WASHINGTON DC
Native American Times 2/27/2006

A plea for Congress to take note and action of the problems facing Indian youth comes from the head of the National Indian Education Association.

The association’s Ryan Wilson (Oglala Lakota), gave the State of Indian Education address at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

“The conscience of America can never be clear, the state of American education can never be strong, so long as Indian Country lives on a lonely island of educational poverty, amidst of vast ocean of wealth and educational opportunity for all Americans, except the first Americans,” Wilson said.

Wilson began his address with a history lesson. In 1969, Congress requested a study of the learning conditions in Indian Country. The results of that study, published as “Indian Education: A National Tragedy - A National Challenge, were a “stinging critique,” Wilson said. “We ranked at the bottom of every social, health, economic, and yes, education indicator in America.”

Fast-forward 37 years and thing have not improved much, he said.

“American Indian and Alaska Native children live in conditions that the rest of America would never accept. The poverty rate of our children is three times that of white children. The suicide rates of our children are more than double the national average,” he said, adding that Native children are 200 times percent more likely to die in a car accident because reservation roads are the most dangerous in the country.

There are some bright spots. Wilson commended tribal colleges for producing “more Native graduates in institutions of higher learning in the last 30 years than all of the mainstream universities across America combined” and said that “Indian Head Start programs have graduated thousands of Native American children who do remarkably better than their counterparts who have never had those opportunities to attend Head Start.”

He closed the address by making a series of requests:

-Asked Congress to convene an Indian education summit.

- Requested a “commitment to fuel the tribal language revitalization movement, greater teacher support, flexibility and acknowledgment of the unique contexts of Native schools, and data collection, and research with culturally appropriate design models and methodologies.”

-Re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

-Greater input from Native leaders when Congress debates the No Child Left Behind Act.

According to the NIEA website, the association is a “membership based organization committed to increasing educational opportunities and resources for American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian students while protecting our cultural and linguistic traditions.”

Source: Native American Times