concerns Native language instruction?
Ms. Rawlins. The challenge that we have is that, and I
mentioned it as a one size fits all, is that the State of
Hawaii has put in place, because of the Federal law, because of
No Child Left Behind, that there is only one assessment, one
statewide assessment, one State plan and one statewide
assessment. And it is in English.
So the challenge there is to have the assessment in the
language of instruction. You have a State with an official
language, yet we are not allowed to have that assessment in the
language of instruction. And Puerto Rico is allowed to have
their State assessment in the language of Puerto Rico, which is
Spanish. So that has caused our parents, our families, to
boycott the exam, because that does not give the results, the
good data that you need for the language of instruction.
So because our families are not taking these exams, we are
now at the bottom, as a school we are second to last as an
under-performing school. And with that comes the consequence of
being an under-performing school. Then it kicks in, you need to
change your curriculum, change out your teachers, all of that.
The Chairman. I hear you. And I agree with you.
So Clarena and Tom and Ed and Namaka, I appreciate your
being here today. I appreciate your testimony, I appreciate
your commitment to tribal languages and culture. I think it is
critically important.
I have said it many times in this Committee, that there are
many tribes that are facing third world conditions out there
economically. I think that this is yet another opportunity to
help pull up Indian Country economically and improve the
quality of life.
I want to thank you all for being here, thank you for
traveling the distance you have. I know you believe in the
importance of Native languages.
Thank you all. For the record, the hearing record will
remain open for two weeks from today. With that, the hearing is
adjourned. One more thing, I want to thank the folks from the
Department of Education and Health and Human Services for their
testimony and thank you for sticking around to hear the second
panel's testimony. Thank you very much.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:42 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
Prepared Statement of Hon. Brian Schatz, U.S. Senator from Hawaii
I want to thank Chairman Tester and Vice Chairman Barrasso for
holding this important hearing today to consider S. 1948 and S. 2299,
two bills that matter significantly to the indigenous people of
America.
For centuries, Native Americans faced unjust federal policies of
relocation, assimilation and termination. Their homelands and communal
lifestyles were targeted, families were torn apart; unique traditions
and cultural practices were endangered and sometimes lost forever. In
Hawaii, children were punished for speaking Hawaiian, in the same way
that American Indians and Alaska Natives were punished for using their
own native languages in school. By the early 1970s such policies had
effectively pushed the Hawaiian language to the brink of extinction.
For more than thirty years, Hawaiian educators, families, students,
and the Native Hawaiian community have fought to save and revitalize
their indigenous language. They began with early childhood language
nests and added primary and secondary grades as the children advanced
in grade levels. Now multiple generations have progressed through
Hawaiian medium schools. Hawaiian medium education is available from
preschool to the doctorate level. In fact, Hawaii is the only state in
the nation that grants doctorate degrees in a native language. Hawaii
also produces the most native language learners in the national public
education system, with a record of 40 percent. \1\ The immersion
schools and language nests in Hawaii have become aspirational models
for native language preservation in the United States and worldwide.
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\1\ 40 percent of all students participating in native language
immersion programs are in Hawaii.
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The revival of the Hawaiian language has led to a cultural
renaissance that revitalizes the Native Hawaiian arts--visual arts,
performing arts, and language arts. It also strengthens and preserves a
rich culture and identity that both Native Hawaiians and Hawaii
residents embrace and appreciate. Today, a growing population of Native
Hawaiian speakers helps to sustain and preserve the language. However,
the hard work of revitalizing the Hawaiian language requires an ongoing
and conscientious effort. The immersion schools and language grant
programs supported by S. 1948 and S. 2299 will help to ensure the
continued success in improving education and preserving native
languages not only for Native Hawaiians, but also for American Indians
and Native Alaskans.
I look forward to advancing these bills to help reverse the loss of
native languages and cultures in America. The diversity of native
languages in our country is a unique cultural treasure that enriches us
all.
______
Prepared Statement of J. Michael Bundy, Ph.D., Superintendent, Two
Eagle River Alternative School for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai
Tribes
Introduction
Our school is the Two Eagle River Alternative School for the
Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT). Established in the
1970s, the school was developed out of concern for tribal students
dropping out from local reservation public schools and having no other
educational opportunities available to them.
In my current role as superintendent for the Two Eagle River School
and as the former superintendent for the Northern Cheyenne Tribal
School, I bring my experience and perspective to the issues surrounding
the leadership and management of two BIE funded tribal controlled
schools within Montana. With over thirty years of experience in
education in Alaska, Idaho and Montana, I have extensive knowledge and
understanding of the causation and remediation required to improve
student achievement. After only one year, our math scores raised 22
percent and our reading scores 19 percent at Two Eagle River School.
Our school serves the CSKT Flathead Reservation and any tribal or
Indian student who wishes to attend may do so. Of a special note, there
are seven public schools within the boundaries of our reservation and
yet students choose to attend our school for varying reasons. Parents
and students who apply to our school report to us that they are not
comfortable, are having difficulties fitting in or are seeking more
acceptance than the public schools can offer. Students and parents want
a greater connection to their culture and many public school teachers
are not accepting or understanding of their unique needs.
The purpose of this paper is to shine a light on issues BIE funded
grant schools are facing and struggle with daily. Our mission is clear
and our goals are attainable, but if Indian education and student
achievement are to rise in a sustainable way, certain problematic
issues must be addressed. For example, salaries for teachers and
administrators differ significantly within BIE funded schools by region
and state. Our teachers' and paraprofessionals' salaries have been
frozen for three years and they are paid less than all surrounding
public schools. Benefits such as health insurance and retirement are
critical for the recruitment and retention of high quality teachers.
Working conditions and facilities vary greatly which adds to the
challenge of recruiting to teach in a tribal school. Technology is
absolutely essential for a modern school but without a reliable source
of equipment or technology funding, computers become old, outdated and
unreliable. Teachers want and expect the tools to teach students
properly each day. Our school currently has a budget of $245.00 for
technology and all of our computers need updating or replacing.
Technology requires IT staff to maintain or administer instructional
software yet most schools give this responsibility to a staff member
who may or may not have the expertise to adequately perform this task.
Administrators are told to just go write a grant in order to add a new
program or update computers. Educational technology is not an elective
function to be purchased by a windfall of grant dollars but requires a
systematic process for continual maintenance and replacement.
As the educational leader for our school and tribal community, the
following issues I wish to share with you. I realize certain issues or
programs that require funding are dependent on congressional
appropriations, however equity and fairness is an important element in
the responsibility to raise student achievement.
1.) Lack of Adequate ISEP Funding
Two Eagle River Alternative School (TERS) serves students 8th
through 12th grade in Western Montana. Our ISEP weighted student fund
average is $8,925. In Montana, with equalization payments, basic
Average Daily Membership (ADM), teacher quality payments and impact
aid, public schools on the reservation receive over $14,600 per student
in attendance. TERS receives $5,773 less per student compared to the
public schools on our reservation in Montana. This past fall, our 2013
enrollment was 104 students for which an equivalent amount of funding
as the public schools would require an additional $577,000. Our ISEP
funds every element of our school including personnel costs (salaries
and benefits), instructional supplies, textbooks, student
organizations, student activities, and other general fund expenditures.
This disparity is difficult to overcome when trying to offer
instructional programs of equal merit to students of a tribally
controlled grant school. This year, due to changes in health insurance
costs to the tribe under the affordable care act our school budget
increase for this item was nearly $200,000. This additional expense
comes at a time in the same year 6 percent of funding was withheld due
to sequestration. No allowance for increased benefit costs are planned
or adjusted for in ISEP or administrative funding with the new health
care law implementation.
2.) Title I Funds
To date, Two Eagle River School has not received this year's
funding for Title I. In years' past funding was received in July or
early fall but always much earlier than this year. Communication
between TERS and BIE has been slow or absent. It is difficult to count
on and pay employee salaries when we do not know if a problem exists or
if funding has been reduced or eliminated. We have been requested to
prepare our Title I budget which we have done using last year's
information, but we are still unsure if changes are occurring. Since
Title I funds are such a large and important part of our school budget,
I cannot imagine why we have not received our funds. Title program
funding needs to be available at the beginning of our school year in
order for us to effectively plan and use this towards assisting our
students.
3.) Vocational Funding
An extremely important aspect of any public high school is the
preparation for the world of work beyond graduation. Many students may
choose to enter college but most will seek training in vocational
programs. Currently, the BIE does not fund any form of vocational
education. Although a year of vocational education is a graduation
requirement in Montana, as well as in most states, no funding is
allocated for this area of education. With a national emphasis on jobs
and job-related skill development, I find this to be a missing link for
many of my American Indian students. Resources must be found to support
this important aspect of Indian education, and at this time this is not
occurring.
4.) Impact Aid/Johnson O'Malley
At present, 100 percent of our students reside on tribal
reservation lands, however, as a BIE funded school our students are not
eligible for impact aid. Public schools inside of our reservation are
eligible for impact aide in lieu of taxes to offset loss of funding. We
have seven public schools on our reservation and they receive both
state aid and impact aid. Grant schools are similar to charter schools
and charter schools are eligible under the impact aid law. Tribal grant
schools same as charter schools should be allowed to apply for impact
aid to supplement their budgets. Tribal grant schools should be given
the same consideration as other `heavily impacted' districts similar to
districts with military or defense property. Although not a taxing
authority, a tribal school's expenditures does require higher costs for
both additional essential staff positions and for a high quality
teaching staff. Additional personnel costs for positions such as dean
of students, instructional coach, school family liaison, school
resource officer and counseling services are required to address the
unique social and cultural needs of our students and families.
From the DOE website:
Since 1950, Congress has provided financial assistance to these
local school districts through the Impact Aid Program. Impact Aid was
designed to assist local school districts that have lost property tax
revenue due to the presence of tax-exempt Federal property, or that
have experienced increased expenditures due to the enrollment of
federally connected children, including children living on Indian
lands. The Impact Aid Law (now Title VIII of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA)) provides assistance to local
school districts with concentrations of children residing on Indian
lands, military bases, low-rent housing properties, or other Federal
properties and, to a lesser extent, concentrations of children who have
parents in the uniformed services or employed on eligible Federal
properties who do not live on Federal property.
Further, Johnson O'Malley funds supplemented schools with Indian
students for years and was a valuable part of providing supplemental
assistance for Indian students. Today as an example, school funding at
TERS has been reduced in the last few years from approximately $11,000
to $2,000. This small amount is not enough to effectively be weaved
into any instructional program.
We currently are a SIG improvement grantee and have made valuable
gains in reading and math. The concern is sustainability beyond year
three of the grant. Schools tend to balloon during grant years but have
to scale back once the last year of funding is complete. Without
sustained funding, programs and personnel are trimmed and the school
returns to a former state of struggle and minimal accomplishment.
5.) Administrative Costs
Although our administrative costs are reasonable, the CSKT tribe
requires all indirect funding and administrative funds remain with the
tribe. Additional administrative costs are supported from our ISEP
Funds. By having to use ISEP funds for this purpose, less ISEP funds
are available for teacher salaries, benefits, technology purchases and
school supplies etc. Administrative funding should be adequate to cover
all expenses and need to be available to the school.
As in our previous example, with additional healthcare costs and
the necessity to recruit and retain high quality teachers,
administrative costs should reflect the reality of increased expenses
all schools are experiencing.
6.) Timeliness of Funds
Stable funding is necessary to plan and budget for effective school
management. Consistent and reliable schedules for the planned deposit
of these funds into school accounts are also necessary for good school
management. Funds currently arrive at undetermined and different times
due to the ineffective manner in which funds are released. Presently,
TERS has not received any Title I funds and has only received limited
maintenance and operation funds. Employee salaries are being paid from
other funds and a request to the Tribal Council is being prepared in
order to purchase heating oil for the upcoming winter if maintenance
and operation funds do not arrive soon. In addition, I am not able to
adequately present to my school Board an annual budget. Without
predictable funding amounts early enough to plan prior to the start of
the current school year, I am unable to present to my school Board a
well-developed budget based upon the needs of my students. Earlier this
fall, I received a budget amendment that was incorrectly assigned to a
reading program we do not have at our school. I called my ELO and have
sent the amendment back for correction and have not received any
correspondence as to its status in over three months. Even with follow
up requests no reply has been received. A more efficient and timely
funding schedule needs to be developed. Discretionary funds do vary as
grants are approved, but entitlement funds require a more effective
fiduciary mechanism of accountability and tracking of deposits into
school accounts.
7.) Teacher Recruitment and Retention
With less funding per student than public schools in our region,
high quality teachers have numerous choices to accept positions with a
public school or a BIE funded school. Even if salaries were relatively
the same (which they are not), benefits in nearby rural and urban
communities in the areas of health insurance and state retirement
programs lure our teachers away. For example, while at the BIE funded
Northern Cheyenne Tribal School, I initiated new staff development
programs and fully enriched my staff in innovative ways of increasing
student achievement. However, by years' end my teachers were being
recruited away to nearby public schools. I asked the superintendent of
a nearby school why he wanted my staff and his comment was, ``You have
the best trained staff and we need help with our underperforming
students''. Therefore, as I invest in my staff with necessary staff
development, and if salaries and benefits are not competitive, I lose
them to nearby schools. This is a serious problem considering how
important consistency is in instructional delivery and continued
implementation of programs.
8.) Professional Development for Administration
Lastly, in my four years as superintendent of a BIE funded tribally
controlled grant school, I have been offered very little training in
the area of BIE procedures and guidelines. Conflicts have arisen due to
certain expectations or reports not being completed in a timely manner.
I was unfamiliar with federal procedures which are quite different from
my training in the public school sector. This lack of training sets the
stage for poorly managed schools and schools that may not operate
efficiently. I understand the vastness of the BIE operating in twenty
three states; however, with high turnover, some mentorship by senior
administrators or trainers would have been very helpful. I had to seek
private training because the BIE held no trainings or orientation
throughout my last four years of service. This can be very frustrating
and will lead to high turnover of administration.
I cannot speak exactly to the internal workings of the BIE as I am
not a BIE employee. After a very successful career in public education,
I sought a new challenge and wanted to make a difference by helping
minority or Indian students be successful. I had experience in working
with Alaska Native students and served as the superintendent of School
District #304 on the Nezperce Reservation in Kamiah, Idaho before
taking the superintendent position at the Northern Cheyenne Tribal
School. What I now know is that the BIE is an organization tasked with
managing Indian Education, but is not directed by professional
educators and administrators but rather by individuals that that are
more business or compliance oriented individuals. A heavy reliance on
consultants and vendors seems to be necessary to oversee schools rather
than assist and develop school site based leadership specific to Indian
community schools. It is always the people in the field that are in
daily contact with students and parents that ultimately move successful
schools forward. A closer working relationship with tribal community
schools and the BIE needs to be cultivated. The BIE needs to culture an
organization perceived by tribal communities in partnership through
education and support rather than only compliance monitoring. At
present, the BIE is seen as a source of funding but with little respect
as a professional learning and educational agency. Schools are a place
of learning and most importantly a people business. Education is a
business of nurturing future leaders, citizens and scholars, not
building widgets on an assembly line.
Working to improve student achievement requires several factors
including thoughtful use of resources, strategic planning, and
effective administrative leadership. Issues surrounding funding are of
a concern because schools should focus their time and energy towards
professional growth of staff and the improvement and execution of
instructional programs. I present these comments in hopeful manner that
consideration will be given to each of these items.
______
Prepared Statement of the National Indian Education Association (NIEA)
Chairman Tester, Vice Chairman Barrasso, and members of the
Committee, tribal leaders and Native advocates have consistently listed
education as a top priority for our communities. As such, the National
Indian Education Association (NIEA) is excited that the Senate
Committee on Indian Affairs has heard the collective call and is
working to highlight the condition of Native education across all grade
levels in order to find solutions to persistant problems. As NIEA and
Native education stakeholders have stated for years, equal
opportunities from early to higher education are critical to the future
of tribal nations and Native communities.
The renewed commitment of this Committee and its focus on improving
all education systems serving Native students is critical. We are happy
to see legislation introduced that supports the strengthening of these
education systems through language immersion and cultural teaching
models. As part of our continuing partnership to ensure equitable
education opportunities for Native students, we are excited to echo the
broad, overwhelming support we have heard from Indian Country and
provide this testimony in staunch support of the following Senate
Bills:
S. 1948--A bill to promote the academic achievement of
American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children
with the establishment of a Native American language grant
program; and
S. 2299--A bill to amend the Native American Programs Act of
1974 to reauthorize a provision to ensure the survival and
continuing vitality of Native American languages.
NIEA, founded in 1969, is the most inclusive Native organization in
the country representing Native students, educators, families,
communities, and tribes. NIEA's mission is to advance comprehensive
educational opportunities for all American Indians, Alaska Natives, and
Native Hawaiians throughout the United States. From communities in
Hawaii, to tribal reservations across the continental U.S., to villages
in Alaska, to urban communities in major cities, NIEA has the most
reach of any Native education organization in the country. By serving
as the critical link between our communities and education
institutions, NIEA hopes the Committee will take our testimony into
consideration as you act on this legislation.
Native Education Crisis Due to Federal Mismanagement
As all of us realize, Native education is in a state of emergency
partly due to the inability of the Federal Government to uphold its
trust responsibility. Native students lag behind their peers on every
educational indicator, from academic achievement to high school and
college graduation rates. In 2010, only one in four Native high school
graduates who took the ACT scored at the college-ready level in math,
and only one in three for reading. In the same year, more than half of
the majority students in high school tested at college-ready levels,
illustrating the persistent readiness gap among Native and non-Native
students. As Native students leave high school underprepared for higher
education, academic failure or extensive remediation become commonplace
for Native students. In the last decade, only 52 percent of Native
students enrolled in higher education programs immediately after high
school graduation and fewer than 40 percent of those students graduated
with a bachelor's degree in six years. In contrast, nearly 62 percent
of White students graduated within six years.
Native Student Demographics Snapshot
378,000, or 93 percent of Native students, attend U.S.
public schools, comprising 0.7 percent of the total public
school population, with the remainder attending federal Bureau
of Indian Education (BIE) operated, charter, or tribally-
controlled schools.
Of all Native students, 33 percent live in poverty, compared
to 12 percent of White students.
29 percent of these students attend high-poverty city public
schools, compared to 6 percent of White students.
In 2012, 17 percent of Native students age 25 and older held
at least a bachelor's degree in comparison to 33 percent of
White students.
In 2012, 6 percent of Native students held an advanced
graduate degree (i.e., M.A., M.S., Ph.D., M.D., or J.D), as
compared to 12 percent of the White population. \1\
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\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/
Of the 210 Native languages still spoken in the United
States and Canada, only 34 (16 percent) continue to be taught
as a first language to Native children. \2\
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\2\ Contents largely drawn from McCarty, T. L. (2011). State of the
field: The role of Native languages and cultures in American Indian,
Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian student achievement. Tempe, AZ:
Center for Indian Education; and Demmert, W.G., Jr. (2001). Improving
academic performance among Native American students: A review of the
research literature. Charleston, WV: ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural
Education and Small School.
The Trust Responsibility to Native Education
Since its inception, NIEA's work has centered on reversing these
negative trends, a feat that is possible only if the federal government
upholds its trust responsibility to 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, regardless of where they attend school. Under the federal
government's trust corpus in the field of Indian education, it is
important to state that the obligation is a shared trust among the
Administration and Congress for federally-recognized Indian tribes.
To the extent that measurable trust standards in Indian education
can be evaluated, NIEA suggests this Committee refer to the
government's own studies encompassing Native test scores, treaty-based
appropriation decreases, and Government Accountability Office (GAO)
Reports, among other reports, which illustrate the continued inability
of the federal government to uphold the trust responsibility and
effectively serve our students. Too often, the trust responsibility is
broken as Native-serving institutions are unable to receive the funding
they require to support critical educational services, such as language
immersion programs.
As the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Commissioner
Lillian Sparks Robinson outlined in her recent testimony to this
Committee, ``the unmet demand [for language immersion] remains high.''
Although tribes and Native communities have consistently provided
broad-based support for language immersion education models, the
existing investment opportunities are not meeting demand and therefore,
should be increased. Unless the federal government provides Native
students equal education opportunities and learning through immersion,
it will be nearly impossible for our future generations to be prepared
for academic achievement and consequently, success in college and
careers.
Strengthen Native Language and Culture to Raise Student Outcomes
Native language revitalization and preservation is a critical
priority to tribes and Native communities because language preservation
goes to the heart of Native identity. In many ways, language is
culture. Learning and understanding their own languages helps Native
students thrive and is a critical piece to ensuring schools serve
Native students effectively. Immersion programs thereby serve the dual
purpose of increasing academic achievement and guaranteeing that a
student's language will be carried forward for generations.
For example, students with sustained, cumulative Native language
and cultural instruction perform as well as, or better than, their
peers in mainstream classes on completing academically challenging
tasks. \3\ Furthermore, those students who enter school with a primary
language other than the school language (i.e., English) perform
significantly better on academic tasks when they receive constant and
cumulative academic support in the primary language for a minimum of
four to seven years, illustrating the need for sustained, longitudinal
immersion funding.
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\3\ McCarty, T. L. (2011).
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As comprehensive academic achievement remains elusive for many
Native populations, language immersion courses provide an opportunity
to improve student outcomes. Strong programs with elements like Native
language and cultural immersion, language and culture maintenance, and
dual language and one-way immersion programs contribute to improved
attendance and college enrollment rates, lower attrition, and enhanced
teacher-student and school-community relations. \4\
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\4\ McCarty, T. (2013). Language planning and policy in Native
America: History, theory, praxis. Tonawanda, NY: Multilingual Matters.
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For example, longitudinal data from the Rough Rock English-Navajo
Language Arts Program, which serves approximately 200 students each
year in Kindergarten through sixth grade, illustrate that after four
years in the program, average student scores on criterion-referenced
tests of English comprehension increased from 58 percent to 91 percent.
On standardized reading tests, Native students' scores initially
declined, but then rose steadily, in some cases, approaching or
exceeding national averages. When individual and grade cohort data were
analyzed over five years, students attending the Rough Rock Program
demonstrated superior English reading, language arts, and mathematics
performance compared to a matched peer group who did not participate in
the program. \5\
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\5\ McCarty, 2011, pp. 6-7.
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Congressional Intent over Agency Interpretation
Unfortunately, legal barriers and agency interpretation often
inhibit our communities from providing such services to Native
students. While our communities' unique cultural and linguistic
traditions are critical cornerstones for providing relevant, high-
quality instruction as part of an education, current education statutes
and improper agency interpretation often gravely obstruct Native
students from attaining the same level of academic achievement as the
majority of students.
P.L. 100-297, Tribally Controlled Grant Schools Act, and P.L. 93-
638, Indian Self Determination and Education Assistance Act, as well as
P.L. 109-394, Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation
Act of 2006 and the Native American Languages Act of 1990, all promote
a policy of self-determination and investment in Native languages,
including language immersion schools. Further, the White House
Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education promises to
support opportunity expansion and outcome improvement for Native
students by promoting education in Native languages and histories. Yet,
legal and regulatory structures that undermine these aims persist.
NIEA is proud of the exemplary immersion models, such as those at
Niigaane Ojibwemovin Immersion Program and School serving the Leech
Lake Band of Ojibwe and Rough Rock English-Navajo Language Arts Program
serving the Navajo Nation--both of which have won the prestigious NIEA
Cultural Freedom Award for their efforts in full-day language
immersion. Unfortunately, federal agency interpretation under varying
Administrations as well as enacted administrative procedures produced
under No Child Left Behind--the current iteration of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act (ESEA)--often restrict tribes and Native
communities from running such schools because language programs are
often interpreted to be at odds with the ``one-size-fits-all'' model
mandated under the ESEA.
ESEA's performance standards do not take into account language
diversification. As such, successful language programs, like those
listed above, as well immersion programs in Hawaii, are often
considered underachieving. While Puerto Rico--the only exception
allowed under ESEA--has the authority to provide education instruction
in a language other than English, tribes and Native-serving schools are
not afforded this same understanding and deference when providing
assessments to their students. Too often, the regulations created under
ESEA require testing to take place only in English--even if the Native
language is utilized as the primary medium of instruction and
recognized as a state's official language. This drives down assessment
scores and initiates interventions for schools that were considered
successful prior to ESEA. Such obstacles are simply unfair for schools
that are working successfully to protect and strengthen Native
languages and increase student outcomes through immersion instruction.
NIEA Legislative Recommendations: S. 1948 and S. 2299
To begin addressing this issue, NIEA requests that the
congressional intent of self-determination and Native language support
behind statutes, rather than the agency interpretation of ESEA and
other law, be enforced so that tribes and Native communities have the
ability to deliver effective education programs. NIEA was excited to
see Senate Bills 1948 and 2299 introduced because these legislative
measures provide some necessary resources for strengthening language
immersion and cultural learning. While NIEA has several minor
suggestions for improving the bills under consideration, the
recommendations do not negate our stalwart support for the legislation.
NIEA has decades of testimony and membership resolutions that
support Native languages and learning through language immersion (NIEA
Resolutions 2007-08; 2008-03; 2009-07; etc.). To accompany those
official NIEA actions, we request the recent June 2014 NIEA support
letters be submitted for the record to accompany this testimony. We
also recommend that the Committee utilize the numerous support letters
submitted by Native communities, tribes, and organizations as it works
to move the bills. Prior to the introduction of this language, large
organizations such as the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) provided
broad-based support letters calling for increased immersion resources
and many tribes have since submitted letters supporting the
introduction of the bills. As such, we hope the Committee will move
quickly to incorporate our recommendations, garner additional
congressional support, and move the bills toward Senate passage.
I. Senate Bill 1948
While we have stated concerns with Administration and agency
actions that diminish the ability to institute language immersion
programs, we were excited to see President Obama endorse Native
language immersion programs during his speech to Indian Country on June
13, 2014. As such, we hope this will usher in a new level of support
for Native language learning. Now is the time to turn the initiatives
described in the December 2, 2011 Executive Order 13592--Improving
American Indian and Alaska Native Educational Opportunities and
Strengthening Tribal Colleges and Universities--into action and support
Native languages through this critical legislation that works to
support immersion learning.
Senate Bill 1948 works toward the Executive Order and provides a
means to strengthen Native languages and increase academic outcomes.
Native language immersion--one of NIEA's key ESEA reauthorization
recommendations--is a critical priority to tribes and Native
communities and is a crucial piece to ensuring schools educate Native
students effectively. NIEA also supports the bill's corresponding
appropriation authorization of $5 million to fund its new immersion
program.
This is critical because additional funding ensures that existing
programmatic funds under ESEA Title VII are not reduced. It is the
policy of NIEA that any new programs or authorizations must do no harm
to existing Title VII programs. While immersion schools need and
deserve federal support, this funding must be additional to and
separate from that which currently exists under Title VII as there is
already inadequate funding under the ESEA Native education title. NIEA
looks forward to working with the Committee to identify suitable
offsets for S.1948 to support the bill's goals to advance immersion
schools.
Furthermore, NIEA submits our joint organizational comments with
this testimony requesting that S. 1948 include greater tribal authority
over immersion programs by defining Indian tribes as ``eligible
entities'' to receive grants. We also recommend the elimination of the
requirement that grant monies correlate to language immersion success
via increased graduation rates. This could be misconstrued to
contradict the original intent of Title VII, which is based on
enhancing the cultural traditions of students, not outcomes. While
increasing outcomes could be the result of language immersion programs,
the original intent of Title VII should be upheld as Congress initially
stipulated.
While we are strong supporters of the language in its current
iteration, we hope the suggested additions will be incorporated to
ensure inclusivity as well as reinforcement of the original intent of
ESEA Title VII.
NIEA Recommendations
Enforce congressional intent of self-determination and
Native language law, rather than agency interpretation of ESEA,
so that tribes and Native communities have the ability to
deliver effective education programs.
Work with NIEA to identify suitable offsets for S. 1948
outside of ESEA Title VII to support the bill's goals to
advance immersion schools.
Include NIEA joint organizational recommendations within the
language to ensure tribes are ``eligible entities'' as well as
uphold the original intent of Title VII.
Collaborate with NIEA to create a ``Dear Colleague Letter''
to garner support for marking up the language and moving the
bill to a full Senate vote during the 113th Congress.
Ensure any ESEA Reauthorization that progresses includes the
Native language immersion grant program.
II. Senate Bill 2299
While Congress continues to appropriate funds to the Administration
for Native Americans (ANA) under HHS, this bipartisan bill is crucial
for reauthorizing a non-controversial program that efficiently and
effectively provides grants to revitalize Native languages. Currently,
ANA provides competitive grants, training, and technical assistance to
tribes and Native communities. Under the Esther Martinez Native
American Languages Preservation Act of 2006, ANA administers grants for
language immersion and restoration programs, which are attributed to
saving endangered Native languages and providing culturally-respectful
education systems.
Due to continuing unmet need and insufficient funds under these
programs, NIEA supports the recommendations highlighted in Commissioner
Sparks Robinson's testimony provided before this Committee that
highlights the need to extend funding cycles for Language Preservation
and Maintenance projects in order to increase sustainability and
effectiveness. Funding should be provided for five year intervals,
rather than the current length of three years. This extension would
provide grantees the opportunity to develop fluent speakers, build and
strengthen partnerships, and secure funds to track success and best
practices, rather than participating only in the initial planning and
implementation stages.
Furthermore, we request that the required number of participants be
lowered from ten to five students for language nests and from fifteen
to ten students for survival schools, so that smaller communities, such
as remote Alaska Native villages with small populations, have the
opportunity to apply and compete for crucial language preservation
funds. We also think it sensible to review the timeframe for the
reauthorization of Esther Martinez. While a five year reauthorization
is often standard, due to the recent partisanship in Congress and the
non-controversial nature of the ANA program, it could be prudent to
extend the reauthorization period from five year intervals to seven or
ten year authorization periods.
NIEA Recommendations:
Work with NIEA to garner support for marking up the language
and moving the bill to a full Senate vote during the 113th
Congress.
Analyze the opportunity to extend the reauthorization period
from five years to a longer period of time.
Extend the programmatic grant period from three to five
years to ensure sustainability.
Decrease the required number of participants so that smaller
communities have the opportunity to participate.
Conclusion
We appreciate the hard work of Chairman Tester, Senator Johnson,
and the bipartisan group of co-sponsors for introducing these critical
legislative pieces, and we look forward to seeing these bills move out
of Committee to become law. Furthermore, NIEA appreciates the continued
support of this Committee and the leadership it has provided to receive
comments on S. 1948 and S. 2299. NIEA enthusiastically supports both
measures, and we look forward to working closely with the Committee to
move these bills forward. In addition to this legislative hearing, we
also appreciate the 2014 education hearing series because we cannot
confront the challenges facing our Native students one facet at a time.
Only by working with all stakeholders in all education systems will we
increase our students' preparedness for success. Once again, thank you
for this opportunity.
______
Prepared Statement of Ryan Wilson, President, National Alliance to Save
Native Languages
Introduction
Chairman Tester, Vice Chairman Barrasso, and Members of the
Committee. My name is Ryan Wilson, President of the National Alliance
to Save Native Languages. I am honored to submit written testimony
before the Indian Affairs Committee to provide the views of the
Alliance on the importance and benefits of Native language immersion
schools as they relate to S. 1948.
The Alliance is highly supportive of the Native Language Immersion
Student Achievement Act, and believes it supports a distinct purpose
separate than that of ANA Language programs authorized under the Esther
Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act.
Current Crisis in Indian Education
Improving the educational achievement and academic progress of
American Indians is a high priority of Indian country, this Committee,
and the Obama Administration. The United States has a unique political
and legal relationship with American Indian tribal governments and a
special historic responsibility for the education of American Indians
and Alaska Natives. Recent reports carried out by the U.S. Department
of Education continue to reiterate the academic failure of American
Indian and Alaska Native students. See National Assessment of
Educational Progress (2011); National Indian Education Study (2011);
The Education Trust, ``State of Education for Native Students,''
(2013).
In order to further the Federal Government's commitment to
improving the educational outcomes of American Indian and Alaska Native
students and improving the quality and performance of schools and
education programs for American Indians and Alaska Natives, a
comprehensive Native Language Development and Culturally Based
Education policy is needed to: (1) help tribal governments meet the
linguistically unique educational needs of their children, including
the need to preserve, revitalize, and use Native languages; (2) promote
American Indian and Alaska Native tribal language immersion schools and
develop the capacity of tribal communities to build successful
immersion schools; (3) protect tribal language immersion schools from
the promulgation of adverse rules, assessments, and regulations from
federal agencies that are incongruent with existing statutes concerning
Native language use; and (4) promote intergovernmental (tribal/federal)
collaboration and partnership.
S. 1948, ``Native Language Immersion Student Achievement Act''
The Alliance views S. 1948 as a response to broad based concern
that Tribal Immersion Schools receive both support and legitimacy from
the Department of Education and in particular inclusion within the
broader Elementary and Secondary Education Act. S. 1948 is correctly
placed in Title VII of the ESEA, the Indian Education Act title. S.
1948 aligns appropriately with Title VII and honors the Congressional
Intent of Title VII.
Federal Indian education policy and trust responsibility is derived
from the special legal and political relationship between Indian
nations and the federal government. Title VII within the ESEA is the
primary statute charged with the responsibility to discharge the
federal trust responsibility for Indian education within the Department
of Education.
The severe criticism of Indian education in the 1969 report of the
Senate Special Subcommittee on Indian Education ``Indian Education: A
National Tragedy--A National Challenge (Kennedy Report)'' elicited a
substantial response from Congress. In the Education Amendments Act of
1972, a special title ``The Indian Education Act,'' provided extensive
support for the education of Indian students and established new
administrative structures in the Department of Health, Education, and
Welfare to carry out the work. The Indian Education Act was signed into
law June 23rd 1972. The act has survived numerous ESEA reauthorizations
and budget challenges but has never been fully implemented. The No
Child Left Behind Act has diminished Title VII and circumvented the
Congressional intent of the Indian Education Act. It is time to
strengthen Title VII and modernize the statute to reflect a growing
body of research that substantiates immersion schools as a best
academic practice for Native students (See ``State of the Field'' by
Dr. Teresa McCarty). *
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* The information referred to can be found at http://center-for-
indian-education.asu.edu/sites/center-for-indian-education.asu.edu/
files/McCarty,%20Role%20of%20Native%20Lgs%20&%20Cults%20in%20AI-AN-
NH%20Student%20Achievement%20[2]%20(071511).pdf
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The National Indian Education Association conducted under President
David Beaulieu an extensive investigation into Title VII programs that
included 11 field hearings in 2005. What NIEA documented through
acquiring testimony of over 100 witnesses was that Title VII programs
specifically the 1300 formula grant programs were being directed/
steered towards sponsoring academic activities clearly authorized under
Title I of the ESEA. Impactful and meaningful supplemental cultural
programming including Native language instruction were being eliminated
and the statute to address the unique cultural needs of Native learners
was not being implemented.
The Alliance believes that passage of S. 1948 will strengthen the
Indian Education Act and protect Title VII from being a surrogate of
Title I. If Title VII continues to emulate Title I the threat is very
real that it loses its unique purpose as a standalone title in the
ESEA. Prior to introduction of S. 1948, the Alliance, National Indian
Education Association, National Congress of American Indians, Great
Plains Tribal Chairman's Association, Montana Wyoming Tribal Leaders
Council, United Tribes of North Dakota, Alaska Federation of Natives
and numerous individual tribes and organizations called for the
introduction of legislation that would create a grant program in Title
VII of the ESEA to support Immersion Schools. After Chairman Tester
introduced S. 1948 the Navajo Nation, Eight Northern Pueblos and
Affiliated Tribes Northwest Indians endorsed this legislation. There is
broad based support for strengthening The Indian Education Act through
passage of S. 1948 which would amend Title VII.
Existing Authorities
Executive Order 13592, ``White House Initiative on Improving Indian
Education,'' promises Native learners the opportunity to learn their
Native Languages. Additionally, Public Laws 93- 638, 100-297, offer the
promise self-determination and tribal control of BIE schools. The
Native American Languages Act of 1990 Public Law 101-477 and the Esther
Martinez Native American Preservation Act Public Law 109-394 promote a
policy of investing in Native languages and supporting Tribal Language
Immersion Schools. Finally, the Snyder Act Public Law 67-85 broadly
authorizes Congress to appropriate resources for such activities in the
Department of Interior and grants considerable flexibility to the
Administration to support and initiate new activities in the area of
Indian Affairs.
None of these existing statutes and the Obama Executive Order
protect immersion schools from the policy in-congruence that NCLB
creates. This statutory conflict places immersion schools and tribal
communities who wish to organize/create immersion schools at a distinct
disadvantage. S. 1948 would codify in statute both support through
resources and as a matter of federal Indian education policy an
endorsement of immersion schools as legitimate educational venues
worthy of federal investment.
Common Core, Race to the Top, assessment models utilized by states
and the proposed BIE realignment will not accommodate immersion schools
or make room for them. This places a heightened importance on S. 1948
and the urgent need to create a place for immersion schools.
Widespread Calls for Native Language Immersion Schools
Education Secretary Duncan and former Interior Secretary Salazar
met with Indian education experts during the first year of the
Administration to gain advisement on Indian education issues. All in
attendance including myself articulated the urgent need for the
Administration to engage in a meaningful way on Native language
immersion schools and incorporating Native languages into culturally
based education. The Administration met with tribal leaders and formed
a National Tribal Leaders Education Task Force. This Task Force echoed
the same concern regarding immersion schools, Native languages, and
culturally based education. The Administration also engaged Indian
Country in Indian education consultation hearings and received volumes
of testimony supporting immersion schools and culturally based
education. Further, the National Advisory Council on Indian Education
has included in its annual reports recommendations supporting immersion
schools for Indian Country. The National Congress of American Indians
(NCAI) and National Indian Education Association (NIEA) joint
recommendations for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
reauthorization call for a formula grant program for Native language
immersion schools. Broad based support exist for tribal language
immersion schools, Indian country could not have expressed support for
these schools any clearer to the Administration.
It is the position of NCAI and the coalition of Native
organizations that are a part of the NCAI Native Language Working
Group/Task Force, including the National Alliance to Save Native
Languages, that language plays a significant role in influencing
academic performance and general well-being of Native peoples. This
position was first reflected in the Meriam Report of 1928 and
reinforced in each of the following: the U.S. Senate Report, Indian
Education: A National Tragedy, A National Challenge (1969); the Indian
Education Act of 1972 (Title VII, NCLB); the Indian Nations At Risk
Report (1991); the White House Conference on Indian Education (1992);
federal policy through the Native American Languages Act (1990);federal
policy through the Esther Martinez Native American Languages
Preservation Act (2006); and three Presidential Executive Orders
(Clinton, 1998, Bush, 2004, Obama 2011).
Shortcomings of the Current Approach
Unfortunately, Executive Order 13592 has not been effective in
achieving its proposed policy goal because it does not offer a program
or pathway to execute a strategy for supporting or creating venues
where Native learners have an opportunity to learn their Native
languages. Furthermore, budget cuts and assessment models that do not
account for culturally based education or instruction have meant that
the unique linguistic needs of Native learners have not been met,
stalling development of tribal language immersion schools and immersion
programs. Unstable leadership within the BIE, the pending restructuring
of the BIE, and difficulty forecasting budget challenges have created a
climate of retreat. Native language instruction under the Obama
Administration has decreased, not increased.
Additionally, there exists no support for continued development of
tribal language immersion schools within the leadership of the BIE/BIA
and Department of Interior, the White House Initiative on Indian
Education and the Department of Education. The Obama Administration
appears to be confused on this issue despite the clear message Indian
country has repeatedly sent. The Administration has co-mingled Native
language instruction, history, culture and immersion as if they are one
in the same. The Administrations' approach to supporting existing
immersion schools is at best in-coherent and at worst in opposition.
The White House Initiative on Indian Education Executive Director
Bill Mendoza's testimony during the June 18th hearing was symptomatic
of a deeper systemic problem within this Administration. Director
Mendoza listed a number of programs within the Department of Education
and Interior that support language instruction but none of these
programs directly support Immersion schools, none exist exclusively for
immersion schools. It appears the Administration supports Indian being
taught as a course (presumably for 50 minutes a day), but not Indian
languages being used as the medium of instruction as they are used in
immersion schools. All of the programs Director Mendoza listed existed
before the life of the current Administration.
The inability of the Administration to have a position on S. 1948
despite the bill being introduced on January 16th 2014 nearly half a
year ago is reflective of this Administrations apathy towards Native
languages and immersion schools.
In his historic visit to Indian country on June 13th President
Obama stated ``and even as they prepare for a global economy, we want
children, like these wonderful young children here, learning about
their language and learning their culture, just like the boys and girls
do at Lakota Language Nest here at Standing Rock. We want to make sure
that continues and we build on that success--and you don't have to give
up your culture to also be a part of the American family. That's what I
believe and coming here today makes me believe it that much more''.
The President was referring to an immersion school the Lakota
Language Nest, yet the Administration was unable to have a position on
S. 1948 the following week (even though S.1948 is the only legislative
effort in the 113th Congress supporting immersion schools). In the
context of the Administration's ESEA Blue Print which promises support
for Immersion, the White House Initiative which promises Native
students an opportunity to learn their Native languages, and existing
statutes which could advance immersion schools. This is unacceptable to
Indian country.
Need for Increased Federal Support
The Administration for Native Americans, housed in the Department
of Health and Human Services, does offer planning grants to launch
immersion efforts through its Esther Martinez programs. Although these
investments are vital to initiate immersion activities they are not
sustainable because they have a three year maximum award. These hotly
contested dollars are among the most competitive and are not designed
to ensure programs' long-term solvency. Sustainable federal support for
tribal language immersion schools simply does not exist. BIE, Public,
and Community Based schools that wish to engage in the development of
tribal language immersion schools need federal support. This federal
support must be additional to and separate from that which currently
exists to support school operations. If Congress is to carry out its
commitments to self-determination, sovereignty, and protection and
revitalization of Native languages, it must provide resources for
tribal language immersion schools. This funding is also essential to
enabling BIE to complete its mission, Title VII to execute
Congressional intent as well as to fulfilling the promises of President
Obama's Executive Order on Indian Education.
Conclusion
Indian Country believes that we have a sacred birthright, treaty
right, policy mandate, and existing statutory vehicles for continued
use and development of our tribal languages, cultures, and ceremonial
practices--all of which are essential for our general well-being and
identity as American Indian, and Alaska Native peoples. Our interest in
achieving high levels of academic performance requires support for S.
1948, which is required by the demands of a multi-cultural and multi-
lingual world. Native learners and their communities/parents who are
seeking the benefits of tribal language immersion and culturally based
education must have the opportunity to attend and participate in
educational venues that promote fluency in their heritage language. By
any education and socioeconomic measure American Indian and Alaska
Native children lag behind the general population. This deficit in
equality of educational opportunity has grown during the Obama
Administration. The Native American Languages Act, Indian Education
Act, Tribally Controlled Schools Act and when enacted Native Language
Immersion Student Achievement Act need to co-exist with the ESEA, BIE
realignment and Common Core. Both Congress and the Administration must
ensure the continuation of the federal governments trust responsibility
and permit an orderly transition from exclusive English based
instruction to Native language as the medium of instruction for those
tribal communities who have both the capacity and desire to engage in
Immersion. S. 1948 makes a significant commitment to do so and offers
America an opportunity to grant its Indian nations their fullest and
freest use of Native languages.
We affirm with the highest conviction that there are significant
cognitive, psychological, and academic benefits for our children and
communities who can participate in tribal language immersion schools.
Thank you for this opportunity to provide testimony and for considering
this much-needed legislation The Native Language Immersion Student
Achievement Act.
______
Prepared Statement of Leslie Harper, Director, Niigaane Ojibwemowin
Immersion
Gidanimikooninim, esteemed Committee Members. I greet you all and
thank you for introducing the proposed bills, and for the opportunity
to testify in support of the importance of our Native Languages,
Culture-Based Education, and their connection to success for Native
students. I will present testimony that describes, through our in-
service field experience of the last ten years, the ways in which
funding and public policy incongruence both supports and interrupts the
transmission of educational content through the medium of our
identified indigenous language of Ojibwe, and will reinforce needs that
the proposed S. 1948 and S. 2299 can serve to meet.
I support S. 2299, a bill to amend the Native American Programs Act
of 1974 to ensure the survival and continuing vitality of Native
American Languages. This Act and according funding has supported our
community to build capacity to deliver Ojibwe language revitalization
and maintenance efforts across multiple generations and multiple entry
points at our Leech Lake Nation. I would like to focus the remainder of
testimony on support for the newly introduced S. 1948 and I urge
amendments to the bill that will align the Native American Languages
Act of 1990 (NALA) with the No Child Left Behind, as the current ESEA
is also known. I support the amendments to S. 1948 as provided in the
testimony by Namaka Rawlins today in her testimony to this Committee. I
was present at the 2014 Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium, and
participated in the examination of the proposed bill, and articulation
of the amendments that will align the intent of S. 1948 with the
delivery at our local levels.
I am an enrolled member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. I serve
at Niigaane Ojibwemowin Immersion, an elementary education site that
provides over 1,000 hours per year of Ojibwe-medium education to 40
students of our Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe communities. Our students
enter our site speaking English as the language of the home, so our
site serves a two-fold purpose to revitalize Ojibwe language and to
express our educational sovereignty. We are in our tenth year of
operation at our site, during which we have grown a grade per year from
Kindergarten to 6th grade. Niigaane operates within the Leech Lake Band
of Ojibwe tribally-chartered Bureau of Indian Education Bugonaygeshig
School at the Leech lake reservation in Minnesota.
Expressions of our indigenous Native cultures have led to deeper
examinations of leadership and decisionmaking ideals and community
operations systems that are specific to our Native communities. We are
broadly expressing an alternative decisionmaking structure in operating
our immersion education sites, as is the original intent of educational
sovereignty. However, policy mandates create barriers to operating our
tribal schools in our languages as a tribally designed way. We are
unfunded, essentially, due to Highly Qualified teacher designations and
assessments in a language other than Language of Instruction, among
other ESEA requirements. Jurisdiction of our schools is not tribally
controlled or determined, nor even BIE-monitored, but is individually
determined by states. Title I Accountability factors supercede Title
VII and Native American Languages Act (P.L. 101-477) policies that are
supposed to support our student success by recognizing the unique
linguistic and cultural needs of our Native students. This clearly
values the American monolingual sytems over our multilingual systems.
At our Niigaane site, we have created a pathway to success in a way
that looks different, but works as well as or better than monolingual
English-medium education. Our students matriculate out at 6th grade to
other English-medium schools in the region, and we informally track
their progress. 100 percent of our students who have matriculated from
our program are performing at or above the level of their English-
monolingual peers on English-medium measures of academic progress in
the high schools to which they have transferred. These students have
the added benefit of being functionally bilingual at an age much
younger than the average Minnesota student. Research on multilingualism
has long recognized that language learning produces higher-level
cognitive functioning and higher-level social and cultural competence
than does monolingualism.
Our school requires a family to commit to volunteer at the school
in order to improve our site and offerings, thus involving multiple
generations of our people in our education site; only a few decades
ago, our families were intimidated or uninterested in participating in
the public school educational sites because they did not reflect our
Ojibwe community. This amazing turnaround results in up to 1,000 hours
per year of volunteer resources, which we could not afford to purchase
within our already insufficient level of funding. To report on HS
graduation rates of our students will require a ten-year longitudinal
data collection system; however, we are confident in our strategies
because we have adapted successful strategies from other indigenous
immersion education sites that are showing success in this area.
There does not currently exist in statute an annual funding stream
exclusively for Native Language immersion schools. S. 1948 must
maintain the intent to create a dedicated fund for Native language
immersion site efforts.
We need to strengthen language in this bill to serve students in
immersion education sites to teach and measure in our languages in a
way that is linguistically and culturally congruent to our educational
goals.
Contract between the Department of Education and Language
Immersion school site LEAs. This will allow us to forecast
funding to support our operations, and we can use grant funding
for capacity-building projects. We must guarantee that the
funding will go to the targeted students who are being educated
in the medium of the Native language, and not just being
swallowed up by school districts. Strengthening the language in
the proposed bill to require application and reporting on
targeted students will ensure this.
Definitions and guidelines exist in NALA regarding the use
of Native American languages as the medium of instruction to
encourage and support student success. However, it is unfunded.
Subsequent amendments in 1992 and 1996 provided an amount of
funding, but landed in a competitive grant process, which does
not provide stability for the programs or schools. Secure
funding is necessary to support self-determination through
education.
We must recognize that these schools or programs operate in
different structures such as BIE schools, public schools, and
tribal or locally operated programs and ensure inclusion for
all varied program types, languages, and states.
Site-specific targeted proficiency standards must be
trusted. Oral proficiency included in academic achievement
assessments in the Language of Instruction (rather than a
language in which the students are not educated, English).
High school graduation rate and other data relevant to
career and community participation standards should be included
in the reporting by the language immersion site. For our
people, educational outcomes include High School graduation
rates and the consideration of career and community integration
to sustain our local communities. Standardized test scores on
English assessments will never accurately predict educational
outcomes for students who are educated in the Native Language
for all academic and social content.
We need a new option to fulfill federal requirements
relative to uniform state plans. Our Native language immersion
education sites must describe a school-specific method with
Native American language of instruction appropriate standards,
assessments of students and teachers.
We feel that our locally determined route to language and culture
revitalization through the medium of Ojibwe language immersion
education for all academic and social contexts will benefit our nation
far into the future by developing new members of the Ojibwe Nation who
are grounded in Ojibwean ideals of citizenship. These benefits will
extend to any context or community in which these Niigaane Ojibwe
Immersion students--Ojibwe citizens--may find themselves, and will
continue to positively contribute to the knowledge base of the world.
We have determined locally that our population will be well-served
by Ojibwe-culturally based education, and we seek the funding support
to continue to develop our efforts, and continued investigation into
public policy and funding appropriations that support our efforts.
Miigwech weweni gaa'inendameg, thank you for your kind
consideration.
______
Prepared Statement of Brooke Mosay Ammann, Director, Waadookodaading
Ojibwe Language Immersion School
Boozhoo Anishinaabedog, Aaniin gakina awiya. Niiyogaabawiikwe
nindizhinikaaz. Migizi nindoodem. Inaandagokaag indoonjibaa. Odaawaa-
zaaga'iganing indaa dash indanokii iwidi. Miigwech bizindawaiyeg.
Thank you for listening to me. I am specifically addressing and
testifying in regards to S. 1948, a bill to promote the academic
achievement of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian
children with the establishment of a Native American language grant
program within the Department of Education. Senator Tester, I
appreciate your introduction of the bill and all of the lawmakers who
have taken the initiative to support its movement.
My name is Brooke Mosay Ammann, and I am the Director of
Waadookodaading Ojibwe Language Immersion School on the Lac Courte
Oreilles Ojibwe reservation in northern Wisconsin. I am also the parent
of two students at the school. The mission of our school is to create
proficient speakers of the Ojibwe language who are able to meet the
challenges of our rapidly changing world. We do this through teaching
our children grade level skills in standard academic subjects through
the medium of the Ojibwe language. Our students are proficient in both
Ojibwe and English.
Waadookodaading ended our school year with fifty-three students in
the preschool through fourth grades. We have twenty-four students on
the wait list for next year that we will not be able to accommodate.
Although our school is a public charter, we are located on tribal lands
and our authorizing school district is only obligated to offer us pass
through funds for each student. We hold classes in federal surplus
modular building units that are aging and worn, held together by
determination and hope. We are responsible for finding the funding to
support ourselves.
Our school is in the fourteenth year of operation. We have thus far
only gone through the fifth grade, starting with just eight students in
preschool and educating them for as long as we could before we sent
them off to mainstream English language medium classrooms. As I was
present for the meeting at the Stabilizing Indigenous Languages
Symposium referenced in the testimony delivered by Namaka Rawlins of
`Aha Punana Leo, I must record that I concur with her sentiments
regarding the difficulties federal policy creates for those of us
revitalizing our Native American languages through a school based
model. Waadookodaading also had the chance to review the bill and
contribute to the changes she has submitted, with which we also agree.
Although we are not able to provide graduation and college
attendance data at this time, I would like to outline the impact of the
Ojibwe language immersion school on our community. Waadookodaading is
not just revitalizing our Ojibwe language it is revitalizing our
community.
The Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation is located within Sawyer
County, which has the second highest poverty rate in the state. The
Tribe's BIA Labor Force Report for 2013 documents an unemployment rate
of 50 percent. Like many rural impoverished communities, we have seen
the brightest students and community members move on from the small
town life to seek personal economic and career opportunities elsewhere.
This ``brain drain'' is especially evident in the education field, as
rural school districts struggle to attract quality teaching and
administrative talent. And as is the case nationwide, indigenous
communities and rural reservation areas feel the impact of this trend
the most. American Indian teachers are not teaching American Indian
students, and our youth struggle with making connections to these
important role models either because of a cultural disconnect or
because teachers use reservation schools as stepping stones on the path
to higher paying assignments.
Though on a small scale, our school is reversing the brain drain.
At Waadookodaading, 100 percent of the staff is Ojibwe, 83 percent of
the teaching staff have a Master's Degree or higher, 100 percent of the
staff considers Ojibwe their 1st or 2nd language, and 81 percent are
enrolled in federally recognized tribes, with half of them representing
their home community of Lac Courte Oreilles. The other half moved to
the community with the goal of working at Waadookodaading. Beyond
attracting dedicated teachers and staff to the community, there are
students currently enrolled in teacher training programs with the
explicit goal of becoming certified teachers fluent in the Ojibwe
language. Their goal after program completion is to return to the Lac
Courte Oreilles reservation to teach at Waadookodaading. We have
parents and consultants who are working on Doctoral degrees in
linguistics with a focus on the Ojibwe language who were inspired by
the work of Waadookodaading teachers. Skilled first language Ojibwe
speakers who were once physically and emotionally abused by
schoolteachers have found their way back to the classrooms to create
stories and curriculum and develop teacher vocabulary. Our young adults
see that speaking Ojibwe is an asset, and can be the foundation of a
career in which a person can be earn money and build a career in our
beautiful Wisconsin homeland. Ojibwe language medium education is the
type of teaching and education reform that historically disenfranchised
people are willing to support, and even devote their lives toward
advancing.
In closing, S. 1948 is a much needed, natural step in the
progression of growth of the Native American language medium school
movement. While we are grateful for and support the continuation of the
Administration for Native American Native Language Revitalization
funds, and especially those of the Esther Martinez Initiative, those
funds are limited and recent changes favor new initiatives. Those of us
that have led the way in piloting the American Indian language medium
schools have proven that this is a valid approach to improving
community school engagement and American Indian student outcomes. This
past school year, Waadookodaading had six programs from the United
States and Canada visiting and observing, looking for guidance as they
begin their own Native American language medium schools. It is time for
the Native American language medium school to be recognized and funded
as the vital component of the American educational landscape it has
become.
Miigwech miinawaa bizindawiyeg. Thank you for listening to me.
______
Prepared Statement of Michael D. Sullivan Sr., Professor, The College
of St. Scholastica
Boozhoo ogimaadog! Giwii-miigwechiwi'ininim weweni omaa gii-pi-
nakondameg da-bizindaweg agiw Anishinaabeg endazhiikangig yo'ow sa
indanishinaabemowininaan. Mii omaa wendimaang yo'ow mino-bimaadiziwin
gaa-pi-inenimiyangid a'aw Manidoo. Aaniish naa ogii-maamiinaan aniw
akina bemaadizinijin odinwewini da-inwenid. Mii sa yo'ow sa gaa-pi-
miinigoowiziyaang enishinaabewiyaang. Apegish sa noo naa wii-pi-
onjiniketaageyeg da-wiidookawegwaa agiw Anishinaabeg waakwajitoojig da-
bi-giiwewidoowaad odinwewiniwaan.
Greetings respected leaders. I would like to thank you all for
taking the time to hear from those Native peoples who are working hard
to stabilize our indigenous languages. It is from our precious
languages that we are able to life the good life that our Creator
intended us to live. After all, it is our belief that our Creator has
given each walk of life their specific way to make their sound, to
communicate with their babies, and maintain a connection with our
spiritual realm. I hope and pray that each of you take the time to make
an effort to assist with this most important work of bringing our
languages back into our homes and schools.
As a young Ojibwe man raised on the Lac Courte Oreilles
reservation, I have witnessed first-hand the decline and subsequent
revival of our Ojibwe language. As a boy, everyone of my grandmother's
generation spoke Ojibwe yet no one of my mother's generation can
communicate in the language of their parents. Year after year, we
consistently lost speaker after speaker as our elders grew old and were
eventually called home by our Creator. Year after year our language
declined, both in quantitative numbers of speakers and perhaps more
importantly, in the domains in which our language is used. That all
changed 14 years ago with the birth of Waadookodaading, our Ojibwe
language immersion school and the shining pearl of the Ojibwe language
revitalization movement. We no longer are losing speakers; we are
producing them. Because of this school, we now have over 60 children
that have achieved advanced proficiency in their heritage language.
Though this not a massive number, it is the highest percentage of
Ojibwe speaking children in the United States. Not only is our language
used in the school, but also through the school we have been successful
in expanding the domains in which we use our language.
As a college professor and linguist, I have a unique perspective to
provide to your committee. I have personally witnessed the benefits of
Waadookodaading in our community. It has often been said that regaining
our indigenous languages does something magical to our heart, mind,
body, and soul. For the first time ever on our reservation, our
children are educated by young, healthy, sober, traditional individuals
who want nothing more than to pass on this healthy lifestyle to our
children. Having 3 children of my own in the immersion school has been
an uplifting and motivating journey for myself as a warrior for our
language. I have a 10-year-old song that, among other things, can
explain technical concepts such as mathematics and geography in our
Ojibwe language. I have a 6-year-old son who can inquire about the
world in our Ojibwe language. I have a 5-year-old daughter who knows
the days of the weeks, months of the year, and places in our community
only by their Ojibwe names. All of this we have gained from the school,
the number one domain in which our language was never spoken.
It should be stated that our children in immersion do not only
learn their tribal languages while engaged in their academic content,
but they also learn about and engage in a healthy lifestyle. From our
seasonal subsistence harvest activities to the songs and dances of our
people, our children are taught to be proud of who they are, where they
come from and where they are going. This is a new direction in American
Indian education. As advocates for our languages and activists amongst
our people, we no longer point the finger at ``the man'' for what has
been done to us; we now look inward, pointing the finger at those who
perpetuate the dysfunction that has plagued our communities since the
birth of the boarding schools. Indeed, this is a new direction in
American Indian activism.
As elected officials with significant Native populations within
your respective constituencies, I assume you are all well aware of the
tragic history of American Indian educational policy and the
unspeakable experiences that our elders endured. It is a miracle that
our language has survived. It is a miracle that we as a people have
survived the effort to eliminate the ``Indian Problem''. Ironically, it
is schools, the very institutions put forth to make us better Americans
have now become the place where we make ourselves better Indians. In a
country that was founded on the principle of freedom, especially that
of the freedom of religion, it is rather disturbing that practicing our
own spirituality has only been legal since the passing of the American
Indian Religious Freedom Act, (Public Law No. 95-341, 92 Stat. 469
1978). Coincidentally, many of us engaged in language revitalization
work grew up with this newfound freedom. Had our colonizing founding
fathers considered the ``American Dream'' for us too, perhaps an
educational policy advocating for our own pursuit of life, liberty, and
happiness would have been implemented. Perhaps our nation is now ready
to share that dream with us.
I ask you to keep in mind when dealing with our respective nations
and the policies that will affect our educational agenda and
ultimately, our language effort, consider how poorly the system put in
place has failed us. We have the highest dropout rate for any race or
ethnicity in America. The overwhelming majority of American Indian
people have lost faith and trust in this imposed system of education
that has taught us to hate ourselves. Perhaps if we could only be
allowed to drive the car we could then get to where we need to be.
Sadly, many of our schools operate on a year-to-year basis with no
long-term reliable funding source. I urge you to consider the proposed
modifications to S. 1948. With the success of indigenous language
immersion education, such efforts should be supported, perhaps even
mandated. I sincerely thank you for taking the time to hear my
testimony, and for considering the proposed modifications to S. 1948.
God bless.
______
Prepared Statement of Quinton Roman Nose, Executive Director, Tribal
Education Departments National Assembly (TEDNA)
Chairman Tester and Vice Chairman Barasso, I am Quinton Roman Nose,
Executive Director of the Tribal Education Departments National
Assembly (TEDNA), a national non-profit membership organization for the
Education Departments of American Indian and Alaska Native tribes. I
appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today, and I thank Senator
Tester and sponsors of the Native Language Immersion Student
Achievement Act, S. 1948. TEDNA strongly supports S. 1948 and asks that
the act be amended for additional strength, by defining and including
Indian tribes and Tribal Education Departments or Agencies as
``eligible entities'' to receive grants. This amendment would allow for
increased tribal control over language immersion programs and provide
opportunity for increased educational success for American Indian
students.
A vital component of American Indian student success is culturally
relevant curriculum that includes language immersion programs. The
importance of language immersion programs has long been recognized by
Congress in the Indian Self Determination and Education Assistance Act
of 1975, P.L. 93-638, the Native American Languages Act of 1990, the
Native American Programs Act of 1974, and the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act. More specifically, the Native American Languages Act of
1990 explicitly stated policies to ``preserve, protect, and promote the
rights and freedom of Native Americans to use, practice, and develop
Native American languages,'' \1\ as well as to ``encourage State and
local education programs to work with Native American parents,
educators, Indian tribes, and other Native American governing bodies in
the implementation of programs to put this policy into effect.'' \2\
Long established Congressional policy further recognizes that
traditional languages are an integral part of American Indian cultures
and identities and form the basic medium for the transmission, and thus
survival, of American Indian cultures, literatures, histories,
religions, political institutions, and values. S. 1948 furthers these
policies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ 25 U.S.C. 2903 (1) (2014).
\2\ 25 U.S.C. 2903 (4) (2014).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nationwide, over 92 percent of American Indian students in K-12 are
educated through State Education Agencies and public schools. \3\ About
740 of these public schools are located on or near Indian reservations
and over a dozen states have amended their laws to recognize the role
that tribal histories, language, culture, and governments have in state
public education. Even with these statistics, and numerous states
actions to incorporate culturally relevant curriculum, today there is
no federal law that explicitly recognizes the important role tribal
governments should play in public school education. With the addition
of tribes as eligible entities, the enactment of the Native Language
Immersion Student Achievement Act will be a powerful move in the
direction of tribal government inclusion in American Indian education.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ The State of Education for Native Students, The Education Trust
(2013), 4, http://www.edtrust.org/sites/edtrust.org/files/
NativeStudentBrief_0.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
An avenue to increase success for American Indian students in
elementary and secondary education is enhancing the capacity of Tribal
Education Departments or Agencies (TEAs). The first TEA was created in
1991, when the Rosebud Sioux Tribe with the help of the Native American
Rights Fund, enacted a tribal law creating a TEA in order to contribute
to how and what public schools teach. Since then, more than 200 tribes
across 32 states have formed TEAs as administrative agencies within
their tribal governments and charged them with implementing educational
goals and policies. Although TEAs have successfully improved
educational services to American Indian public school students, they
are constrained by existing law and hampered by a lack of resources. If
amended to include Tribes as eligible entities, S. 1948 will enhance
the capacity and role of TEAs.
There are many examples of why tribes should be included. The
Cherokee Nation Education Services, a TEA located in Oklahoma, operates
the Sequoyah Schools system through a contract with the Bureau of
Indian Education. The Sequoyah Schools language program has proven to
be a successful model, graduating 6 sixth-graders and 10 kindergarten
students in 2014. \4\ In California, the Hoopa Valley Tribal Education
department operates the Hoopa Valley Learning Center, a state and
tribally funded program that provides student support services. 80
percent of the students begin the program as ``at risk'' students with
failing grades, while 90 percent of these students finish the program
with passing grades. The success of these programs show why tribes need
to be more involved in American Indian education departments and to
incorporate tribal histories, culture and language into the curriculum.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Cherokee Nation, Keeping Language Alive: Immersion School
Graduates More Students, Indian Country Today Media Network, (2014),
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/05/24/keeping-language-
alive-immersion-school-graduates-more-speakers-154888.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As the Honorable Lillian Sparks, Commissioner of the Administration
for Native Americans, pointed out, many tribes have successfully
developed language programs with grants received from the
Administration for Native Americans (ANA). \5\ The Yakutat Tlingit
Tribe, using an ANA grant, successfully increased Tlingit language
skills in 102 youth and 40 adults by incorporating the Tlingit language
into the Yakutat public school system. \6\ Similarly, in Montana, the
Fort Belknap College built upon the success of the White Clay Immersion
School by hiring and training language teachers, developing curriculum,
and creating an advisory council to guide curriculum. \7\ Mr. Thomas
Shortbull, President of the Oglala Lakota College likewise testified to
the success of the Lakota Language Immersion School, operated by the
Oglala Lakota College, which educates students, kindergarten through
fifth grade, in the Lakota language. \8\ Many other language programs
and immersion schools operated by tribes across the country could
benefit from being considered eligible entities under S. 1948. However,
ANA grant funding alone is not sufficient to support the need to expand
existing immersion programs and replicate these successes for tribes
where language immersion programs do not yet exist.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Native Language Immersion Student Achievement Act: Hearing on
S. 1948 Before the S. Comm. on Indian Affairs, 113th Cong. 3 (2014)
(statement of Lillian Sparks, Commissioner, Administration for Native
Americans--U.S. Department of Health and Human Services).
\6\ Id.
\7\ Id.
\8\ Native Language Immersion Student Achievement Act: Hearing on
S. 1948 Before the S. Comm. on Indian Affairs, 113th Cong. 3 (2014)
(statement of Thomas Shortbull, President, Oglala Lakota College).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Yurok Tribe has developed a language immersion and education
program which has become the model for many California tribes. \9\ The
Tribe has partnered with local school districts, bringing the Yurok
language to the neighboring public schools. The Yurok language is now
offered as classes, and one school offers a new Yurok immersion
program. \10\ The Cherokee Immersion Charter School, within the
Sequoyah School system of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, graduates
students who have learned grade level state standard curriculum while
speaking only Cherokee. \11\ These programs are taking significant
steps to improve the educational statistics for American Indian
students, as well as creating partnerships with public school
districts. The success of these programs has greatly increased student
success. However, there are not an abundant amount of programs and the
existing programs struggle to continue. S. 1948 would allow further
development and financial stability of established, as well as new,
language immersion programs.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Norimitsu Onishi, In California, Saving a Language That
Predates Spanish and English, N.Y. Times, April 13, 2014, at A13.
\10\ Id.
\11\ Cherokee Nation, Keeping Language Alive: Immersion School
Graduates More Students, Indian Country Today Media Network, (2014),
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/05/24/keeping-language-
alive-immersion-school-graduates-more-speakers-154888.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In 2011, for the first time, Congress authorized direct federal
appropriations for TEAs in the FY12 Appropriations Act. This was
recognition by Congress of the important role TEAs have in operating
and contributing to elementary and secondary education. Washington
State also made an important recognition when WA HB-1134 was signed
into law May 15, 2013. That bill provides for a co-governance model of
education through the development of state-tribal compacts.
The Native Language Immersion Student Achievement Act recognizes
the importance of Native American languages in delivering education to
American Indian students. Not only has Congress found that the use of
Native languages is an effective education tool for American Indian
education but it has also found that the use of these languages in
education also helps preserve the language itself. Both improved
education and preservation of Native American languages is of utmost
importance to the culture and identity of all tribes.
Tribal governments will help save our Native languages. Under
tribal law, under the laws of some states, and increasingly even under
federal law, tribes and TEAs are in the best position to coordinate
resources from tribal, federal, and state programs to focus on language
immersion programs in schools and communities. Many TEAs are even
developing and implementing the needed language preservation and
immersion programs. As TEAs grow in numbers and capacity, they are
successfully taking the lead in meeting the need for tribal language,
culture, and history programs. As they grow in numbers and capacity,
TEAs are consistently taking the lead in meeting the need for tribal
language, culture, and history programs and curricula.
TEDNA strongly supports the Native Language Immersion Student Act,
and urges the Committee to strengthen the bill by adding Indian tribes
and TEAs as ``eligible entities'' to receive grants and I have attached
proposed amendment language to this written testimony for your review.
Again, I thank Senator Tester and the co-sponsors of S. 1948 for
taking leadership on this vitally important issue.
Attachment
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Prepared Statement of the United Tribes Technical College (UTTC)
United Tribes Technical College (UTTC) submits this statement in
support of S. 1998, the Native Adult Education and Literacy Act of
2014. The legislation would provide a statutory allocation of funding
under the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act for tribal colleges
and universities and Native Hawaiian education organizations. Likewise,
the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, of which we are a
member, is strongly supporting a funding allocation under this Act for
tribal colleges and universities.
We thank Senators Hirono, Moran, Begich, Heinrich, and Schatz for
their leadership in recognizing the need for more resources for Native
education institutions to provide adult and literacy education for our
constituencies. We expect others will join as cosponsors.
For 45 years, United Tribes Technical College has provided
postsecondary career and technical education, job training, remedial,
literacy and family services to some of the most impoverished, high
risk Indian students from throughout the nation. We are governed by the
five tribes located wholly or in part in North Dakota. We are not part
of the North Dakota state college system and do not have a tax base or
state-appropriated funds on which to rely. We have consistently had
excellent retention and placement rates and are a fully accredited
institution.
Students at UTTC come from 75 different tribes, the preponderance
from the Great Plains, the area of highest poverty in Indian country.
Many are first generation college attendees. Eighty five percent (85
percent) of our students receive Pell Grants. Many of our students need
developmental reading and/or mathematics courses. Over the past five
years, 60 percent of our incoming freshmen took developmental math
courses and 55 percent took developmental English courses. Twenty five
percent of students took both developmental math and English. As you
know, students must have a Graduate Equivalency Diploma (GED) before
continuing in college, and this year the GED requirements for
mathematics were substantially increased. We need the resources to help
our students meet those requirements.
In addition to the remedial courses noted above, we are trying to
be pro-active in encouraging students to finish high school and to be
ready for college. We have a dual-enrollment program targeting junior
and senior high school students, providing them an introduction to
college life and offering high school and college credits. And our
elementary school, Theodore Jamerson, which is located on our campus
and funded through the Bureau of Indian Education, has a FACE program,
a family literacy program.
We are glad to offer remedial and other services for our students.
Our core operating funding comes from the Bureau of Indian Education
and the Section 117 Perkins program but these sources do not pay for
remedial education. We cobble together funds from other sources for
remedial education as we know that such an investment is needed in
order to help ensure that our students succeed at the postsecondary
level.
The prospect of applying for a dedicated source of tribal college
funds under the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act would be of
substantial help. Currently the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act
funds are distributed via formula to states. Some of it does benefit
American Indians and Alaska Natives, but a dedicated source that would
fund tribally-designed programs could have a significant impact. In
this Committee's hearing of June 11, 2014 on Higher Education for
Indian Students, witnesses provided a statistically dire picture of the
status of Indian education even though good work is being done by the
tribal colleges and organizations providing scholarships to Native
students, both undergraduate and graduate. The need simply outstrips
the resources by a long way.
Again, thank you for holding this hearing and others on Indian
education. We are hopeful that S. 1998 will be included in the
Workforce Investment Act (WIA) reauthorization agreement that has been
reached between the Senate and House Education committees. We are
pleased that the agreement reached on WIA took the Indian program
provisions of the Senate, rather than the House, bill; the inclusion of
the text of S. 1998 or something similar to it would improve it even
more.
______
National Indian Education Association
Washington, DC, June 16, 2014
Hon. Tim Johnson,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Re: NIEA Support for Senate Bill 2299--The Native American
Languages Reauthorization Act
Dear Senator Johnson,
On behalf of the National Indian Education Association (NIEA), I am
excited for the introduction of the Native American Languages
Reauthorization Act (S. 2299). This bipartisan bill is crucial for
reauthorizing a non-controversial program that efficiently and
effectively provides grants to revitalize Native languages. As the most
inclusive Native education organization in the country, we are working
hard to support your efforts to see this language become law.
According to UNESCO, 74 Native languages stand to disappear within
the next decade. Equally as alarming, scholars project that without
immediate and persistent action, only 20 Native languages will be
spoken by 2050. The Esther Martinez Initiative funds immersion programs
that are successfully passing on Native languages to American Indian,
Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian students. Native language
revitalization is a critical priority because language preservation
goes to the heart of Native identity. In many ways, language is
culture. Learning and understanding traditional languages help Native
students thrive. And, immersion programs ensure the survival of a
student's language and cultural identity for generations.
NIEA appreciates your attention to protecting and strengthening
Native languages and looks forward to working with the Senate Committee
on Indian Affairs to move the bill to the full Senate. We also
appreciate your continued dedication to our Native communities. Through
our concerted efforts, we know that negative statistics representing
our Native students will begin to reverse.
Re: Support for S. 1948--The Native Language Immersion
Student Achievement Act
Dear Chairman Tester and Vice Chairman Barrasso,
On behalf of the National Indian Education Association (NIEA),
thank you for the renewed focus and energy of the Committee on Native
education. The recent hearings on the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE)
and public schools serving Native students created a strong foundation
for collaboration. To build upon this momentum, NIEA respectfully
requests that the Committee hold a hearing on Native languages and pass
Senator Tester's bill, S. 1948--The Native Language Immersion Student
Achievement Act.
NIEA, founded in 1969, is the most inclusive Native organization in
the country--representing Native students, educators, families,
communities, and tribes. NIEA's mission is to advance comprehensive
educational opportunities for all American Indians, Alaska Natives, and
Native Hawaiians throughout the United States. 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.
NIEA supports Senate bill 1948 because it ensures that Native
language immersion--one of NIEA's key Elementary and Secondary
Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization priorities--is not overlooked, but
strengthened. Native language revitalization and preservation is a
critical priority to tribes and Native communities because language
preservation goes to the heart of Native identity. In many ways,
language is culture. Learning and understanding traditional languages
helps Native students thrive and is a critical piece to ensuring
schools serve Native students effectively. Immersion programs not only
increase academic achievement, but guarantee that a student's language
will be carried forward for generations.
Once again, thank you for your continued support of Native
education.
Sincerely,
Pam Agoyo,
President, National Indian Education Association.
______
Dear Senate Committee on Indian Affairs:
I am a member if the red lake band of Chippewa Indians. I am in
support of S. 1948, a bill to support academic achievement of American
Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children with the
establishment of a Native Languages grant program. Committee members
should support the amendments to S. 1948 as provided by Stabilizing
Indigenous Languages Symposium participants in the testimony submitted
by Namaka Rawlins for hearing on 6/18/2014.
S. 2299 reauthorizes the Native American Language Preservation Act
to 2019, which provides funds to ensure the survival and continuing
vitality of Native American languages.
Thank you for taking the time to hear my testimony,
Elizabeth Sahkahtay Strong
______
Dear Senate Committee on Indian Affairs,
I urge support of S. 1948, a bill to support academic achievement
of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children with
the establishment of a Native Languages grant program. Committee
members should support the amendments to S. 1948 as provided by
Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium participants in the
testimony submitted by Namaka Rawlins for hearing on 6/18/2014.
Please also support S. 2299, which reauthorizes the Native American
Language Preservation Act to 2019, which provides funds to ensure the
survival and continuing vitality of Native American languages.
Time and again studies have proven the economic and cognitive
benefits for children learning multiple languages. I can personally
attest to the restorative effect it has on Native communities, which as
you know are still healing from generations of mistreatment and
outright assimilation attempts from the United States government. It is
beyond time for the U.S. to make amends to these sovereign nations, and
it can begin by supporting indigenous language learning via S. 1948 and
S. 2299. Please, do the right thing and vote yes to the Stabilizing
Indigenous Languages Symposium amendments to S. 1948 and to both bills.
Please also urge your colleagues to support the House companion
bills H.B. 4214 and H.R. 746.
Best regards,
Jennifer Hall,
Leech Lake Ojibwe descendant, proud Ojibwemowin learner.
______
To Whom It May Concern,
I urge support of S. 1948, a bill to support academic achievement
of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children with
the establishment of a Native Languages grant program. Committee
members should support the amendments to S. 1948 as provided by
Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium participants in the
testimony submitted by Namaka Rawlins for hearing on 6/18/2014.
S. 2299 reauthorizes the Native American Language Preservation Act
to 2019, which provides funds to ensure the survival and continuing
vitality of Native American languages.
Nokomis Paiz
Red Lake, MN.
______
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Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Brian Schatz to
Thomas Shortbull
Question 1. What is the best proven method to support language
preservation and to ensure that native languages remain living
languages, spoken by children as well as elders, in schools and in
homes across native communities throughout the United States?
Answer. In our tribe, the language has sporadically been taught in
schools using methods that were inspired by methods used to teach
foreign languages in mainstream schools. After thirty years these
approaches have not produced any new speakers. The same can be said of
language teaching at the college level. OLC is also working toward a
modified immersion method for adult learners. We have tried a number of
demonstrations and will be trying more.
The Full Immersion method developed and implemented by the Maori
and the Hawaiian communities has, by contrast, shown an undeniable
success over thirty years of practice. The Full Immersion concept
reenacts the conditions of the natural acquisition of the first
language of a child. It utilizes fluent speakers, usually Elders, as
teachers, and involves the families of the children. It ultimately
involves the communities as the language becomes again a more widely
and spontaneous way of inter-generational communication in private as
well as in public.
Question 2. Can you discuss the importance of having living
languages and name some of the benefits as they relate to cognitive
development, literacy, academic achievement, college attainment or
other education and development goals?
Answer. The language is the foundation of the identity as it
carries the culture that is specific to it and is the element of
distinction between one culture and others. This distinctive character
is active and actual in the life of the speaker to the contrary of
``blood degree'' that is passive and abstract for the life of the
individual. A child who is recognized as a Lakota and is brought up in
and with the living language is de facto rooted in his/her very
culture. The language spoken around him/her by adults who are the
current carriers of the unaltered culture validates the culture, and
reinforces his/her personality, self-esteem, and motivation. The child
has the best chance to become a productive member of the community as a
leader, maker and/or a role model.
The mastery of two languages, each relevant to part of the dual
reality of life for the Native nations, allows the individual to
comprehend and help others comprehend this complex reality and to
figure out and model how to deal with each side of this reality. This
helps the person maintain the authenticity of the identity and, at the
same, time be able to efficiently address the necessities of life in
21st century America. Research shows that bi- or multi-lingual
individuals have an enhanced ability to embrace complex realities,
comprehend differences, and produce creative and effective ideas in
problem-solving situations.
Question 3. Can you address concerns expressed by critics of
immersion or bilingual education programs that exposure to two or more
languages simultaneously at a young age may delay or hamper language
acquisition or proficiency? Does a child's ability to speak multiple
languages impact developmental milestones or academic achievement in
later years? If so, how? Are there benefits of training a child to
communicate in two or more languages?
Answer. As the child learns simultaneously two different languages,
the processing of information and acquisition of skills takes more time
than if the child was working with one language only. However, as the
child progresses in the one and the other language mastery, the
processing of information becomes more effective, faster and the child
develops original strategies to keep on progressing; this is
particularly true of the memory functions [like storing/recalling] and
mnemonic process [like associations, linear or circular links, formal
or semantic connections for instance].
We refer you to the following research done by NEA:
Regarding World Language Education NEA Research, December 2007
The Benefits of Second Language Study Research Findings with
Citations
Status of U.S. second language study 1
Research Findings: Second language study:
. . .benefits academic progress in other subjects 2
. . .narrows achievement gaps 3
. . .benefits basic skills development 3
. . .benefits higher order, abstract and creative thinking 4
. . .(early) enriches and enhances cognitive development 4
. . .enhances a student's sense of achievement 4
. . .helps students score higher on standardized tests 5
. . .promotes cultural awareness and competency 5
. . .improves chances of college acceptance, achievement and
attainment 6
. . .enhances career opportunities 6
. . .benefits understanding and security in community and society 6
. . .barriers 6
Bibliography 7
Web References 12
Question 4. What are some of the spillover benefits of having
immersion programs? Can you discuss any impacts or progress toward:
a. Creating leaders
Answer. The Lakota Language is carrying the culture, view of the
world, values and meaning of life of the Lakota people, and, as such,
is determinant in the choosing of men and women who will lead their
people into the future in accordance with the deep Lakota identity. As
leaders speakers of the language will be able to continue the mending
of the society, communities and families by understanding what to
restore to achieve the ability to successfully live in two worlds. Many
of the greatest modern leaders of the Lakota are, or were, fluent in
English and Lakota including Gerald One Feather, founder of Oglala
Lakota College.
b. Community building
Answer. As carrier of the traditional language, these individuals
will naturally be the point of crystallization whenever the community
expresses a desire or need to revitalize a larger part of the culture.
The original societal structure of the Lakota is the Tiyospaye
(extended family), and the current communities reflect this specific
aspect of the culture to which the Lakota Language confers meaning and
significance much more than the English language does.
c. Cultural identity/pride
Answer. As we know that a language carries the culture and that
without the language the culture cannot carry on , the speakers are
acknowledged and recognized as the perpetuators of the true culture
that is so distinctive of the Lakota people as a people (as is true for
Cheyenne speakers for the Cheyenne people, Dine for the Dine people,
etc. . .]. The speakers incarnate the identity, pride, self esteem and
self assurance of their people.
Question 5. Maintaining living native languages takes an immense
amount of time, energy and resources to design appropriate curricula
and learning materials. It is similarly challenging to cultivate native
language instructors and professionals who can successfully educate
pupils in the native language. Moreover, piecing together annual
budgets from a number of different funding sources can be difficult.
Are more resources needed to support the immersion language programs?
And if so, why?
Answer. Most immersion language programs are small, and face
expenses that are comparatively greater than those of larger
conventional schools. The utilities cost is more expensive at a per
child ratio for a 40 child program than for a 300 child school, and so
is transportation. Extra curricular, sports, and cultural activities
impose various types of expenses including gas for transportation,
participation fees, acquisition of equipment, and meals. Very often
this is either a barrier or at least limitation to these activities.
Donations in monies and in kind are very often what we depend on in
order to give our children the opportunity to partake in a hand games
tournament or in archery. We are very limited at this time in terms of
budget to provide continued training to our teaching staff which is
crucial for the success of the full immersion programs. Oglala Lakota
College makes a large contribution to just assure that we can continue
a quality program.
Question 6. Language is closely tied to one's identity and self-
confidence, and in communities, language teaches and reinforces the
traditional culture and values. Do you have evidence or data comparing
the psychological well-being or academic achievement of immersion
students versus non-immersion native students?
Answer. On this topic, I cannot provide verifiable data as the
students who are enrolled in conventional schools do not fall into our
data recording. However, our students show an effective internalization
and practice of traditional cultural values such as respect of others
and self respect. Outside observers such a an Administration for Native
Americans ``Impact Visit'' agent and Lannan Foundation visiting team
noted as striking the culturally relevant behavior displayed by the
children, individually and as a group. Most students take an
ostentatious pride in attending the school, ``their school'' in their
own words, and in having a working knowledge of the their language.
Some of them have been ``importing'' some language in their home. Some
others proudly speak of using the language at home with their
relatives, mostly their grandparents.
Two former students have been transitioning from our program to
conventional schools outside the reservation. One is in 5th grade in a
rural area school not very far from the reservation and was a
``straight A student'' for the first year in the conventional school as
a 4th grader. The other one finished her 4th grade in a conventional
school in New jersey. She struggled for the first 4 months but passed
on to 5th grade, and based on a recent phone conversation with the
parents is now totally adjusted and performing well.
Question 7. In your work, have you noted whether native language
proficiency and native cultural familiarity have any impact on the
self-esteem and resiliency of native immersion students?
Answer. Our program is still young and the observation of this type
of impact is limited. However, we see most of our older students [4th
and 5th graders] having a positive image of themselves as individuals,
as members of a traditional family, and as a group by contrast with
other children from conventional schools. This is observed in several
families who reported the fact to us on various occasions like our
Winter (Christmas) Celebration and Family Puppet Making workshop .
Families report often on their student spontaneously singing
traditional songs at home that they learned at the school.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Brian Schatz to
Clarena Brockie
Question 1. What is the best proven method to support language
preservation and to ensure that native languages remain living
languages, spoken by children as well as elders, in schools and in
homes across native communities throughout the United States?
Answer. Immersion Schools not only revitalize the language but
preserve the cultural heritage, ceremonies, traditions and history.
Native languages survive when it is spoken on a continual basis, in the
home as well as in schools. In some communities the language is center
when traditional ceremonies are conducted.
Question 2. Can you discuss the importance of having living
languages and name some of the benefits as they relate to cognitive
development, literacy, academic achievement, college attainment or
other education and development goals?
Answer. In 2002 the White Clay Immersion opened a full Native
Language immersion school operating under the Aaniiih Nakoda College in
direct response to the reality that only 25 Aaniiih language fluent
speaker remained in 1997. With research and planning the school was
opened in 2002 under the direction of Dr. Lynette Chandler. Today there
are no fluent elder Aaniiih speaker lives on the Fort Belknap Indian
Reservation. Graduates from White Clay Immersion School have
transitioned to public schools and are recognized by these schools as
leaders in student government, academics and sports. They have received
awards for Science, Math, English, Literature and Art. Of the original
2011 graduating class for WCIS, three of the four students have been
inducted into the National Honor Society. These students are also on
the student council, participate in Jobs for Montana Graduates, Indian
Club, Yearbook, volunteer programs and lead the class awards at the end
of the school year.
Question 3. Can you address concerns expressed by critics of
immersion or bilingual education programs that exposure to two or more
languages simultaneously at a young age may delay or hamper language
acquisition or proficiency? Does a child's ability to speak multiple
languages impact developmental milestones or academic achievement in
later years? If so how? Are there benefits of training a child to
communicate in two or more languages?
Answer. As expressed in question two, the White Clay Immersion
students have excelled beyond the average student. These students have
transition without any difficulty and have continued to excel in the
public school setting.
Question 4. What are some of the spillover benefits of having
immersion programs? Can you discuss any impacts or progress toward: (a)
Creating Leaders (b) Community building (c) Cultural identity/pride.
Answer. It is essential to the survival of the language that every
effort is made to assure the continuance of the language that is in
danger of being lost. It is more than a ``spillover benefit.'' The
Language reveals who we are as Native people, building pride and
cultural identity. However the Immersion schools provides a rounded
education, including knowing the oral history, those that sustained the
people, provided them guidance and knowledge on culturally what was
important such as respect, generosity, listening to your elders, how to
survive, learning from your mistakes, believing in the Creator, and
spiritual guidance. With a good foundation, they become leaders in the
community.
Question 5. Maintaining living native languages takes an immense
amount of time, energy and resources to design appropriate curricula
and learning materials. It is similarly challenging to cultivate native
language instructors and professionals who can successfully educate
pupils in the native language. Moreover, piecing together annual
budgets from a number of different funding sources can be difficult.
Are more resources needed to support the immersion language programs?
And if so, why?
Answer. Yes. Financial resources are limited. Some private Public
schools have restricts that immersion schools don't always fit under.
If language revitalization had to wait for funding, it would be
very difficult to implement. When a language is in danger of being
lost, those people must do whatever they can to assure that it
continues. Sometimes it starts with classes in the home or from a small
private grant to implement whys of retaining the language by hosting
classes, paring language speakers with learners, having after school
programs. But at some point immersion is needed to insure the retention
of the language.
Funding is sporadic, with constant grant writing meeting with
foundations and local fundraisers. The Administration of Native
American programs (ANA) has specific language that limits what you can
do or every three years a new objective or direction is required. If
the basic goal is to learn the language, the measure should be how many
students have learned and retained the language. And the funding is
limited to three years.
Question 6. Language is closely tied to one's identity and self-
confidence, and in communities, language teaches and reinforces the
traditional culture and values. Do you have evidence or data comparing
the psychological well-being or academic achievement of immersion
students versus non-immersion native students?
Answer. The evidence we have is the success of the WCIS and how
they are progressing. The first class of 2011 will be graduating next
year and we will summarize their success academically, socially and
culturally.
Question 7. In your work, have you noted whether native language
proficiency and native culture familiarity have any impact on the self-
esteem and resiliency of native immersion students?
Answer. The ANC White Class Immersion School had it first
graduating class in 2011 with only one other class and we have
evaluations and measures in place for reviewing the success of the
program. We realized that tracking graduates and gathering data is an
important tool in measuring success.
Summary: My answers are based on the White Clay Immersion School
student's success, experience and transition into the public school.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Brian Schatz to
Hon. Ed Delgado
Question 1. What is the best proven method to support language
preservation and to ensure that native languages remain living
languages, spoken by children as well as elders, in schools and in
homes across native communities throughout the United States?
Answer. The best-proven method to ensure the survival of native
languages is Indigenous Language Immersion. This form of immersion
includes incorporating the Indigenous culture and using the Indigenous
language as the medium of instruction for all subjects.
Question 2. Can you discuss the importance of having living
languages and name some of the benefits as they relate to cognitive
development, literacy, academic achievement, college attainment or
other education and development goals?
Answer. The importance of having a living language is paramount for
the survival of Indigenous identity, worldview, knowledge, ceremonies;
in fact, a living language holds a whole world that includes every bit
of information and knowledge about the universe from the point of view
of the Indigenous people speaking that language. The language provides
invaluable information of how to heal the Indigenous people physically,
mentally, emotionally and spiritually from the historical trauma
experienced over many generations. The benefits for cognitive
development are acquiring more complex skills at an earlier age and
cognitive flexibility. In an environment where one's own ancestral
language is living and thriving it has positive impacts on the
following cognitive skills: critical thinking, memory, problem solving
and decision-making. Indigenous literacy includes oral tradition,
culture, art; Indigenous literacy is beneficial to supporting a
thriving, living language. The works of William Demmert cite that
academic achievement is much higher in Native American children who
know how to speak their language and participate in their culture. It
provides them with a foundation of how to see the world and helps them
navigate in the culture of academia from kindergarten to college and
beyond. A living language affords the Indigenous community the ability
to provide their young people with necessary tools to give them success
in both their culture and mainstream society's culture.
Question 3. Can you address concerns expressed by critics of
immersion or bilingual education programs that exposure to two or more
languages simultaneously at a young age may delay or hamper language
acquisition or proficiency? Does a child's ability to speak multiple
languages impact developmental milestones or academic achievement in
later years? If so how? Are there benefits of training a child to
communicate in two or more languages?
Answer. The concerns expressed by critics of immersion or bilingual
education are usually centered on students acquiring English and one
other language. In the arena of Indigenous Language Immersion, it only
benefits a young person to have their ancestral language as their first
language and/or bilingual in both their language and English. There are
no delays or hampering of language acquisition or proficiency when it
comes to educating Indigenous youth in their own language as well as
English. A child's ability to speak multiple languages only improves
their success in reaching developmental milestones and achieving
academically throughout their lives. Training a child to communicate in
two or more languages provides the critical thinking skills to adapt
intelligently to any environment whether academically or socially.
Question 4. What are some of the spillover benefits of having
immersion programs? Can you discuss any impacts or progress toward: (a)
Creating Leaders (b) Community building (c) Cultural identity/pride.
Answer. Some lasting benefits of having immersion programs are
strengthening the community as a whole. The nature of Indigenous
Language Immersion includes the participation of wide range of age
groups. Within our families, we have experienced destruction of
relationships via boarding schools and mainstream education. With
immersion, families will need to work together to mend and maintain
those relationships. When family relationships are strong, it builds a
strong community. When our communities are strong we see a decrease in
social ills and an increase in cultural identity and pride.
Question 5. Maintaining living native languages takes an immense
amount of time, energy and resources to design appropriate curricula
and learning materials. It is similarly challenging to cultivate native
language instructors and professionals who can successfully educate
pupils in the native language. Moreover, piecing together annual
budgets from a number of different funding sources can be difficult.
Are more resources needed to support the immersion language programs?
And if so, why?
Answer. Yes, indeed, more funding resources are needed. In the
particular, the language community in Oneida, WI is in the process of
creating second language speakers in order to have an immersion or a
bilingual program intended to create first language speakers of Oneida
again. The amount of time and energy it takes to maintain one's course
to become a second language speaker at this point in our language's
history is a massive challenge. Our audio resources must utilized in
the most efficient manner possible because we have no more first
language speakers who are able to help us. New and creative media must
be made with the previously recorded material in order to mirror the
language exposure that one would have naturally. Strategic planning of
funding resources must be based on producing quality resources and
functional second language speakers. The work involved in growing our
own fluent speaking Oneida teachers and then re-educating our community
and youth is the most important effort that will echo for generations
to come.
Question 6. Language is closely tied to one's identity and self-
confidence, and in communities, language teaches and reinforces the
traditional culture and values. Do you have evidence or data comparing
the psychological well-being or academic achievement of immersion
students versus non-immersion native students?
Answer. We are in the beginning stages of documenting the kind of
evidence and data that will compare Oneida students who are being
taught with our current curriculum to those who are not using our
current curriculum. Our community does not have Indigenous Language
Immersion at this time.However, the current curriculum produced by the
Oneida Language Revitalization Department, is being offered for credit
at a nearby high school where data is being collected and will show
improvements in academic success for the Oneida students learning
language.
Question 7. In your work, have you noted whether native language
proficiency and native culture familiarity have any impact on the self-
esteem and resiliency of native immersion students?
Answer. The impact that native language proficiency and native
cultural familiarity has on students is definitely positive. They show
a pride in themselves that is authentic and not constructed from
mainstream society's culture. They know whom they are, where they come
from and where they fit in or belong. Their self-confidence and self-
esteem soar, which helps with behavioral, issues as well as managing
school work. Students show resiliency when faced with life's problems
or trauma because they have their traditional ways to rely on to get
them through whatever kind of issues they may have.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Brian Schatz to
Namaka Rawlins
Question 1. What is the best proven method to support language
preservation and to ensure that native languages remain living
languages, spoken by children as well as elders, in schools and in
homes across native communities throughout the United States?
Answer. The short answer to this question is that use of the
language as the medium of instruction in schools and medium of
communication between staff in native communities is the best-proven
method to support language preservation and maintenance as living
languages. I will address this question first with information from
other countries, followed by our experience in Hawai'i and then discuss
the spread of the model through our network of Native American language
medium/immersion schools on a national level.
Providing education through the medium of small locally distinct
languages is a growing international phenomenon. The countries with the
most experience in use of small autochthonous languages as the language
of education are found in Western Europe, especially Scandinavia. Even
for those countries, educational use of such small languages as the
medium of normal public education is less than a century old. The
advantage that Western Europeans have in developing this sort of
education, however, is their long history of developing high
multilingualism in their national school systems for their majority
populations. These countries, therefore, have a high sensitivity to
language use in schooling that makes it easier for them to see the
benefits of education through small languages.
Some examples of small Western European autochthonous language-
speaking populations similar in size to Native American languages are
the cases of the Faroese language, the dialect network of Romansh and
the Sami languages discussed below. This is followed by the example of
New Zealand Maaori and then a detailed description of the Hawaiian
situation. The spread of the model to states outside Hawai'i closes
this section.
The Faroese Language of Denmark
The Faroese language is spoken in the Faroe Islands, to the north
of Scotland. These small islands are a part of Denmark, but run with a
semi-autonomous government. That autonomous government has some
similarities to tribal governments in the United States. The population
of the Faroe Islands in 2013 was estimated to be 49,709, living in an
area covering 540 square miles. Over fifty American Indian reservations
are larger than the Faroe Islands, but most have smaller populations.
In the early 1900s, there was fear that the unique Faroese language
and culture would die out. The language had formerly been suppressed in
the schools, churches and government. The people were considered
backward and the education level was considered quite low.
Today, both the language and the socio-economic situation are quite
different. Almost 100 percent of the population of the Faroe Islands
now speaks Faroese, with those who do not being residents who recently
moved to the islands. The language is widely used in local religious
institutions and also in the local government. The survival of the
language is attributed to Danish government change in 1937, when
Faroese replaced Danish as the language of instruction of all schools
in the Faroe Islands. The language is spoken by all born and raised in
the Faroe Islands, a demographic that makes up the vast majority of the
some 50,000 people living in the islands. Education through Faroese
includes preschool, K-12 education, and vocational training. There is
also a small university similar to a tribal college in the Faroe
Islands. The university offers a small set of courses at the bachelors,
masters and doctoral level for the student population of 142. Teacher
training through Faroese is also available.
Although education is through Faroese, all Faroe Islanders also
learn Danish and English in schools and are highly proficient in
Danish. The government of the Faroe Islands provides special support
for university students to study in mainstream Denmark through Danish
and also to attend English medium universities outside Denmark. The
Faroe Islands were once a socioeconomic backwater, but the community
has done well educationally and socio-economically. Its Human
Development Index (HDI) as rated by the United Nations is 0.950
(considered ``very high''). This is higher than that of Denmark as a
whole at 0.900 (also considered ``very high'') and also that of the
United States at 0.914. The revitalization of the Faroese language from
the late 1930s using a modern educational system immersed in the local
language can be considered very successful.
The Diverse Dialects of Romansh in Switzerland
Romansh is spoken in southern Switzerland. There are five regional
dialects. The dialects are very different from each other and each has
its own writing system, making them effectively five different
languages. This is similar to the situation with certain American
Indian languages, which are closely related, or considered dialects of
each other, e.g., Ojibwe dialects, Tohonno O'odham and Pima, Lakota and
Dakota, etc. The dialects are separated from each other, often by areas
where most of the population speaks German. This, again, is similar to
certain American Indian languages which are spoken on several
reservations in an area with intervening populations of non-Native
Americans, e.g., Ojibwe reservations in Minnesota and Wisconsin and
Lushootseed (Salish) speaking peoples on multiple reservations in
western Washington.
The most widely spoken dialect of Romansh has about 18,000 speakers
and the smallest dialect has about 1,000 speakers. In all dialects many
of the speakers are older people. Similar to a number of Indian
Reservations, the Romansh are not the sole people living in their home
areas. Besides the German speakers living among them, the Romansh have
considerable contact with Italian and French speakers who inhabit
nearby areas of Switzerland where Italian and French are official as
well as bordering countries of Italy and France. Finally, the home area
of the Romansh including St. Moritz is popular with tourists from many
countries, including English speakers.
Education through Romansh is rather new in the Romansh area,
beginning in earnest only in the later half of the 20th century. Not
all Romansh villages have education through Romansh. However, where
education through Romansh is in effect, it has resulted in increasing
numbers of children using the language. In 2000, there were 6,411
students attending school in Romansh. Although each area uses its own
dialect in school, there is also an overarching school dialect that has
been established as a bridge among dialects. Students in Romansh medium
schools also learn this bridge dialect in addition to their home
dialects. All students from these Romansh schools graduate highly
fluent in German and often speak French, Italian and English. Jean-
Jacque Furer, who has done extensive research on Romansh, concluded in
2005 that there are still enough speakers to ensure that Romansh will
survive in the long term. He considers the Romansh-language school
system the single most crucial factor in the survival of Romansh.
Creating school materials and teacher training in Romansh and its
various dialects has been a challenge but the government of Switzerland
has been supportive.
At one time the Romansh were considered to be very backward and
children were punished for using Romansh in the schools. The Romansh
area today, however, is an economically vibrant area and the Romansh
are full participants in the highly multilingual society of
Switzerland. Their population concentrations, however, tend to be small
villages, whose small local governments the Romansh control simply by
being the majority population in these small villages. They do not have
any special political autonomy in the sense that the Faroese of the
Faroe Islands of Denmark do.
The Sami Languages of Norway, Sweden and Finland
The Sami are the sole people of Europe who are both ``indigenous''
and ``autochthonous.'' The term ``autochthonous'' (of the land) is
appropriate for the Faroese and Romansh who originate in their home
areas. However, the Faroese and Romansh are similar to the majority
populations of their counties in their origins and historical life
style--that is standard European agricultural and pastoral life. In
contrast, the Sami are similar to many American Indians and Alaska
Natives in being an indigenous people with a highly distinct
traditional life style from the majority populations of their
countries, while also ``autochthonous'' that is originating in that
part of their home countries. The Sami were originally northern hunter-
gatherers and herders of semi-domestic reindeer similar to the caribou
whose herds were followed by certain Alaskan Native peoples. The
traditional homes of the Sami were analogous to those of the Alaska
Athabaskan peoples and not unlike the American Plains Indian tipi. The
Sami share with American Indians a long period of persecution of their
language and distinctive shamanic religion. Unlike the Faroese and
Romansh, the Sami had their children taken from them and placed in
boarding schools. This history has resulted in many individuals of Sami
ancestry being unable to speak their ancestral language and some Sami
languages going extinct.
Also similar to Native Americans, and different from other
autochthonous peoples of Europe, the Sami have numerous land rights and
traditional subsistence rights issues with the governments of the
countries in which they live. Norway, Sweden and Finland have accorded
Sami distinctive political rights similar to those of Native Americans
in the United States. This autonomy is exercised through ``Sami
parliaments.'' Norway was the first country to establish this autonomy
in 1973 with Sweden the latest in 1993. The small numbers of Sami
living over the Russian border from Finland are not recognized as a
distinct people by Russia.
There are ten distinct Sami languages, which are incomprehensible
one from the other. Within the various Sami languages there are also
dialect divisions. The largest Sami language is Northern Sami with
15,000 speakers in Northern Norway. Northern Sami is official in two
Norwegian counties and in six towns, where the language is used in
local government where the majority population is Northern Sami. An
official writing system was adopted in 1979. There are also some
Northern Sami living in adjoining areas of Sweden and Finland. In
Norway, approximately 1,000 children have Northern Sami as their
primary language (mother tongue) and attend school through the Northern
Sami language through secondary school. These children and schools are
located primarily in the core Sami areas of Karasjok and Kautokeino.
These children also graduate fully fluent in Norwegian. Like students
in mainstream Norwegian schools, they typically study two foreign
languages, one of which is English before graduation from high school.
There is also a Sami university college with an enrollment of about 150
students. That university uses Northern Sami as the primary language of
education with some courses offered through other languages including
English, due to the high multilingualism of the Sami youth enrolled.
The other Sami languages are much smaller than Northern Sami. Some
have less than one hundred speakers left; yet the governments of
Norway, Sweden and Finland recognize the right of the distinctive Sami
peoples speaking those languages to education in their own languages.
Most groups aspire to school systems through their own languages such
as those that currently exist for the Northern Sami, but lack
sufficient teachers fluent in the languages. In such cases, courses in
the language as a second language are offered for children and the
community in mainstream schools as an initial stepping stone toward
education through the medium of the local language. A similar situation
exists in areas where Northern Sami was formerly spoken and the local
Northern Sami are seeking to return the language to their children. For
example, in Finland in 1998, approximately 115 children at the primary
and secondary level were receiving almost all their education through
Northern Sami, even though they generally did not enter school knowing
the language.
The efforts of the Inari Sami of Finland are an example of a very
small Sami language being reestablished by its community. The Inari
Sami was never a very large group of people and once faced extinction.
Today, theirs is a growing language of approximately 300 speakers out
of a total ethnic population of 800. While most of that population
lives around Inari Lake, many are scattered elsewhere in Finland and
thus not able to participate in the efforts of language revitalization.
By the end of the 20th century, the only people who spoke their
language were elders. In the late 1980s, an Inari Sami organization was
established to revitalize the language focusing on including the
language in the modern life of the area where the Inari Sami lived. In
2000, they began a ``language nest'' program similar to the Hawaiian
Puunana Leo to produce young speakers. They also established programs
to produce adult speakers using the ``masterapprentice'' system
combined with college credit courses in Inari Sami. Inari Sami youth in
the local high school were also provided the opportunity to study their
language as a course. The Inari Sami language organization combined the
development of second language speakers with efforts to produce
materials and develop modern terminology. Through this they were able
to begin Inari Sami medium elementary education for children in their
community located on Inari Lake in northern Finland. By 2004, they had
reached grade 4 with a population of 18 students in their small Inari
Sami language medium school with plans to expand to higher grades. All
those children are also fluent in Finnish. Inari Sami medium education
is producing a population of fluent speakers and making it possible for
families using the language in the home to maintain the language as a
first language in cooperation with the educational system. While the
Inari Sami medium school began much later than efforts in Faroese,
Romansh and even Northern Sami, it is making good progress in a context
of high support from the Finnish government. The familiarity of
Scandinavian governments with producing high quality modern education
with high fluency in several languages is where Inari Sami language
schooling has an advantage over Native American language medium
schooling. The Finnish language itself was not generally seriously used
in education until the turn of the 20th century, requiring much
development of new terminology and development of teachers.
Furthermore, Finland has two official languages within its mainstream
population, Finnish and Swedish. The Swedish population is located on
the western edge of the country and has full preschool through doctoral
(P-20) education available to it in that language. In addition, all
students in Finland learn the other official language in school along
with English and at least one foreign language. The Sami schools
produce similar results with the addition of Sami as well.
Although the United States does not have the experience with
multilingualism in schooling that Finland does, quite a few Native
American peoples are positioned by their populations to follow the
example of the Sami peoples in terms of developing education through
their own languages. These positioned Native American groups also have
larger populations of speakers than the larger and medium sized
populations of Sami peoples. Examples include the Choctaw (``ethnic''
population: 103,910--''speaker'' population: 10,343), Navajo
(``ethnic'' population: 286,731--``speaker'' population: 169,471),
Yup'ik (``ethnic'' population: 28,927--''speaker'' population: 18,950),
Pueblo-Keres (``ethnic'' population 49,695--''speaker'' population:
12,945), Tohonno O'odham (``ethnic'' population: 19,522--``speaker''
population: 7,270), Crow (``ethnic'' population: 10,332--``speaker''
population: 3,705), Sioux (``ethnic'' population: 112,176--''speaker''
population: 18,616), Chippewa/Ojibwe (``ethnic'' population: 112,757--
``speaker'' population: 8,371), Hawaiian (``ethnic'' population:
156,146--''speaker'' population: 24,042). Several of these large to
medium Native American groups also have their own tribal colleges
similar in size to the college of the Northern Sami in Norway.
With the smallest Sami groups having suffered complete language
loss or near total loss with only a handful of elder speakers left,
there are also parallels in very small Native American groups,
especially those of the West Coast and Alaska. Among the Scandinavian
countries, even the smallest Sami languages are supported in developing
into the medium of education for their schools, with intermediate steps
of support as shown in the example of Inari Sami described above.
The Example of New Zealand Maaori
New Zealand is a former British colony in the Southern Hemisphere
that is approximately the size of California with a population \1/8\ of
that of California. The indigenous Maaori of New Zealand are the
largest minority at approximately 15 percent (600,000 individuals) of
the overall population of 4.5 million. The Maaori are not only a large
group for an indigenous people but they also have a unique political
position within the country due to the Treaty of Waitangi through which
Britain gained political sovereignty over the country. As is the case
with other indigenous groups elsewhere in the world, Maaori students
tend to perform more poorly than other groups in New Zealand mainstream
schools.
Traditionally, all Maaori spoke a single Polynesian language, but
use of the language was greatly eroded through schooling in which only
English was allowed. In spite of inroads made against the use of Maaori
language at least until the end of World War II, most Maaori spoke the
Maaori language. The language then began a rapid demise among children
resulting in efforts to teach it as a language course in universities
and high schools. In the early 1980s, a movement began in the country
to use the language in schooling. The national government provided
major financial support for this and large numbers of children were
enrolled first at the preschool level and then in elementary and
secondary schools. Maaori medium television and radio also developed
rapidly and today provide high quality programming for Maaori speakers.
The Maaori language revitalization movement has had very positive
results in terms of revitalizing the language and in developing
students with fluency in both Maaori and English. The initial growth of
these schools in the 1980s and 1990s, however, was exceedingly rapid
creating some challenges in terms of quality control. The quality
issues led to excessive government regulation along mainstream lines
that failed to account for unique features of education through the
language. Excessive government regulation and the internal quality
questions led to disillusionment within the movement at the same time
that communities were experiencing the emotionally discouraging effects
of the loss of fluent Maaori speaking elders. Cooperation among schools
and also between them and university programs in Maaori and teacher
training was less than optimal. Coupled with all this were economic
challenges in Maaori communities leading to large Maaori emigration to
Australia for employment. All these issues led to a decline in
enrollments in Maaori language schooling in the early part of the 21st
century.
There is now, however, the beginning of another increase in
enrollments as news of the positive academic as well as linguistic
results of Maaori schooling is beginning to spread through the Maaori
population. An example of an especially successful school is Nga
Taiatea Whare Kura located in Hamilton, New Zealand, where students are
performing well above the national average for Maaori students. Even
with the effect of the period of decline, the enrollment in Maaori
language medium schooling is larger than that of any indigenous group
in the world. In 2013, over 17,000 students were being educated through
Maaori for more than half the day in over 280 school sites, with well
over 95 percent ethnically Maaori student population. An even larger
number of students are studying Maaori in English medium schools,
either as a course or attending classes for less than half the day
through Maaori. In 2013, there were over 140,000 such second language
style learners of Maaori, of which some 55 percent were ethnically
Maaori. Most students in New Zealand, regardless of ethnicity, also
learn simple Maaori words, greetings and songs in Maaori sometime
within their education even if they do not study Maaori as a full
language.
Hawaiian, an Example from the United States
Within the United States, Hawaiian has the longest history of being
used as a regular government medium of education, both historically and
in the contemporary period. Hawai'i has the second oldest government
public education system in the United States, having being established
in 1840 shortly after that of Massachusetts. The Hawai'i public
education system was originally taught and administered entirely
through Hawaiian. It included a small college that prepared teachers.
The level of literacy of Native Hawaiians produced in this system was
higher than that of any other country and only exceeded by a few cities
in Scotland and some parts of New England, but not by any other
country. There was also high literacy in other languages, especially
English among Hawaiian speakers. Public education through Hawaiian was
made illegal in 1896 as part of the process of the annexation of
Hawai'i to the United States. That ban was not removed until 1986.
Between those two dates, Native Hawaiian academic achievement
plummeted, with Native Hawaiians the least academically successful
among all ethnic groups by the 1980s.
In 1983, the non-profit 'Aha Puunana Leo, Inc. was established to
revitalize Hawaiian. At that point, a careful count of fluent Hawaiian
speakers aged 18 or younger was numbered at 36. Older highly fluent
speakers were either born before 1920 or from a tiny isolated community
on the small island of Ni'ihau. Hawaiian, therefore, had a much more
endangered profile in the 1980s than most other Native American
languages as there were many reservations and isolated communities in
other states where the languages were still being regularly spoken by
all adults and most children at that time. The potential for Hawaiian
surviving was also more dismal than that of the related Polynesian
Maaori language, for which there were many speakers born before 1950.
The 'Aha Puunana Leo began by establishing ``language nests'', a
concept pioneered in 1982 in New Zealand for the Maaori language.
Language nests are full day and full year centers operated five days a
week where children under the age of public education are gathered
together with fluent speakers of an endangered language to use that
target endangered language exclusively throughout the day. They are
very much focused on the family and rely on community expertise,
especially elders, to deliver a program that integrates use of the
endangered language for contemporary purposes, but based in the
traditional culture and worldview of traditional speakers of that
language.
The 'Aha Puunana Leo's language nests are called ``Puunana Leo''
and include a system that serves communities throughout the state of
Hawai'i. In 1986, the state legislature passed legislation allowing
Puunana Leo to function under state day care and preschool legislation
with an exemption for any certification requirements for those teaching
in the Puunana Leo. This recognizes the fact that early childhood
education qualifications used in English medium preschools do not
prepare teachers for the unique language and culture requirements of
Puunana Leo nor for the unique features of teaching academic content
through Hawaiian. The Puunana Leo carries out internal teacher training
through on-site apprenticeship-like learning, through an annual live-in
week long in-service summer training, and through two weekend live-in
in-service trainings annually. All Puunana Leo training is through
Hawaiian and conducted in cooperation with the state Hawaiian language
college. Among the highly distinctive features of that training is
preparing Puunana Leo teachers to develop early literacy in Hawaiian
using a syllabic method highly distinctive of Hawaiian and not
applicable to English. This methodology has resulted in the majority of
four year-olds in the Puunana Leo able to read in Hawaiian before
entering kindergarten.
Contemporary education through Hawaiian was developed from the 'Aha
Puunana Leo. In 1987, the state Department of Education agreed to
incorporate a Hawaiian language medium kindergarten established by the
'Aha Puunana Leo at two different sites. The 'Aha Puunana Leo in turn
committed to finding families and teachers as well as providing
teaching materials. The state provided the salaries of those teachers
and the classrooms. The 'Aha Puunana Leo produced teaching materials
using Hawaiian language speaking college faculty and students along
with parent volunteers to cut and paste into the resulting texts. The
programs expanded in this manner from grade to grade through elementary
school and also to other sites where language nest educated children
were ready to enter into elementary kindergarten classes. Education at
the elementary school level was, and remains, totally through Hawaiian
with English introduced to a single English language course beginning
in grade five. Students enter grade five, however, fully fluent in
conversational English and having transferred their literacy skills in
Hawaiian to literacy in English.
At the intermediate and high school levels, different models were
adapted in different communities based on the availability of
resources. At one extreme are communities where education through
Hawaiian to grade 12 is confined to a stream of two or three courses
per semester within a mainstream English medium school. Students take
other courses through English with the general population of the host
school. In other cases, separate full Hawaiian medium intermediate and
high school sites have been established, typically with attached full
elementary programs. At these sites, education at the intermediate and
high school level can be totally in Hawaiian, with the English class
begun in grade 5 continuing as a single course through to grade 12. The
English class in some sites, such as that of the Hawaiian language
college laboratory school site Nawahi School, is taught through
Hawaiian. Some sites are standard public schools, while others are
charters.
In 1996, the state legislature mandated the establishment of a
Hawaiian language college to serve schooling through Hawaiian with
undergraduate and graduate training in the Hawaiian language. The
college, located at the University of Hawai'i at Hilo, works in
partnership with the non-profit 'Aha Puunana Leo to produce curriculum
materials, train K-12 teachers, provide inservice, provide new
vocabulary, and provide electronic access to those resources. In
addition, the state legislature mandated that the Hawaiian language
college operate a laboratory school program with the P-12
Nawahiokalani'opu'u School (Nawahi) site as its primary site. The
Hawaiian language college itself is operated and administered entirely
through Hawaiian and requires its faculty to teach in the P-12 level in
its laboratory school in order to obtain tenure, thus creating an
integrated program from preschool through the doctorate. The college
also works closely with the 'Imiloa Science Museum on the university
campus to provide bilingual Hawaiian and English signage and tours as
well as displays on education through the Hawaiian language based in
Hawaiian traditions. This not only provides additional access to
educational resources through Hawaiian, but also allows the larger
community to learn about developments in education through Hawaiian.
Among qualifications provided in the College through Hawaiian are a
B.A. in Hawaiian Studies, a teaching certificate, an M.A. in Hawaiian
Language and Literature, an M.A. in Hawaiian Language and Culture
Education, and a Ph.D. in Hawaiian and Indigenous Language and Culture
Revitalization.
Another unique feature of the Hawaiian Language College is its
outreach mission to other indigenous peoples of the United States and
the world. The college provides a B.A. in linguistics taught through
English to allow other Native peoples to come to the University of
Hawai'i at Hilo and study language revitalization with Native
Hawaiians. The College's Ph.D. program in Indigenous Language
Revitalization is open to other indigenous peoples and allows for
students to continue studying their indigenous languages as part of
that program. There are plans to implement support at the teacher
certification and masters' level for other indigenous peoples parallel
to the presently operational track taught through Hawaiian.
The movement to revitalize Hawaiian is just over 30 years old and
began at a period when it was still illegal to use Hawaiian in public
schooling. For the 2013-2014 school year, there are 2,642 enrolled from
preschool (Puunana Leo language nest) to grade 12 in schools taught
through Hawaiian. Unlike Maaori, enrollments in Hawaiian medium
schooling has never declined but has instead continued to grow steadily
since its initiation. Most encouraging for the movement has been the
establishment of Hawaiian language speaking homes where children are
being raised with Hawaiian as their first language. While still very
much a minority of the children enrolled in schools taught through
Hawaiian, this population is the result of graduates of schools taught
through Hawaiian deciding to use Hawaiian as the first language of
their children.
When the movement began, there was great concern within the
educational establishment that the children in these schools would grow
up to be adults unable to speak, read and write English and lacking the
academic skills expected of students graduating from the public
schools. This concern was not limited to educators, but was also very
strong in the general community and even among many Native Hawaiians.
One argument against the schools was that the nonstandard English
dialect spoken by many Native Hawaiians (popularly called ``Pidgin'')
made it especially important that Native Hawaiian children attend
schools where only Standard English was used. There were also those who
saw attention by the government to Hawaiian in school was inappropriate
when other languages such as Japanese were of major importance to the
state economy. Many thought that children educated in Hawaiian in
elementary school would become dropouts in high school and contribute
to already dismal high school graduation results of Native Hawaiians.
The 'Aha Puunana Leo took the stand, however, that maintenance of
the Hawaiian language among their children was a right of Native
Hawaiian parents who saw primary fluency in Hawaiian as essential for
maintaining Native Hawaiian identity and cultural practices--including
religious practices--that were expressed through the language. Hawaiian
language medium education was seen as the only way in which this right
could be protected. Evidence for this position was based on the
experience of the loss of the Hawaiian language in schools where only
English was used, and also the observation of loss of Hawaiian among
Hawaiian speaking children who entered the bilingual education program
designed for immigrant children. The 'Aha Puunana Leo also argued that
the academic achievement of Native Hawaiians relative to other ethnic
groups actually decreased after the elimination of schooling through
Hawaiian in 1896.
While the right of Native Hawaiians to maintain the language in its
homeland has been at the center of the movement in Hawai'i, the
programs have produced strong academic outcomes. Indeed, some of the
most impressive outcomes have been in the areas where naysayers were
most adamant in insisting that such schooling would be a failure.
Furthermore, the sites that have been strongest in use of Hawaiian have
also been those that have had the highest level of academic success.
We have especially good data from Nawahi School, the P-12
laboratory school of the Hawaiian language college. This is also the
school that is strongest in use of Hawaiian and the school where there
is an especially high number of children entering from homes where they
have spoken Hawaiian from birth. The P-12 enrollment at the Nawahi
campus for the 2013-2014 school year was 350 students. The graduating
class represented the fifteenth graduating class of the school. Since
its first graduating class, Nawahi has had a rate of 100 percent high
school graduation and over 80 percent continuing on to college. 100
percent of the class of 2014 is enrolled in college for the fall of
2014. Students are concurrently enrolled at the university or at the
Hawaiian language college, earning college credits upon completion of
high school. The success of Nawahi has resulted in communities
requesting to establish satellite campuses of Nawahi in other areas and
still other schools being included in the laboratory school system as a
way of recognizing their programs. The World Indigenous Nations Higher
Education Consortium (WINHEC) has confirmed the overall strength of the
preschool to tertiary programs of the Hawaiian language college through
international accreditation.
Upon graduation, the majority of graduates from Nawahi enroll in
the University of Hawaii system. However, there have been students from
Nawahi who have graduated from the University of Portland, Northern
Arizona University, Seattle University, Loyola Marymount University and
Stanford, among others. The fact that upon high school graduation
students from Nawahi can function in English medium universities is
evidence in support of the school's contention that restricting English
to a single course from grade 5 produces a high level of English
proficiency by high school graduation. We have also discovered that
students at Nawahi approach learning Standard English with keen
interest as an ``additional'' language to Hawaiian eliminating the
often times observed identity conflicts between the local ``Pidgin''
(Creole English) and Standard English use amongst Hawai'i's youth.
The full use of Hawaiian as the medium of education at Nawahi has
had the opposite effect predicted by detractors relative to mastery of
foreign languages. Since the founding of the school, it has sought to
have all students graduate with experience in learning at least one
additional language to Hawaiian and English. At present, all students
in grades 1 through 6 study spoken and written Japanese for 1 hour and
40 minutes per week. This is more time than is provided in Japanese
International Baccalaureate programs in the public schools and even
exceeds the amount of Japanese studied in elementary school in the
state's sole private Japanese Buddhist school. In the past, Nawahi has
provided instruction in Latin, Spanish, and Marquesan for intermediate
and high school students, but presently lacks the resources to maintain
such programming. The skills that its students have in learning
languages are also evidenced by the accomplishments of some of its
graduates upon leaving Nawahi. One graduate completed a B.A. in
political science in three years with minors in French and Spanish.
Another studied Italian and then worked as a translator of English
articles into Italian for an Italian magazine. Still, a third was a
Peace Corp volunteer in Kazakhstan where he was recognized as the best
learner of the difficult Kazakh language among those working in that
country.
While records are especially good for Nawahi, other programs taught
through Hawaiian have also done well academically. Over the past 15
years, there have been graduates of the overall system including Nawahi
who have gone on to become journalists, doctors, lawyers, nurses,
contractors, members of the military, television reporters, policemen,
musicians, firemen, teachers, and professors among other professions.
The strengths of the program have resulted in one of the challenges of
schools taught through Hawaiian being the loss of high school students
to recruitment of prestigious private schools. In such private schools,
Hawaiian-speaking students provide a unique resource in terms of
strengthening private school connections to the Native Hawaiian
community and its culture.
Often overlooked in evaluating the contribution of Hawaiian
language medium/immersion schooling in Hawai'i has been the social
impact. Hawai'i, the Native Hawaiian community in particular, faces a
``brain drain'', that is those who do well academically are especially
prone to move away from the islands and the Native Hawaiian community.
The graduates of schooling through Hawaiian tend to stay in state at
state colleges and universities and those who leave for education come
back to Hawaii after graduation. A considerable number of them are
involved in services to the Native Hawaiian community through work in
government and private foundation offices involving Native Hawaiian
people, including education. Others are involved in distinctive Native
Hawaiian cultural activities in which language fluency is especially
important.
Positive social impacts have been observed beyond simply the
students themselves. The 'Aha Puunana Leo requires all parents in its
programs to attend weekly meetings, contribute their time to running
the language nests and also study the Hawaiian language themselves.
This committed behavior of parents to their child's education continued
as they entered into the public schools resulting in high parent
involvement in the education of children in schools conducted through
Hawaiian. In quite a number of cases, this has resulted in parents
going on to college to earn a degree, often in the area of education
and themselves becoming teachers in the Hawaiian language medium/
immersion school system.
In spite of the huge role that these schools have had in assuring
the survival of the Hawaiian language and culture and their academic
and social impacts, they still face challenges. One of these is the
lack of congruence between best practice as developed for them and the
educational policies and laws of the federal government and the state
government. These laws relate to assessment of educational progress,
provisions of support for students with academic challenges,
definitions of ``highly qualified teachers'', and programming
eligibility and reporting requirements for grant funds. Such lack of
congruence pushes schools taught through Hawaiian away from the types
of programming that have produced the highest language revitalization,
academic achievement, and positive social results. Rather than
disillusionment as occurred under similar pressures on Maaori language
medium education in New Zealand, Hawaiian medium education has been
rather resilient and considerably successful in overcoming such
pressures. Part of the reason for this may be the history of
interethnic relationships in Hawaii that has resulted in both leaders
and administrators of public education and the leaders of Hawaiian
language revitalization more open to addressing issues from a shared
history and cultural honoring from both sides. Another source of
support has been from external Native Hawaiian entities that have
helped move through periods of difficulty as answers to challenges are
sought.
Other Native American Language Medium Schools
The general movement to revitalize Native American languages has
spread throughout Native America with inspiration coming from programs
in Hawai'i and foreign countries, especially New Zealand and Canada.
The overall movement has also built from experience during last half of
the 20th century with bilingual education that approached contemporary
Native American language medium/immersion education in some features.
During that period, certain Navajo bilingual programs such as that of
Rough Rock made extensive use of Navajo with first language speakers of
the language in the earliest grades, but then switched to primary use
of English as the medium of education. The academic and English
proficiency outcomes were quite strong, but the use of Navajo in
schooling was organized in such a way to gradually lead students away
from use of Navajo as a language of contemporary life and therefore
raising their own children in it. Contemporary Native American language
programming is explicitly focused on having students use the target
Native American language as their language for raising their own
children upon adulthood.
There are currently programs in fourteen states besides Hawaii,
with programs planned for implementation in the near future in several
other states and also in US Pacific Island territories. The number of
languages involved in these efforts is now over twenty. Many other
communities with other languages are also interested in starting these
programs. Most of the existing programs are still at the preschool and
lower elementary school stages and none have full high school programs
as exist for Hawaiian and the languages in Europe and New Zealand
described earlier. Only a few of the US programs besides Hawaiian have
been in existence long enough to have had students who moved on to
English medium high school and on to graduation. However, preliminary
results are positive for these students and communities. These families
have rallied behind the movement to save their languages and are
investing in the future with their children. Difficulties exist,
however, with funding and also in the interface with policies and
legislation that conflict with the goals of Native American language
revitalization.
Question 2. Can you discuss the importance of having living
languages and name some of the benefits as they relate to cognitive
development, literacy, academic achievement, college attainment or
other education and development goals?
Answer. As illustrated above, it is possible for very small groups
to maintain living languages through schools taught through those
languages. It is also the case that in the contemporary world such
schools taught through small languages produce exceptionally high
proficiency in the mainstream language (e.g., Danish in the Faroe
Islands, German in Romansh villages, Norwegian in the Northern Sami
area, etc.) with that high fluency acquired at a very young age simply
by the high level of interaction with the mainstream language in
interaction with the mainstream community and government outside school
itself. This has sometimes been called the ``minority official language
medium education advantage'' as these small languages have a certain
distinctive political status in their homelands. Students attending
school in the country's majority language find it much more difficult
to learn a second language and usually do not do so until later in
their school careers, even when there is extensive teaching of a second
language in early elementary school. (Countries with small official
languages such as Finland and Denmark share something of the ``minority
official language medium advantage'' in that from an early age students
in those countries realize that they need to learn large international
languages such as English, which are readily available to them through
international mass media and popular culture.)
Contemporary brain research has shown that high fluency in two
languages, especially at a young age, results in higher cognitive
development. That higher cognitive development is especially critical
in what is called ``executive functioning.'' Executive functioning
relates to the ability to concentrate and avoid distractors in focusing
on a task. This cognitive advantage is useful in academics, and also in
general adult life. It is an especially useful skill in higher
education.
A further advantage of proficiency in two languages is an enhanced
ability to learn other languages and cultures. Not only is there an
ability to learn languages and culture, but an appreciation of how
languages and cultures differ and thus a sensitivity that reduces the
potential for misunderstanding even when encountering someone from a
new language and culture for the first time. Linguistic and cultural
skills are especially important in the contemporary world where there
is so much economic and political interaction between highly diverse
peoples. Such skills are also highly valued by the American military as
it can find itself operating in an isolated area where there is no
knowledge of English in the local population and no knowledge of the
local language and culture within its own ranks.
A major advantage that Native American peoples have relative to the
cognitive advantages to high multilingualism is the distinctiveness of
Native American languages relative to English. The greater the
distinctiveness between languages and cultures proficiently used by a
student the greater the understanding of the breadth of differences
possible in human languages and cultures.
Schools taught through Native American languages have an additional
advantage relative to the development of literacy, as learning initial
reading through a Native American language is easier than learning to
read through English. There are several reasons for this. First,
English is the most difficult of the European languages in which to
learn initial reading. The reason is its highly irregular spelling
system and also the phonotactics of the language with the ``blends'' of
up to four consonants together that make it difficult for children.
Native American writing systems are much more regular than that of
English. The regularity of a writing system makes a huge difference in
rapid mastery of reading by children. For example, the most regular
writing system among European languages is that of Finnish. In a study
on reading mastery, by the end of first grade, children in Finland can
read Finnish with a rate of just 2 percent mistakes. This contrasts
with a rate of 66 percent mistakes for first graders in England reading
through English ( Ziegler & Goswami, 2006).
An additional advantage of some Native American languages such as
Cherokee, Ojibwe, Yup'ik and Hawaiian is phonotactics with relatively
few consonant clusters making initial reading rather easy to acquire.
Children can generally learn to read syllabically earlier than they can
learn to read by individual letters, but reading through languages with
many consonant clusters as the case with English cannot be taught
syllabically. The Cherokee writing system is distinct in being a
syllabary, which is one reason for the high literacy among Cherokees in
the 19th century. The strong identification of the local Native
American language and culture with academics that develops through
Native American language medium schooling encourages students in such
schools to continue their schooling, both within the school and beyond
it. While such schools are new in many Native American communities, the
schools that have been in existence the longest--those for Blackfeet
and Navajo for example--report higher rates of high school graduation
and college attendance compared to other schools in their communities.
Although national educational goals of high school graduation and
college attendance are being attended to and reached through Native
American language medium schools, there are other important goals being
reached as well. First, the focus on the traditional language and
culture in these schools naturally incorporates character education
from a base in the local indigenous traditions. This leads to a
healthier community in terms of respecting and caring for others,
including elders and younger children. The products of these schools
feel a responsibility to uphold community values and thus are a
positive force against the importation of criminal activity including
gang culture into Native American communities. The products of these
schools have been noted for their participation in community indigenous
cultural activities and governments at a high level, as they are often
the youngest individuals fluent in the traditional languages in which
those highly regarded activities are conducted. Another area where
these young people have participated is in military service, an
occupational field where many Native Americans participate. Students
from these schools have been able to pass the examinations for military
service and serve honorably for their country. Their knowledge of their
traditional languages may be of use to the government at some point in
the same way that earlier generations of Native Americans used their
languages as ``code talkers'', including tribal members of the Navajo,
Choctaw, and Comanche once did.
Question 3. Can you address concerns expressed by critics of
immersion or bilingual education programs that exposure to two or more
languages simultaneously at a young age may delay or hamper language
acquisition or proficiency? Does a child's ability to speak multiple
languages impact developmental milestones or academic achievement in
later years? If so how? Are there benefits of training a child to
communicate in two or more languages?
Answer. There has been considerable research into multilingual
education over the past three decades that has discredited former
commonly held views that education through a less dominant language
will result in educational deficits. Much of this research has come out
of Europe and Canada where all school children are required to study at
least two languages, but there has been considerable research conducted
in the United States as well. In short, rather than being a detriment,
learning through a less commonly spoken language and thus learning two
(or more languages) very well, has a positive academic effect. However,
those effects are best seen in the long term, rather than in the short
term, and are best realized in programs that involve a student over the
many years of compulsory education. Furthermore, programs such as
Native American language medium schooling are a distinct category
within such schooling and produce results that are even more
encouraging than programs in immigrant languages relative to academic
achievement within the racial subgroup that is attracted to them.
U.S. Foreign Language (and Canadian French) Immersion
Much of the research in education through more than one language
has been done in foreign language immersion (German, French, Japanese,
Spanish, etc.) in the United States and Canadian French immersion (for
English speaking Canadian children) in English speaking Canadian
communities. This type of immersion differs in several ways from Native
American language immersion, but is similar to it in that it produces
students with proficiency in both the oral and written forms of two
languages. The research has shown that initially there is a lag in
reading English as the children focus on learning to read through the
foreign language. The gap between these children and those in
mainstream school later closes and the students who were enrolled in
the immersion program often go on to exceed mainstream education peers
in all academic areas, including English. The challenge for these
immersion programs has not been the development of proficiency in
English, but instead in the ``target language'' (French, German, etc.).
In the early years of foreign language (and Canadian French) immersion,
there was concern that the children would not learn English and the
amount of use of the target language was sometimes only half the day
beginning in kindergarten with a rather rapid change to all English
except for one or two classes in the immersion language. Research has
shown, however, that the English outcomes were the same regardless of
the amount of English used in the school, due to the role of English
outside school, while reduction of the amount of the target language
greatly reduced the proficiency in it and thus the overall benefits of
high proficiency in two languages.
The research has also shown that such children who enter a school
with a foreign language immersion program knowing only English develop
a high level of proficiency in the target language, while maintaining
English as their primary home language, out-of-class peer group
language, and language of their later adulthood and family life. Indeed
these programs are specifically designed for this outcome, with
proficiency in the non-English foreign language a secondary level goal
relative to maintenance of identity with the English language, primary
fluency in English, and grade level academic programming parallels with
children being educated totally through English. To give an example, in
German immersion in the United States, early elementary education is
conducted through German, but the animals studied are those of North
America not Europe (e.g., the white tailed deer not the roe deer, the
cotton wood tree and not the linden, etc.), the cultural holidays
observed are American not German (e.g., Halloween, Thanksgiving,
Valentine's Day etc. and not Fasching, Pfingsmontag, Stephanstag,
etc.), and the literature read is often German translations of the same
stories read in corresponding English grades rather than what is read
in corresponding grades in Germany. While foreign language proficiency
in Foreign Language Immersion is high, it is still considerably below
that of native speakers, and the cultural base is lower still. Yet when
compared to foreign language and culture proficiency produced in
mainstream English medium schools, the skills in foreign language and
culture are very impressive indeed. Again, the foreign language
immersion programs that use the foreign languages the most, had the
highest outcomes in terms of the foreign language and had English
outcomes ultimately as high as or higher than those immersion programs
that used more English. Fear that English would be replaced by the
foreign language or be negatively impacted by the foreign language has
been the primary force in holding back foreign language immersion
programs from reaching even higher outcomes.
Native American language immersion has a distinctly different set
of goals and thus when implemented properly, potentially even higher
outcomes in terms of high proficiency in two languages than foreign
language immersion programs. The most distinctive goal is that the
school is seen as the means by which the Native American language and
culture is developed and maintained as the primary language and culture
of the child for later life. That school programming is designed with
the goal that the Native American language and culture be the primary
language and culture of peer group life and later adulthood and family
life of graduating students. This goal envisions the immersion student
graduate being able to raise his or her future children in the language
and culture, something that was not possible for their own parents.
This goal requires an even stronger use of the ``target'' Native
American language than ``target'' foreign language use in foreign
language immersion. Native American language immersion programs,
however, have very high English outcome goals and academic goals for
their programs. They seek to produce English outcomes as high as, or
higher, at the end of high school, than English medium programs serving
the peers of their students in the local community. This is a realistic
goal due to the experience of strong foreign language immersion
programs and even more so the highly local culture oriented experience
of minority official language medium education in Europe (Faroese,
Romansh, Sami, etc.). Furthermore, a high level of understanding of
their own traditional culture and environment is seen as leading to a
high level of interest in the surrounding English language and its
cultural base. As we will see later in the Hawaiian example, there is
evidence that this high level of interest in English does indeed occur
as the students mature. While the language and culture educational base
in such schools are strongly Native American, there is also an
especially strong focus on the overall history and civic culture of the
United States within which such Native American language schools have
developed along with distinctive tribal governments that find their
base in the Constitution of the United States.
These Native American language schools have had considerable
academic success. By way of contrast, English medium teaching of Native
American children has not had very positive academic results. Over the
past decade, the National Educational Assessment Program (NAEP) results
produced by mainstream English medium education for American Indian/
Alaska Native education in areas where students have strong Native
American cultural identities have been especially very poor and little
changed from year to year.
High quality Native American language medium/immersion education is
envisioned as producing students similar to those from foreign
countries who are entering U.S. universities and graduating with
exemplary academic records. Students from Scandinavia especially enter
United States universities having learned English as a second language,
and yet outperform American English medium educated students in English
language arts courses and assessments. Large numbers of students are
graduating from American universities with advanced degrees in
mathematics and science fields after being educated in foreign
countries such as China where P-12 education is through a language
totally different from English in its linguistic structure and cultural
base. Students being educated through Native American language medium/
immersion schools have a major advantage over such foreign students in
terms of acquiring English simply from having English language and
culture so readily available to them through the media and through the
surrounding general American life.
Question 4. What are some of the spillover benefits of having
immersion programs? Can you discuss any impacts or progress toward: (a)
Creating Leaders (b) Community building (c) Cultural identity/pride.
Answer. The driving force in developing schooling through Native
American languages and cultures has been community efforts to prevent
those languages and cultures from going extinct. The developers of such
programs realize that they have had to assure high quality academic and
social outcomes as well for these languages and cultures cannot survive
in the contemporary world if they came to be identified as the
languages and cultures of peoples in the lower strata of the overall
society of the United States. While great accomplishments have been
made in language and cultural revitalization as well as academic and
social outcomes for students in the programs, there have been some
other important spillover effects that have had a positive effect on
indigenous communities.
Leadership Development
The very decision to revitalize languages and cultures has required
community members to step forward as leaders of such efforts. The
intricate relationships involved in the overall effort has required an
ever growing number of leaders and levels of leadership that has
expanded outward from what have always begun as just a handful of
people and children. The sort of leadership required for education and
for cultural revival requires a solid base in knowledge about the local
community from its very oldest historical roots until the present. It
also requires research into the successes and failures of other
indigenous communities elsewhere both in the United States and abroad.
Finally, it requires a strong understanding of policy and law and how
it can evolve to embrace something new such as Native American language
medium/immersion education.
The type of leadership that develops out of Native American
language medium/immersion education is also very diverse. Successful
programs involve contributions from Native Americans from outside the
Native American community in which the school is located, of non-Native
Americans with specific skills in linguistics and academics, and other
supporters who assist in fund raising and staff training. Rather than
fulfilling the negative predictions of detractors, Native American
language medium/immersion schooling development has resulted in leaders
who are global in their contacts and extremely broad-minded and open in
seeking solutions for their communities. They also learn to ``wear many
hats'' as efforts such as these that begin small scale require leaders
to be able to take over tasks that in other systems might involve
hiring external specialist.
Community Development
Besides the primary leaders who have emerged from Native American
language medium/immersion education efforts, a large number of others
have emerged to take on important roles in the resulting education
systems that grow from them. The first need is teachers who are highly
fluent in the local Native American language. This obvious need leads
to local parents and young people seeking out higher education and
language skills to take on this responsibility. As programs grow, there
are needs for curriculum developers, school secretaries, organization
accountants and grant writers/fundraisers and other support positions
all of which require a background in the language and culture. Again,
this leads to local community employment and permanent employees versus
the general situation in English medium school of employing newcomers
who stay at a school for a few years before moving on. The need to plan
for growth and address problems distinctive of the community builds
confidence among program parent volunteers and paid workers relative to
their own capabilities for community development. Individuals who
worked in a school then move on to other positions in the community and
apply the skills and positive attitudes they developed at the school to
move the community further ahead.
Affects of Increased Sense of Positive Identity and Pride
A typical experience of Native American language medium/immersion
schools is that their initial plans and efforts are met with
considerable resistance in their own communities. Generations of having
the indigenous identity denigrated result in those very ideas being
internalized within the community itself. Others worry that efforts
spent on the disappearing language of earlier times would be time that
could be better spent on mastering other skills. However, once these
schools begin to produce results in terms of children speakers who
demonstrate their language skills, especially with elders, a profound
sense of pride begins to grow in the larger local indigenous community.
That pride grows even stronger when the children from such schools
become known for their academic and social strengths. It becomes
impossible for the overall Native community to see their heritage as
debilitating, and the local language and culture and the community
strengthening values found within them begin to spread into other areas
of community life, including the mainstream schools. All of this has an
overriding positive effect on raising the belief of the community in
themselves and their sense that their unique identity is a strength
useful for dealing with the larger world, rather than a detriment.
For individual student products of these school programs and for
their families, these effects are multiplied. Where often the most
successful students seek to leave their communities, products of these
programs are highly oriented toward returning from college and
contributing to them. Their ties to the growing local use of the
traditional language and culture to develop the community and economy
provide them with a natural place for them to begin their contributions
back to the community. The use of the local language and culture in
schooling also engenders skills in them for separating cultural
features into categories of what is appropriately shared in a public
venue and what is not. Such a skill in separating out what is
appropriately public culture can be used in locally controlled economic
development in Native American communities attractive to domestic and
international tourists. In addition, the sensitivity to multiple
languages and cultures engendered through participation in such schools
produces individuals well prepared to work with foreign tourists who
bring new income into the United States as a whole.
Question 5. Maintaining living native languages takes an immense
amount of time, energy and resources to design appropriate curricula
and learning materials. It is similarly challenging to cultivate native
language instructors and professionals who can successfully educate
pupils in the native language. Moreover, piecing together annual
budgets from a number of different funding sources can be difficult.
Are more resources needed to support the immersion language programs?
And if so, why?
Answer. Native American language medium/immersion programs are
definitely in need of additional funding. The types of resources and
methods of resourcing also need to be carefully designed to meet the
distinctive needs of these programs.
Programs often begin with no, or very little, funds. There are
certain benefits to this as it guarantees that the initial efforts are
led by individuals with a strong vision and dedication to the
distinctive goals of language revitalization. However, once a program
has started and is on a positive path, it is crucial to provide
appropriate funding for the program. While private foundations have a
very important role in starting programs and providing supplementary
support, the basic needs of programs are appropriately funded by
government entities.
A challenge in developing government funding is that law makers are
accustomed to directing funding along certain pathways and for certain
purposes. Sometimes those pathways are poorly prepared to administer
funding to support Native American language schools. Sometimes, the
funded purposes are not those most needed in operating a Native
American language medium/immersion program. A further challenge is the
lack of regular funding for standard needs (such as state block grants)
of those immersion programs that are successful parallel to the regular
funding that English medium schools obtain for their standard needs.
Directing funding for Native American immersion schools to standard
government entities rather than to those actually on the ground
operating the programs can result in funds being misspent and even
being redirected away from the intended programs. These programs
require knowledge of languages and cultures beyond the normal expertise
of staff of government and educational systems, and thus administrators
who also handle other responsibilities can be poorly prepared to spend
such funds properly. Furthermore, there is often turnover in such
government and educational offices resulting in major disruptions in
understanding of the distinctive features and needs of immersion
programs.
The most successful Native American language revitalization efforts
in the United States have been those led by small non-profit
organizations that work with tribal, local, state and federal
governments in developing, operating, and resourcing programs. The
reason that these nonprofits are important is because they are highly
focused on language revitalization and its specific needs and issues.
As non-profits, they are also much more nimble in working on language
and culture issues and yet they are very stable in terms of their staff
and leadership. It is therefore useful to provide a means for federal
funding to be directed toward such organizations with those
organizations then working closely with government schools.
Question 6. Language is closely tied to one's identity and self-
confidence, and in communities, language teaches and reinforces the
traditional culture and values. Do you have evidence or data comparing
the psychological well-being or academic achievement of immersion
students versus non-immersion native students?
Answer. One of the most common remarks that I have heard about
children who attend Native American language immersion schools, be they
in Hawaiian, Navajo, Ojibwe, Yup'ik or other language, is how impressed
visitors are with the respectful behavior of the students. Teaching
through a Native American language necessarily conveys with it the
deeply held cultural values passed on by ancestors and elders. The
schools are clean, with attentive children interested in contributing
to their own communities and mankind in general. There have not been
many studies of wellbeing specific to Native American language medium
education but I am aware of one study by Dr. Shawn Kana'iaupuni. The
Hawaiian cultural influence on education research study looked at the
impact of culture-based educational strategies on middle and high
school students in public and private schools. Hawaiian medium schools
were included in this study. It was hypothesized that culturally
relevant teaching and learning strategies have a positive impact on
students' socioemotional development and contribute to positive
education outcomes (e.g., school engagement, academic performance). The
results showed that the overall ``well-being'' (feelings of self-worth
and engagement with schooling) of Native Hawaiian students was highest
in schools where teachers implemented ``intense'' language and culture
as found in Hawaiian medium schools and that positively related to both
reading and math outcomes of these students. The researchers also
concluded that culture-based strategies is seen as an issue of social
justice in aligning what goes on in these things that we call
``schools'' and what goes on in communities and showing in fact that
schools are an important and integral part of the community. (2009,
Thomas, Scott & Heck, Ron)
Question 7. In your work, have you noted whether native language
proficiency and native culture familiarity have any impact on the self-
esteem and resiliency of native immersion students?
Answer. As I stated earlier, Native Hawaiian language medium/
immersion schools have higher rates of high school graduation and
college attendance than mainstream English medium schools. A larger
percentage of children in these schools come from what would be
considered disadvantaged backgrounds--over 70 percent student
population at Nawahi School, for example. Studies have found that
students from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to graduate
from high school or attend college, but Nawahi School's statistics are
higher than the state's average.
The cultural teachings that form the basis of education through
Hawaiian promote a mindset of resiliency. Students then experience
first hand the successes of this form of education in spite of having a
resource based many times smaller than that of mainstream English
medium schools.
Question 8. In your written testimony, you stated that the
nonprofit organization which you represent is the oldest Native
American language immersion program in the United States. What are some
of the most important lessons you have learned as a pioneer in native
language medium education? Do you think the number of Hawaiian
immersion students would grow if more support was provided by the
federal government?
Answer. Native American peoples, be they American Indians, Alaska
Natives, Native Hawaiians, or Native American Pacific Islanders, have a
history as ``involuntary minorities'', that is groups forcibly
incorporated into the United States. Furthermore, they are all
indigenous peoples with cultures and traditional life styles highly
different from those of the majority population of the United States.
It is widely observed that throughout the world ``involuntary
minorities'', especially involuntary indigenous minority peoples, have
experienced very low-level educational and socioeconomic outcomes
compared to the majority populations of their countries. Sometimes it
is assumed that this low level of achievement is due to an
incompatibility between the traditional culture and language of those
peoples and modern development. Historical and comparative studies have
shown that this assumption is false.
For example, several Native American peoples had higher literacy
rates and also high socioeconomic outcomes previous to having their
local education systems and economies fully incorporated into the
United States. The Cherokees are the best known example with their
highly successful school system producing literacy in two languages
(Cherokee and English) at a higher level than surrounding Euro-American
communities produced in one language (English). Native Hawaiians also
have a long history of a strong education system through their own
language producing high literacy and a strong socio-economic position.
Various groups of Northwest American Indians were also very strong
economically as they integrated aspects of Euro-American farming into
their traditional salmon fishing economies. All of these systems,
however, were destroyed as these groups were fully incorporated into
the United States, during periods when certain philosophies and
legislation relative to racial minorities had a huge negative impact on
Native American peoples.
The challenge for Native Americans is to maintain their identity
while still participating in the larger national society of the United
States and the ``global village'' where people throughout the world
participate with each other economically and in aspects of popular
culture. When an indigenous language and culture are excluded from
education, or marginalized in it, young people who identify with that
language and culture do not identify with the educational system. For
those who have especially strong connections to the ancestral language
and culture from the home or community, there is often a sense that
education is intended to eliminate one's identity. The history of
Native American boarding school education and punishment for use of
Native American languages and cultures in schools has reinforced such
feelings in Native American communities. The manner in which even
Native American language enrichment courses in mainstream English
medium schools have been marginalized into the present times has
confirmed for many young Native American students that their languages
and cultures are considered inferior and academically worthless
compared to English.
Establishing schooling totally through the medium of Native
American languages using the cultural heritage of those languages as
the basis of education makes a bold statement that Native American
languages and cultures are fully valued and equal to English within the
framework of the American Constitution. This has a positive effect on
the self-image of the students.
Furthermore, the use of the target language is based in the local
Native American culture rather than mainstream American culture. Many
Native American peoples have their own traditional festivals and
observances that are incorporated into these schools as central parts
of learning, along with their own local flora and fauna and own
distinctive literature. This results in a much more distinctive
academic curriculum than found in mainstream English medium schools.
As with the European, New Zealand, and Hawaiian examples, these
schools have been making good progress in meeting their core goal of
developing children speakers of the endangered target languages with a
commitment to the cultures and communities associated with those
languages. There have also been positive results in terms of academics
and social outcomes. One of the oldest programs is that of the non-
profit Piegan Institute of Montana founded in 1987. Using Blackfeet as
the language of instruction in a small private school on the Blackfeet
Reservation, the school graduates students from a total Blackfeet
language program into ninth grade at the local English medium high
school. Piegan students have consistently been some of the highest
performing students in that high school. Contrary to fears among tribal
leaders, these students have also gone on to college at a higher rate
than their peers. Especially encouraging to the founders of the program
has been products of the school taking on ceremonial responsibilities
that require use of the language and which had been feared would be
lost with the passage of Blackfeet speaking elders. The school,
however, faces major funding challenges and challenges in obtaining
Blackfeet speaking teachers and curriculum materials.
Another early Native American language medium/immersion school is
Tsehootsooi Dine Bi'olta Immersion School in Fort Defiance, Arizona on
the Navajo Reservation. This is a public school founded in 1986 with a
full K-8 program. There are pressures on the school from the broader
society that do not exist in a private school such as the Piegan
Institute. For example, the school is subject to Arizona state
assessments beginning in grade 3 and must consider ``highly qualified''
status designed for English medium schools in hiring teachers. This has
pushed the school to use more English in its program than is generally
considered best international practice for language revitalization-
based schooling, attention that is not expected to make a difference in
ultimate English outcomes in high school, but expected to weaken
indigenous language outcomes. Even with this pressure the school is 100
percent Navajo medium in K-2, with English introduced for the first
time in grade 3. The school has produced English medium test results
from its students as good as, or better than, their peers in local
English medium schools. The school has a large enrollment and plans to
move into a college preparatory high school program similar to that of
Nawahi School in Hawai'i.
Niigaane Ojibwe Immersion Program at Leech Lake Reservation in
Minnesota Niigaane was founded in 2003 as an Ojibwe language immersion
stream within Bug-O-Nay-Ge- Shig School, a Bureau of Indian Education
School. The program added grades year by year to a full elementary
school within a school. Challenges remain for resources in the
development of curriculum and staff and teachers.
These programs and schools would flourish with supportive policies
and resources.
*The attachments to this prepared statement have been retained
in the Committee files*
______
*Response to these same questions submitted to Sonta Hamilton Roach
was not received before this hearing went to print*
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Tom Udall to
Hon. Lillian Sparks Robinson
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Brian Schatz to
Hon. Lillian Sparks Robinson
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Jon Tester to
William Mendoza
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Brian Schatz to
William Mendoza
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[all]