Native Americans

Multicultural and Urban EducationGroup Project

Where did Native Americans come from?

• Native Americans are the indigenous people of the Americas.

• When and how they arrived on the continent is debatable. The most common theory, the New World Model, says they migrated from Eurasia via the Bering Straight 9,000 to 50,000 years ago!

Native Americans in Oregon• There are 16 tribes

that are federally recognized in Oregon:

Tillamook, Alsea, Siuslaw, Coos, Chinook, Clatskani, Coquille, Takelma, Shoshone, Molalla, Cayuse, Kalapulyan, Sahaptin, Northern Paiute, Shasta, and Klamath.

Portland is located on land that the Chinook Tribe resided on.

Where Native Americans and Alaskan Natives Attend School

PORTLAND PUBLIC SCHOOLS

46,046 764 1.7%

BEAVERTON 37, 613 576 1.5%

GRESHAM-BARLOW

11, 872 154 1.3%

District Total EnrollmentNative American/

Alaskan NativeStudents

Total Percentage

2008 Enrollment Across Districts

***

Within Portland Public Schools…Type of Schooling

# of Native American/ Alaskan

NativeStudents

PercentageOf Program or

School

ELEMENTARY 388 1.5%

MIDDLE SCHOOL 81 1.5%

HIGH SCHOOL 152 1.4%

ALTERNATIVE 37 2.3%

COMMUNITY-BASED

ALTERNATIVES

78 6.1%

SPECIAL PROGRAMS 16 3.1%

CHARTER 12 1%

• Native Montessori Program (80%) and the NAYA Early College Academy (47%) are the programs with the highest enrollment percentage of Native/Alaskan Native students

• 8 schools (with an enrollment of 350-867) have zero to two Native/Alaskan Native students

• Community-Based Alternative programs are “for students whose academic and social needs are not being met effectively in the traditional school setting”

Resources:• http://www.mis.pps.k12.or.us/.docs/pg/10309• http://www.beaverton.k12.or.us/pdf/dist/res_rep/dist_res_rep_20

08%20BSD%20Annual%20Survey%20Summary%20Report.pdf• http://www.gresham.k12.or.us/about_our_district/

district_profile.html

The Law

(a) PURPOSE- It is the purpose of this part to support the efforts of local educational agencies, Indian tribes and organizations, postsecondary institutions, and other entities to meet the unique educational and culturally related academic needs of American Indian and Alaska Native students, so that such students can meet the same challenging State student academic achievement standards as all other students are expected to meet. 20USC § 7402(a)

Title VII of the No Child Left Behind Act 20 USC § 6319 et seq. provides the basis for Indian Education Programs.

“Title VII”

Portland Public Schools

Portland's Title VII Project is focused on three major areas:

1. Improved academic achievement 2. Increased student retention 3. Increased Native cultural awareness/connections

The purpose of the Portland Public Schools Title VII Indian Education Act Project is to improve the academic success of American Indian/Alaska Natives through supplemental services that support the culturally related learning needs of

project enrolled children and youth. 

http://www.indianed.pps.k12.or.us/.docs/pg/10014

Portland Public Schools

In an effort to increase Native cultural awareness/connections Portland Public Schools “provides cultural education to connect students with their Native history, cultures and traditions, instilling pride and confidence to achieve challenging academic standards.”

http://www.indianed.pps.k12.or.us/.docs/pg/10014

Portland Public SchoolsAll Project enrolled students are offered the following services:

Basic school supplies

Resource and referral

Advocacy/intervention

Student incentives

Summer programs

Native cultural opportunities, awareness and cultural activities

Family literacy

Native Montessori Program

Early Childhood information

http://www.indianed.pps.k12.or.us/.docs/pg/10014

What are they?: “Baseline Essays are reference volumes each consisting of six or seven individual essays written in traditional subject-matter areas. Together, the Essays document the history, culture(s) and contributions of a specific geocultural group.”

http://www.pps.k12.or.us/depts-c/mc-me/essays-3.php

A Baseline Essay was planned to have the following characteristics:• Information should be truthful, informative for all, and uplifting

for the subject cultural group. • Content should include a brief survey of the history, culture(s)

and contributions of a geocultural group. • Voices and perspective(s) of the people whose antecedents

originally come from the continent (or tied to the continent by culture or heritage) should be reflected in the document.

• References should support information presented in the Baseline Essay, though it is important to remember an essay is not a research paper or book.

American Indian Baseline Essays

The Native American Youth and Family Center in Portland received a $272,000 Demonstration Grant Award this year from the Office of Indian Education to:

“implement a College Readiness through Assessment and Enrichment Interventions project. The project will identify and serve the underserved native student

population in the Portland metropolitan area highschools to provide enrichment intervention strategies, assessment and instruction in mathematics and science, and ACT and PSAT tutoring and preparation. This project will also conduct a city-wide Native College Fair to encourage and promote more native students to transition to post secondary education. Number of participants: 70”

http://www.ed.gov/programs/indiandemo/awards.html

Portland Public Schools

Washington County“Title VII” administered by the Northwest Regional Educational Service District (NWRESD)

NWRESD’s mission mirrors the policy statement at the beginning of Title VII of NCBL

The purpose of the Program is to increase the number of AI/AN students successfully completing high school and pursuing higher education.

This year the focus is on (1) attendance, (2) academic performance, (3) ACT or SAT preparation and testing, and (4) career and/or college guidance including participation in enrichment and volunteer opportunities.

http://nwresd.k12.or.us/instrserv/indianed/index.html

Washington County PerspectiveIndian Education Programs – Title VII – exist not because of

race or ethnicity. They are based on the trust relationship of Tribal nations with the U. S. federal government. According to the National Indian Education Association, it summarizes the development of this relationship: “In exchange for Indian land and trade concessions, the U.S. assumed a protective role that developed into a ‘trust relationship.’ Trust is generally defined as ‘the unique legal and moral duty of the United States to assist Indians in the protection of their property and rights.’ Trust has as its primary purpose the continued survival of Indian tribes and their governments. The trust relationship existing between the federal government and Indian tribes governs that special, unique relationship between the United States government and Indian nations.”

Based on this trust relationship, Indian Education Program – Title VII – is included in No Child Left Behind. As described by the Office of Indian Education, “The No Child Left Behind Act amends the Indian education programs as Title VII, Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

http://nwresd.k12.or.us/instrserv/indianed/index.html

The Native American PerspectiveFrom the first attempts at educating American Indians, the goal has

been to change them.

Every attempt at changing the American Indian and, now, the Alaska Native has met with failure or minimal success.

Indian education policies have historically had two thrusts: isolation and assimilation.

Federal policy toward American Indians and Alaska Natives has historically forced assimilation for the purpose of divesting Indians of their land and resources.

From the beginning, the curriculum in Indian schools offered no Indian languages, culture, or history.

http://www.niea.org/history/educationhistory.php

Coercive AssimilationThe coercive assimilation policy has had disastrous effects on the education of Indian children. It has resulted in:

1. The classroom and the school system becoming a sort of battleground in which the Indian child attempts to protect his integrity and identity as an individual by defeating the purposes of the school.2. Schools that fail to understand or adapt, and-in fact-often denigrate cultural differences.3. Schools that blame their own failures on Indian students and reinforce their defensiveness.4. Schools that fail to recognize the importance and validity of the Indian community, causing both the community and its children to retaliate by treating the school as an alien institution.5. A dismal record of much absenteeism, many dropouts, negative self- image, low achievement, and, ultimately, academic failure for many Indian children.6. A perpetuation of the cycle of poverty, which undermines the success of all other federal programs.

http://www.niea.org/history/educationhistory.php

Native American – Community

The Declaration of Independence describes Native Americans as the following:

‘…merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and

conditions’

How can their be any equality between us if our country’s foundation is based on these words?

Justice for All (except Indians)

• By 1969 over 400 treaties signed between the United States and Native Americans had been broken.

• Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831)– Cherokees win the Georgia fight of their removal based on

Indian Removal Act passed by congress and signed by President Jackson in 1830.

• President and state of Georgia ignored Supreme Court and removal process continued.

How Can Native American trust anything the Federal or State Governments say? What choices do they have?

Treaty Engagement….• Asks Wilkinson: How could the Indians possibly know the

transcendent meaning of what they were signing?

• One interpreter at Medicine Creek, asked by Stevens whether he could get the Indians to sign, assured the governor, "I can get these Indians to sign their death warrant.“

• The treaties might have been that for the Indians had it not been for a clause in each of them guaranteeing tribes the right to fish ". . . at all usual and accustomed grounds and stations.“

• Stevens had no qualms about Indian fishing. Fish and game were abundant to the point of seeming limitless. What did it matter? If anything was to become extinct, it would be the Indians themselves.

A Win for Native Americans• Boldt Decision (1974): One of the most-significant decisions in the

history of Indian law.

• But the Boldt decision reverberated throughout Indian country because, in symbol, it had less to do with allocation of fish than with allocation of power. It elevated tribal treaties to at least the level of state law, and gave Indians a new political status.

• Boldt was a great boost in the direction of tribes ruling themselves. It coincided with a Nixon-era infusion of federal money intended to strengthen tribal governments.

• The result has been both a political and economic awakening, seen in arenas as divergent as tribal casino resorts in Connecticut, tribal police powers in New Mexico and online tribal lotteries in Idaho.

Examples of positive change for Native Americans stemming from the Boldt

Decision:

• In Washington, the Muckleshoot tribe held up a city of Tacoma plan to build a pipeline along the Green River, ancestral fishing grounds. The project went through but only after Tacoma agreed to pay the tribe $20 million, build a tribal fish hatchery and hand over 100 acres.

• In Utah, the Goshute Indians, over the objections of its non-Indian neighbors, plan to lease part of their reservation for nuclear-waste storage.

• In New Mexico, the city of Albuquerque has agreed to spend $300 million on cleaning up the Rio Grande River to meet the water-quality requirements of the Isleta Pueblo, which manages part of the watershed.

• Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq0Joi1ELps

The Native American Community• 21.7 of 1000 American Indian and Alaska Native children were the victims of child maltreatment in 2002, compared with 20.2 of 1000 African American children and 10.7 of 1000 white children

• Age-adjusted death rate for adults exceeds that of the general population by almost 40%, with deaths due to diabetes, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, and accidents occurring at least three times the national rate

• Rates of inadequate prenatal care and post-neonatal death among American Indian and Alaska Native infants that were two to three times those of white infants

• American Indian and Alaska Native children are twice as likely to be overweight and three times as likely to be obese, with rates of both growing by 4% since the mid-1990s

• A U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report documented that the IHS is so severely underfunded that it spends just $1914 per patient per year compared with twice that amount ($3803) that is spent on a federal prisoner in a year.

• Native people have lower labor force participation rates than those of the general population as high as 35% in some reservation communities

• Poverty and unemployment observed in American Indian and Alaska Native communities is related to broader economic development challenges in American Indian and Alaska Native communities, including geographic isolation and the availability of largely low-wage jobs.

• 35 - 60% High School Drop-out rate well above national average• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2567901/

Barriers for Modern Day Native Americans

1. Outside of the “culture of power.”– Delpit tells us we must

teach the codes of the “culture of power,” but also accept diverse students as they are:

– “The answer is to accept students but also to take responsibility to teach them” (38).

Barriers for Modern Day Native Americans

2. Different style of oral communication

• Highly skilled in story telling, and “saying a great deal with a few words” (57).

• Many NA communities prohibit speaking for someone else– students can appear to not understand text

• Speech pattern: NA take long speech turns and expect to not be interrupted

Barriers for Modern Day Native Americans

3. Stereotyping

• The “Nonverbal Indian child”– NA students will give short/no answers when

called on in class or asked inappropriate questions– Because of this, teachers stop calling on them and

they become “invisible.”– NA students operate best in small groups

• Native Americans are “very diverse in cultural traditions, physical appearance, religion, and lifestyle” (Nieto, 159).

Fern Sherman Case Study

1. The only NA at her school2. “This isn’t done in my culture”

• Cut-off by teacher3. Correcting teachers in history class4. NA children are taught to succeed

“for one’s family, Nation, or community,” not for ones self (165).

5. Succeeded because of the support of her father, and the high expectations of her teacher

Other Issues…1. Highest drop-out rate: 30% 2. Unemployment: 50%3. High suicide rates4. Inadequate health care5. Higher infant mortality rate than the national

average 6. Widespread nutritional deficiencies 7. Alcoholism affects the lives of more than

60% of NA children--- Nieto, page 166