Possibly public schools should start “parenting a successful student” seminars. Teach the parents that school comes first before any other activities and to make sure students eat, sleep and do their homework. Sounds like obvious advice but clearly it is needed. Maybe parental input into why they find it difficult or impossible to inculcate these beneficial habits would help schools and politicians figure out better solutions.
15
In NYC and throughout the country we are warned of the evils of the de facto segregation, because the majority white schools are always better. Yet in this instance, the school is integrated with 3/4 Native, the white students are learning, and the Native students are suffering because they can't keep up, can't stop having babies (and leaving grandparents to raise them), skipping school, misbehaving.. and then get insulted when placed in remedial classes which are provided to help.
There is only ONE real aspect of white privilege. It's that we are viewed as individuals. Groups that continue to blame the events of 150 years ago for their own actions (and the liberals who feed into it) are destined to repeat a cycle of failure.
30
What is all this leftist, radical, politically-correct, Democratic Newspeak about native Americans?
First, for real political and geographic correctness, they are Usans. North American continent is divided among five nations, only one of which is USA.
Second, all born in the US are "native Americans or Usans", by ius soli that is the law of the land. Ethno-religious distinctions and discrimination come from inborn prejudices later.
7
Went to and taught at such schools.
Some parents tell their kids school is important
and some parents don't.
Some kids care about school,
some kids don't care about school.
The Teacher turnover rate can be huge
and the Principals/Superintendents
know who signs their pay-checks.
It would have been a better article if
non-native students were interviewed
along with the teachers.
Can the New York Times please find
a Native Public School that is succeeding ?
23
There's a simple message for the native Americans around Fort Peck: GET OUT. There is no miracle that's going to make a paradise in a rural, cold, economically unproductive part of Montana. I'm sure that you feel some comfort in a community of people just like you. Family and friends are comforting. But our country has been greatly enriched by those who left their fishing villages in Sicily, the impoverished Jewish ghettos of eastern Europe, and the potato farms of Ireland.
33
Do NOT call Native Americans indians. Those are the people who come from a subcontinent called India. The people who are indigenous to America, and whose ancestors lived here long before European colonization, are correctly referred to as Native Americans, and NEVER as Indians, because they are not. Okay?
10
The next time Beverly Hills raises millions for the next president, think about these poor people.
6
First off I was born and raised in Wolf Point, live in Wolf Point, graduated from Wolf Point High School and also graduated from Fort Peck Community College in nearby Poplar, Mt. I also come from a Native American family.
The authors of this article should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. This is the most one-sided piece of journalism I have ever seen and not only does no good for our native youth but actually does harm. What you have done here is give these kids an excuse to fail. You have just unfairly blamed the school system for stacking the odds against them, giving these children a reason to give up. WPHS is not the one to blame here. The problem starts at home not school.
These children have every opportunity to succeed in school and at life but it requires hard work and commitment. Just look at the local community college. The education is free for most low income students. If you need a ride they come get you. If you need daycare they provide it. If you are in one of the vocational trade programs and you attend 70% of your classes a month you get a $250 check. Every month! For going to class! If you need gas to get to class, gas vouchers are provided free! By the way, the dropout rates here are just as bad if not worse than the high school.
Starting in grade school all the way through college, the education opportunities afforded ALL of us here are plentiful. You just have to go out and work for it!
THESE CHILDREN NEED ENCOURAGEMENT NOT PITY!!!
76
I wish the writer had mentioned the Native American attendance rate at the school.
11
Read Russell Means autobiography, WHERE WHITE MEN FEAR TO TREAD. It took Means many years to understand and come to grips with what and how the federal government, usually in the form of the personnel from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, have been stealing from Indian tribes ever since the very first Europeans arrived--looking for gold and passing out smallpox and other deadly diseases. One broken treaty after another, Washington lies, local BIA administrators' theft, and rampant discrimination among most whites where they live have taken their a woeful toll. The fact that the BIA hasn't been dissolved boggles the mind. The fact that some Indians have survived and some even thrived is only because of their remarkable fortitude and the obvious fact that the Great Mystery looks over them.
8
Years ago returning from a trip we flew out of Billings, Montana. I remember walking back to the gate passing a large group of Native Americans - it appeared like the whole reservation was there, A young man was standing in the middle of this hodge-podge of family and friends, all of the laughing and smiling and joking with him. I watched for a while. I approached someone on the perimeter and asked what was going on. He was heading off to college on the East Coast, Yale I was informed with a big smile. I often wonder if he made it?
15
They are caught between two worlds, and for anyone not of unusually high ability, that is a recipe for falling behind.
The idea of keeping alive tribal identity in extreme backwaters of the US is a failed notion. In an age of two-earner couples seeking employment in big cities and big businesses locating in big metros to hire them, there is no economic future for the reservation (nor even for most white Anglos who live in remote rural places).
American Indians need to integrate into the broader society.
The US government should be more generous in subsidizing them to do so and less generous in sustaining reservation life. The old ways should be documented in museums and videos and be allowed to pass away.
8
The tragedy is the Reservation concept itself. Since there are no meaningful paths of quality employment on a reservation beyond mining, casino, farming and service work what quality of schools would there be? We need to abolish the reservations and allow the Native American population to fold into thesociety at latge so they can benefit from an education al system designed to feed educated workers to modern day technologicaly advanced business. Since the reservation concept demands a permanent population and quality work requires a mobil population, a 21st century school system woulsd on it's own create the demise of reservations or just leave the trmaining population in worst shape than they are. We have caged these people to appease some long past guilt that is the way of the world as humanity spread across the globe. Right or wrong is not the question. Desirability to move forward in a modern world is. The only working example of a nation within a nation is the Vatican.
6
The problem with many of these statistics is that they do not clearly reveal the causes of the disparity. Are native students being actively discouraged from taking AP classes or do they not apply or are they unqualified due to poor performance in previous classes? Is there active discrimination on the part of teachers or are teachers fighting an uphill battle against problems with parents, the home situations, cultural attitudes towards school work or some other factor? Are there schools that have performed better and how have they done so? Aside from throwing money at the problem, what specifically works? The NYT has the investigative power to help research these questions and be a real part of the solution. Simply reporting that a problem exists but offering no insight into how to address the problem is not stellar journalism.
23
The thing I always struggle with when reading these articles is that these problems are really, really hard to solve.
Just as a starting point: I think articles like this tend to presume that there is a workforce of passionate, multicultural educators out there who would be willing to teach these kids. This is a false presumption. The talented educators we have tend to gravitate towards teaching talented and motivated students who have resources because that's just far more rewarding.
I also couldn't help notice how many of the criticisms of the system brushed aside the problems with these students - for example, they got pregnant, they were absent, they had discipline issues. While it is hard to blame them, it is also a hugely tall task to ask an educator to somehow fix all these problems.
The typical high school teacher teaches around 115 students, and expecting them to be able to somehow adjust to all these individual issues is hopelessly naive. The teachers probably don't even know the sources of these problems, and they have 114 other students to think about every time one goes off the rails. Kids are often shunted into the alternative programs because they are destroying the classroom experience for their peers.
At the end of the day, we have a system that works well for kids who show up and work hard and whose parents take care of them and support them. But it breaks down when we try to fix every single problem.
30
In the U.S. the Standing Rock Sioux need to fight the U.S. to preserve places of deep spirituality. In Canada, first nations are consulted from the beginning of any such project with broad powers that come down to veto rights so corporations and governments consult the aboriginal professionals from the outset. There is still unacceptable poverty, particularly on small reserves and with first nations youth who migrate to the city street life---offset by thousands of young aboriginal students studying resource and business management, sustainability and social work and education.
When the great Sioux people fled the U.S. Army they were met by two officers of the Northwest Mounted Police upon entering Canada. This is not to say that Indians got a fair shake from Canada: they didn't. But it was a darn sight better than the U.S.
In the War of 1812 the single most effective commander on the Canadian side was Chief Tecumseh.
6
In 2003, I joined Delores Huff, author of "To Live Heroically: Institutional Racism and American Indian Education" (SUNY series, The Social Context of Education) for a full investigation of the Wolf Point Schools. Punishment seems to be a continuing problem there. In 2003, the school used a padded cell to discipline students. Some students were assigned to small cubbies for studying, which in itself wasn't bad because it helped students focus, however, some students were left there for days without classwork. One student was not permitted to go to the bathroom with disastrous results. One guidance counselor I spoke with dismissed Native students as being problematic. A young boy told me he felt his spirit was broken every day at that school.
As an education reporter, I have seen underfunded schools do incredibly well. The key is the staff's approach to making the community feel welcome and respected: that was not the case in Wolf Point.
As long as Montana educators feel superior to their Native students they will not treat them well. Passion and enthusiasm, commitment and love are the starting points for any school. It's too bad that changes made at Wolf Point after the school was investigated in 2003 by the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, have slip-slided away. After that investigation, the principal retired as did eleven other administrators. I wonder what is holding up the OCR investigation this time. What a tragedy for those children.
16
This article starts out with an examination of high school student graduation rates and the gap between Native American students and white students. The journalists then dip their toes into other factors possibly fueling the education gap, but this is an inaccurate and inadequate approach to journalism on the challenges this Native American community faces. Education problems are a symptom of larger discriminatory practices and legislation.
While the graduation rates remain a concern, as journalists, I recommend they focus their stories on exploring the larger community contexts and always locating them in historical contexts. Work your way back to education from those roots. Look at what the community wants for itself (not likely to be a single shared answer but some consensus among respondents). What does the community think the solutions are? What are some projects they have underway already to address the community needs and goals?
Let’s hear from the community first and get a measure of their priorities. Then expand outward to education and such topics within those understandings of the community. Show us what the community is already doing so that we readers are less likely to view them as passive victims and more likely to see them as active problem solvers who could use some supportive allies. This will also help readers understand what initiatives are supported by the community, which leads to better advocacy by allies.
Also, Native American regalia, not costumes.
15
Schools will change student lives very little if economic conditions have not been met. I'm surprised this article didn't get into the root of problems that Native Americans face: economic opportunities. You can't solve problems if they can't see a way out of the tunnel.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs has managed Native American lives to ruin for decades. Maybe it's time to go different direction.
8
Can't the teachers just take it easy on these kids? The teacher running the 'alternative' program has it right; meet your kids where they are, and do your best to help them learn.
6
I dropped out of Wolf Point high school in 1980 due to the hostility I experienced as a nerdy newcomer. I'm white, privledged, and was a high achiever in my former school with supportive parents. I cannot imagine what it was like for American Indian kids. At that time, I don't think I had any classmates who were Native American. Many went 20 miles to Poplar, but now I guess others were warehouse in remedial programs. I chose to clean rooms for oilfield workers over being there.
The principal's quote sums up the indifference and inhumanity: "“I’m not going to get into this Native American thing,” he said. “All I’m trying to do is make sure all our kids have a quality education. And is there some discontent up there? Yeah, probably.” Educators cannot address problems if they refuse to even see the inequalities that they are based on. This is how racism eventually kills.
19
American workers, to include African Americans, and native Americans are not ideal. They do not want to work for slave wages. They may talk back. They may get drunk on weekends and not show up for work on Monday. But American employers must be forced to hire them. Employers need to end up being the teachers and parents these people did not have. Either that or mandatory military type service with training in life skills. If US employers don't like the economic benefits and responsibilities of being in the US they might want to move their businesses to Africa or Central America or just outsource the whole thing to China.....including their profits. You take care of your own family first and this article is a good report card on how we are doing. Trump, amazingly, is the only leader we have had in quite a while who is addressing the border and wide open and unnecessary migration. Whether the Republicans can or want to address the rest of the issues is not clear. I am not optimistic but the first step is to shut the door for a while and focus on ones own house.
5
For every Ms. Cheek, there are scores of establishment types on hand to squelch her. Thanks for highlighting her good fight.
10
Key information: "Liz Hill, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, said that Ms. DeVos was “keenly aware” of the challenges facing Native students and has been aggressive in holding federal schools accountable for improving their education. In March, the department withheld funds from the Bureau of Indian Education because the agency had not complied with ESSA, according to a letter sent by the department.
Ms. DeVos is "keenly aware". . . isn't that special. Hint: withholding funds will not improve the situation.
8
this is a phenomena not restricted to america. "indians" the world over including canada, nz, australia, japan , south america and im sure other places as well have not assimilated well.
i think part of the problem is that they are intentionally kept separate. it is simplistic to simply blame "the school system." the reasons are more complex and unpalatable.
btw- the data ive seen shows that middle aged non-indian males have comparable or higher suicide rates.
2
Well the good news is that this article didn’t contain any stories about people picking themselves up by their own bootstraps. As a liberal, I don’t like those self help stories. If only the government was involved in the lives of the tribal members, things would be much better.
6
The situation is the same North of the border . Native people who do not want 'outsiders ' telling them how to live their lives and raise their children . But us outsiders are supposed to pony up money that
the Indigenous people do not have to account for how it is spent.
There is a small town in northwest Ontario - Sioux Lookout and there are Indigenous people who live 300 miles north of Sioux Lookout and complain that they and their children do not have the same schools and recreational facilities that the rest of Ontario has.
They do not want to live anywhere near even small Ontario cities
The educational system in small outposts has poor results but
again that is the fault of someone else. Dreadful fires killing families
occur but the firefighting equipment that has been provided is not
kept in working order. Again that is someone else's fault.
13
In addition to education, there must also be opportunity and hopefulness. We stayed in a hotel in a Native American nation's capitol town while vacationing a couple of years ago. The best restaurant in their nation was a Denny's. What kind of opportunity does that represent? How is this aspirational??
I have questions. I don't have answers, but I sure hope that someone does and is able to enact them soon, before we lose another generation of young people to preventable situations.
7
This needs to be handled better. If the children can't learn using some teaching methods then they need to be taught in ways they can learn; it's common sense. Since the government's started teaching indigenous children they have tried to mold the children to fit, instead of adjusting curriculum.
Interestingly, the same problem occurred in Canada. What a huge disservice to our people.
7
While pro-immigration advocates are on a frantic mission to grant millions of discontented immigrants into the U.S. to pursue their dreams of a better life, Native Americans are being denied basic civil rights as American citizens. Shamefully, the mindset against them hasn't changed much since The Indian Removal Act signed by President Andrew Jackson in 1830, a mindset validated by the dismissive comments of school administrators who "don't want to deal with this Indian thing." We dismiss these indigenous native people - the only true Americans on the planet - as if they've ceased to exist.
4
The way to end poverty and despair on Native American reservations is to close the reservations.The reservation system was created in the 1800s because Native Americans were considered genetically incapable of assimilating and acculturating into U.S. society. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was created in1824 because Native Americans were considered too childlike to manage their own affairs.
Native American have been U.S. citizens since the Indian Citizenship Act was passed in 1924. It's time to stop treating them differently than other U.S. citizens.
Native Americans are the nation’s largest landowners. Approximately 56.2 million acres are held in trust by the United States for various Native American tribes. Let them sell the land, if they wish, and distribute the proceeds among themselves.
4
My boyfriend is from Wolf Point and still gets the Herald News weekly paper sent to him in California. I always turn right to the obituaries. There are two consistent groups: elderly white farmers in their 80s and 90s and Natives in their teens and twenties. Drunk driving and meth take them out.
10
If you want to make it in life as a Native American, you have to leave the reservation. Reservations are areas of intensive generational dysfunction, where people are always looking to outsiders to save them.
I know, I know. But the government promised! Well, you have waited a century for the government to keep its promises. Will you wait another century?
You can have the best and most dedicated teachers around and most of these kids would still fail given where they are, their peers, their relatives, their parents.
Twenty years from now this newspaper will do another story on this, we will all shake our heads or blame the evil white people, and another generation will have gone down the tubes.
10
I think all teachers and administrators need to read Dr. Kathleen Ross' new book titled Breakthrough Strategies: Classroom-Based Practices to Support New Majority College Students. While it seems to apply only to college students, Dr. Ross' observations (she was founder and president of Heritage University which serves many Native Americans) apply to all teachers of students who are not middle class and white. It is stellar. She offers concrete suggestions and wisdom that can enrich the school experience --- if teachers are willing to listen and absorb and try.
And, watch for my forthcoming book, Gen Tt, which addresses how to make institutions more trauma-sensitive and increase the number of trauma trained educators. In the meanwhile, it offers detailed suggestions and strategies too. Gen Tt is now in school and we need to help them thrive, not just survive (although survival is key obviously).
1
The superintendent's comments speak volumes.
Indifference.
Not familar with the contents of the complaint?
Not going to get involved?
The "Native American thing?"
Of course, if the president can get a pass on such disrespectful remarks, why not this guy?
10
I realize that privacy laws prevent schools from really being able to defend themselves against stories like this, but Superintendent Osborne managed to appear completely devoid of empathy and competence. He can't even be bothered to choose his words carefully, and we can infer the rest.
12
I view this as more of a systemic failure of the parents.
School isn’t supposed to cover all areas of child rearing.
Lazy parenting is an element to the failure as well.
8
Consider the Native American Indians who were exterminated (approximately 100,000), the rest were driven up to Canada, and those who remained in America were made to live in Indian reservations.
4
A major factor contributing to student performance in school is the home environment, and what happens or does not happen outside of the school environment. This does not just apply to Native American students, but to all students, particularly those from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. If we truly want to better the future for these kids, this is the problem we need to address, however intractable this problem initially appears to be.
14
@Eric
I appreciate your perspective to a degree, but may I suggest that it fits the rubric of "concern trolling," which is a way of deflecting from the obvious problem that has been spelled out in detail.When problems are systemic and long-standing, it really seems absurd to blame people as individuals or families. Furhermore, the discriminatory treatment of native Americans extends as well to every facet of life and livelihood,which is what determines "the home environment."
10
Perhaps you are the person who is deflecting. When students are being physically and emotionally abused at home, they tend to be disruptive, non-compliant students, whose presence in the classroom degrades the quality of instruction for all students. A study was done in the last couple of years that showed if a grade school cohort of students had a single abused student, after three years (if memory serves), the entire cohort would be set back a full half year of learning. Now imagine a cohort with multiple students with serious issues. But, yes, go ahead and blame the teachers.
15
Last year, I spent the Spring working in a little school on the Navajo Reservation in Shiprock, NM. While there was apparent poverty, because the entire system was Navajo - including many of the teachers, school spirit seemed high, and a number of high school students were winning academic and sports scholarships. I'm sure it was easier for the students in the sense that they were the majority.
9
@Ellen As the case of Wolf Point makes clear, being a majority of the student body is not enough—who is in power (and how they wield that power) matters. And while it’s wonderful that the school you visited seemed to be succeeding, we should be striving to make integrated schools successful, too.
9
@K
I completely agree. All schools should strive for excellence - and just saying STEM is enough isn't enough. Teaching to the test, shaming teachers - don't get me started. As for life on reservations, Winona LaDuke's excellent book "All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life" was heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. The book shows clearly that "we" are still trying to steal and/or ruin the measly bits of land granted to natives in the first place, but also shows the inspirational ways its inhabitants are fighting back.
2
Everyone always thinks throwing money at a situation will solve everything. I was an educator in Arizona and went from public to charter. The charter was funded on less than the public schools. We took in low-income kids, many with Spanish only speaking parents. We spent our money on educating them and nothing else. We hired highly educated teachers and gave them autonomy and higher paychecks. We made the curriculum challenging and we were strict (but warm). We held back the kids who didn’t pass the level to the next grade. We got the highest third grade reading scores in Arizona with zero fails without teaching to the test, and our high school pumped out kids into full scholarships at Ivy Leagues with 98% going to 4 year college. Again, on less funding than an Arizona public school. No football fields, no gym, no hundreds of administrators, although they had a full art, music, philosophy and theater education. The difference is, the parents of these kids wanted this for them. They were willing to make them do the long hours of studying, they made sure they were fed and got sleep. Poverty does not always equal disfunction. The parents who wanted more for their children found us and we were able to help them. What this tells me, is that we are placing way too much burden and blame on the schools. And more money in the schools will not fix what’s going on at home and in the wider culture that prevents the children from coming to school ready to learn.
21
@DFC I didn’t think this article was advocating for throwing money at the problem at all. I read about administrators and educators systematically excluding Native students, punishing them, calling them racist names, refusing them opportunites routinely granted to white students, etc. The students’ home lives may be challenging, but that is not the point of the article (nor does not make it ok for them to be mistreated at school).
11
@DFC, My daughter-in-law is doing the same thing at a school in LA, CA.
1
There is no doubt that this is a tragedy repeating itself at reservations around our country and in other impoverished areas. It is not just the climate of the schools but the lack of opportunities on the reservation itself that breeds hopelessness and the tendency to fall into drug and alcohol abuse to fill the empty days. This creates that cycle of despondency and violence that children grow up in and are mired in and have trouble escaping. The investment of the tribes in casinos has helped the families on the reservation I live near, creating jobs and a pattern of daily life that is more meaningful and stable for the family unit. That allows native peoples to stay in their community and participate in the rich traditions that are so beautiful and important to them and their community. So there is some reason to hope for improvement. Schools definitely need to improve but I think providing economic opportunities and security in the community is going to be the driving force for providing for the emotional health and educational advantages of these children. As so many things in life, this will not be easily accomplished.
12
Some of the responsibility needs to be placed on the parents. Schools were not designed to take over parental duties, such as making sure the kid gets to school, that homework is done, that the kids get to bed on time...
42
@fireweed Of course. You are absolutely right. But one has to take into consideration that these parents were brought up under the same conditions and so have no references. As with their parents in turn. They just don't know how to deal with it. Those who do know should help and not discipline. It's all about humility and empathy.
25
@fireweed, this comment, while true, is so far from the reality of Wolf Point. They just don’t stand a chance as their parents and grandparents that perceded them in this ugly generational struggle with out the tools that we take for granted. My best, John
3
Not all kids have good parents. The kids who dont have good parents need someone. The school is there. Why not the school? Or do we just let those children fend for themselves like feral cats?
7
The sum that American taxpayers are spending to house, feed, provide healthcare, and education to millions of foreign nationals who have no right to be here is absolutely obscene!
Every cent (adding up to millions if not billions of dollars) that we’re spending on behalf of illegal migrants should be immediately reallocated for the benefit of Native American communities.
30
@Shenoa It's not about money. It's about respect and empathy, two things that cannot be bought for money.
6
@Shenoa: Those illegal are, as required by law, getting local, state and federal taxes taken out of their paychecks but cannot file income tax returns to get back any overpayment of those taxes. So, they are paying more of their income for the public schools than legal residents do. The government is not subsidizing their children's educations.
7
@Shenoa
This article is not about “illegal migrants “. It is about Native Americans, those who were here before white Europeans.
The culture and population of these AMERICANS have been decimated by “ white settlers”. Read the article before you make a comment !
6
You know.. this is a very important story and everyone is missing the point! Our public education system is grossly underfunded. There is huge performance disparity in public schools across the country. Higher taxed communities have better performing schools - that is a fact! Lower income communities.. well we already know the outcome.
I think it is high time we take the people, "off the reservation" and assimilate them into the 21st century. No more federal grants, no more autonomy, not more tax free casino money... They want to live in America- buy our stuff- then separate themselves at the same time. The free rides are over. Your have beguiled a land grant that was meant to help your nations thrive- and you defiled it with thousands of broken down cars and dilapidated homes.
You should be ashamed!
16
They want to live in America? They lived in America when this country was just a big chunk of ice only beginning to melt. About 10,000 years before this country was given its European name by the Europeans who in their swollen egos decided they had discovered it. Those first people to come here achieved some of the greatest feats of exploration and discovery ever when they crossed over from their homes in Siberia and braved the vastness of the newly-revealed naked and nearly lifeless landmass to make it a place where humans could live.
They ARE America. They were creating America and being Americans back when Europeans had no idea what lay beyond the mountains or rivers or seas that confined them in their local regions of Europe.
8
Unbelievable. Your response about reading an article about the way a school fails it's Native American students is to blame the students and their families? And then accuse them of taking handouts? No financial assistance would be needed if not for the thievery of their land by Europeans and their descendants.
7
@Aaron the story gives examples of well funded programs being dismantled because of racist policies. Funding doesn't fix inequality based on racism.
7
We shouldn't be surprised that public schools are failing Native Americans. They are failing to educate low income students everywhere, including NYC - where the NYT revealed that most schools aren't using the scientifically validated best practice method of teaching reading (i.e. phonics) to their students.
As Henry Ford said: ""Any man who thinks he can be happy...by letting the Government take care of him, better take a closer look at the American Indian."
34
@J. Waddell - I couldn't agree more. Facts over bias will always win in the end. As an educator at a Midwestern community college, I recently assigned an argument paper. My students, many of them from low-income families, explored the common topic of poverty through the lens of academic researchers. The prevailing discovery among numerous peer-reviewed studies was lack of quality education in poor neighborhood schools. In one case, a sampling of low-income students were not exposed to a full math curriculum. Some classes skipped algebra entirely while their counterparts who were taught like the rest of America performed better on standardized tests. So, how many poor students should we expect to pull themselves by their bootstraps, much less figure out the "bottom line" for their employers?
14
Don’t you think if we focus on stopping voter suppression including in First Nation communities the government can serve everyone better?
5
@J. Waddell - hadn't heard that before, but it rings true. When Native Americans were forced to relocate to reservations, they were considered wards of the government, orphans without a home. No rights, no freedoms, no hunting privileges, they were left to starve, taken advantage of by corrupt and ruthless Indian agents who offered them blankets infused with Scarlet Fever and other white man's diseases in attempts to thin the ranks.
3
Montanans are not exactly the best educated. 30% of Montanans graduate from high school.
18
Not true. According to Montana’s Office of Public Instruction, the graduation rate is 86.6%.
6
This is simply not true. According to Montana’s Office of Public Instruction, the graduation rate is 86.6%.
3
Actually, Montana has a commendable high school graduation rate of 86% as of 2016.
2
I grew up in a place similar to this with a large population of native Americans. I knew that no amount of education would change the outcome for my life if I didn't get out of that town. The issue is less about education than poverty. By grade nine, people started failing, girls became pregnant and basically started re-enacting their parents life. It is very hard to imagine a different life, when there are no examples around you. Teachers were recruited directly from college and signed a three year contract, and you could really tell the difference between the enthusiastic first year teachers and the third year ones that were on their way out. I left home at 14, because I wanted something different for myself. I was inspired by those teachers. When I have occasionally returned, the kids I grew up with have replaced the adults. There is child abuse, poor nutrition, alcoholism...it's just a cycle. There are no role models, just as my parents were no role models for me. It takes a great deal of imagination to imagine yourself out of these situations. There are no differences between the prairies and the inner city. Mark Zuckerberg gave 100 M to Newark schools and the change was negligible. Changing the schools will not help, you have to change the neighborhood and the culture of the families. You can't teach curiosity, imagination and ambition and generally, if you have lived through poverty, you don't want to go back and provide inspiration. Those who do are heroes.
167
@thewriterstuff I agree 100%. Poverty, substance abuse, domestic violence are huge obstacles for children to deal with and overcome.
8
You have it right I fear. As a society, Americans accept poverty and in fact blame the poor for being poor. This benign neglect of whole communities cost us a great deal, not the least of which is the loss of our moral conscious. As a nation we are making choices to enrich the rich and abandon everyone else. The slogan Make America Great Again is a cruel hoax, not just for Native Americans, but for all the poor all across our nation - and to the masses of poor well beyond our borders!
13
@thewriterstuff. This is an insightful analysis of the challenges facing Native communities. There are numerous reservations around Santa Fe, and they are largely pockets of poverty and social dysfunction. Whatever metric of social health one uses - graduation rates, teen pregnancies, DWI convictions, unemployment numbers, obesity, domestic violence, infant mortality, annual income, you name it - the Native communities near me typically anchor the bottom of the list.
I agree with the writer that social and neighborhood reform of the communities is the only way to break their cycle of failure. One can respect and admire the art, and customs, and the warm and gentle spirit of Native Americans, but too many reservations are islands that mostly perpetuate the lack of opportunity and poverty their citizens wish to escape from. Perhaps it's time to revisit the whole concept of reservations.
10
In middle school a progressive teacher taught us the history of the American Indian, and it was a sobering tale indeed. Today he might be pilloried for offering such unpleasant and true-to-life details, but in my opinion this history should be a standard course offering, not least for its illustration of how cultures that fail to understand one another can do damage that lasts for generations.
38
I grew up in Minnesota, have friends on many of the reservations in Minnesota, the Dakotas and in Montana, including Wolf Point, and have volunteered and tutored in these communities for over 30 years. The horrific conditions of the schools in the reservation communities is well known, and has been widely ignored by our government(s) for generations. It is unquestionable that the genocide and countinuing oppression of the indigenous peoples is this country's original ( although not only) and ongoing sin.
That said, and as much as I admire this article, it does a disservice by failing to address one of the largest issues confronting these schools; the incidence of chemical dependency and addiction that is overwhelming many of these communities. Over 9.2% of native children over 12 have serious alcohol consumption issues, and cross-addiction rates are 2-3 times that of the general population. The causes are widespread, and certainly reflect the genocide, racial discrimination and hatred Indigenous people face. However, there is also no denying the negative impact it has had on the schools. There is desperate need for social service dollars in t
81
I think I'm seeing a better use for $5B.
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So Rob Osborne, the superintendent of the district, has read the report three times but isn't familiar enough with its contents to comment. Maybe ol' Rob needs him some "Hooked on Phonics" classes. That aside, his "I'm not going to get into this Native American thing" comment speaks volumes as to whether he's part of the solution or part of the problem. I grew up in Great Falls and am very familiar with that attitude. The more things change.......
71
There are many reasons for this tragic state of affairs. To my knowledge, this situation has been static for years. What is unforgiveable to me is the lack of funding across the board. This has always been a glaring national moral lapse. Job training, mental health, physical health, preschool and educational services (including prenatal services) should be way up. Why are we giving billions to foreign goverments? Why do we care about everything but services for our fellow citizens who are Native Americans? Why is the BIA chronically underfunded? We need to significantly raise funding for native american initiatives.
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@jean valliere
The “why” is simply answered -genocide has been so central to how the U.S. has taken everything from Native Americans and continues - never considering any reparations. They have no political power to confront U.S. capitalism and fascism and get back what was illegally taken from them. This has gone on for centuries destroying their culture and humanity and forcing them onto some of the worst land in the country. The myth of the pioneer spirit persists without seeing it as part of the legacy of how chattel slavery and “settler colonialism” are a major part of the DNA of the American dream.
25
As a former educator in Wolf Point I do have to say that this article is very upsetting and not because I agree with it. I believe that there is a lot of good in the school district and yes there are some things that need to change, but isn't that in ALL schools? There is so much that goes on at home that as educators we can't control. We can make the reports, but then after that it's out of our hands. Somedays I strongly believe that the students do need to be able to access counseling when ever they need it and not get brushed away. There were many days where I felt like I was more of a counselor and not a teacher. I strongly believe that not all the blame should be put on the school, it starts at home. Yes, we are supposed to be a safe zone, but some parents make that impossible because they don't want their children to feel that it is. Please don't have a negative outlook on all the teachers in the district because there are some AMAZING teachers there.
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@WP I also taught at the elementary level for several years in Wolf Point. I saw much attention to the cultural teachings and sensitivities to the Native American students in the school. There is much attention given to the celebrations and their meanings. I have also read of many of my students committing suicide, dying from drugs, or running away. Too many of the children I had were being raised by their grandparents or another relative. This was due to drug and alcohol abuse, physical abuse and neglect, and other legal issues. I will always remember Jalen and Dalton, who each lived in a loving family, as young boys always smiling and cracking jokes and being very studious and upbeat. More counselors are needed in these schools to be mainly there for the students that begin to fall and need help. Each educator sees so many students and the signs of becoming desperate or lost need to be reported and acted upon as soon as possible and not be pushed aside and land at the bottom in a file on someone's desk.
28
@WP Of course it starts at home. But the thing is, the people at home grew up under the same circumstances. They don't know how to deal with these things. In addition to that there is a great lack of interest, respect and empathy which creates an abyss that only too few of the prosperous can be bothered to cross.
This is nothing but slow genocide that has been going on for a couple of hundred years now.
4
$3.68 million for suicide prevention, but no money for alternative programs, and no seat at the table for advocacy. I suppose it's not surprising that our benchmarks for gauging success in indigenous populations is how much they think like us or reflect our values, but that is really a kind of blindness. Its the American way to expect everybody be good consumers and fit into the accepted niches we provide. Some cultures have deeper roots and more lasting traditions than ours. It's really not up to us to decide how a successful outcome is achieved. We need to achieve synergy with tribal elders to design the best educational model, and stop thinking that just because we use the same words that we're speaking the same language.
18
We can do something now - massive investment. All of us who live and succeed in this country owe it in some part to Native Americans, on whose land we sit. If the 1% paid fair taxes, and we had a decent administration (obviously not the current one) who finally made this a priority, at least some of the wrongs could be righted. Any 2020 candidate should be screened by this issue.
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I am very glad that this article was written. Native American issues have been made invisible for a century and a half.
More cultural research would have made this a better article. An example is that Native Americans wear regalia, never “costumes”.
In 1998 my family moved to Rapid City, SD from central Florida. My then 6th grade son came home from school shortly after we arrived and informed me that the prejudice against Native Americans in his new school was far worse than that against African Americans in Florida. That says a great deal.
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@Linda Rogers
"I am very glad that this article was written. Native American issues have been made invisible for a century and a half."
Yes! They were replaced by "Asylum seekers" at the Mexican border ...
Should we not care for our Native Americans before we allow thousands more "Asylum seekers" into this country?
Square that circle..
14
@Aaron First, it's not a zero sum game. Second, the two issues are not directly equivalent, as even a cursory look at the differing historical, legal, and social circumstances reveals. Scapegoating asylum seekers for problems in the Wolf Point educational system is as arbitrary as a Dada word association game.
7
The rural folk that live near the reservations are a big part of the problem. They tend to characterize them as drunks, criminals etc. and also the treaty rights that they finally were able to realize. It’s a big problem on Lake Mille Lacs here in MN, as they are allowed certain fishing rights that the rural folk can’t stand. Our government tricked them, killed them, and many thought they could convert them when in fact all they did was destroy and demoralize. It breaks my heart the hypocrisy that is the foundation of the American ideal.
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@Jts I agree some with your post. I taught there and one comment made to me by a student became the focal point of trying to change this student's and all others way of thinking. The student said "I do not need school because the government will take care of me".
The government is taking care of them in the wrong way. Give them jobs, clean water, promising futures to look forward to and not be there with the monthly food stamps, welfare checks, and yearly payouts. There needs to be funding for training in all areas of jobs and later moving on to a trade school, or college where these kids can come back and change their home towns and help make them something to be proud of and get rid of the stigma and poverty that the Native Americans face.
6
Innumerable generations of genocide, segregation and systemic discrimination have caused this. Expecting our broken public schools to patch this up for each Indigenous child is unrealistic. Expecting white people to adequately fix it is destined for failure. There needs to be: prenatal & postpartum support for indigenous households, toddler literacy outreach, schools that coordinate with special Native-sensitive social services teams that deal with factors like alcoholism or insufficient nutrition etc other basic care needs. There needs to be education mentoring and tutoring services - lead by tribal appointees or members of tribes to be more effective. Does that sound like a holistic intervention? Does it need to be a coalition of tribal people and professionals? Yes. Only way the complexities of this problem are going to really be addressed. It needs funding from nonprofits and the government. Yes the funding must be prioritized. Did I mention the generations of genocide.
36
I have lived and taught in Wolf Point on the Fort Peck Reservation for many years. We are isolated & endure many socio-economic problems. Like many rural American communities, we are overwhelmed by drug and alcohol problems, especially meth. I have heard that over half our babies are born to addicted mothers. Teaching children who suffer from ongoing trauma is exhausting, be we do our best with the resources we have. Isolated schools, especially on reservations, have difficulty attracting and keeping qualified teachers and support staff. Unfortunately, this reporter did not visit with many of our dedicated educators who care deeply for all our students. This is a one-sided article that attempts to cause more discord in our already struggling community. But I live here, love all my students, and will not be discouraged by Green’s misleading report
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God Bless you and your fellow teachers in one of the planet’s most challenging school districts.
30
@On the Prairie
I am a retired teacher that taught in high poverty urban neighborhoods. I understand your fight and applaud you.
40
@On the Prairie I grew up near a reservation and had a number of classmates who are American Indian. The reservation has elevated levels of poverty, unemployment, teen pregnancy, abuse of all sorts, problems with addiction to alcohol and/or drugs and, yes, a certain amount of racism. There are also lots of state and federal programs available for those who take advantage of them. It is entirely possuble for a kid with enough gumption to go to college with generous scholarship and grant assistance and on to a successful career. Every reservation has a tribal college with two year degree programs. Some high school kids take dual credit classes. Native languages are taught in the public schools and the colleges along with other cultural offerings. Pow wows are regularly held at state universities off the reservation and there are cultural groups there too and special programs for a Indians going into law or medicine or the sciences or education. The other problems contributing to all the disfunction mean some don’t take advantage of what is available.
Each tribe is also a sovereign nation with self governance, control over their land and a separate police and judicial system that is different from other tribes. It isn’t as simple as just treating people like other U.S. citizens. They are dual citizens of their particular tribe and of the U.S.
30
I grew up on this reservation, on the family ranch, which had been established by the late 1880's. We still have the ranch. I am a tribal member (Sioux). My uncle was on the tribal council in the 50s. After my dad died, my mom moved us to Bozeman, when I was 12. I worked for many summers at the ranch, as did some of my kids, but never moved back there. I still visit every year. My law firm has done some work for the tribe over the years.
Conditions on the res are bad and have deteriorated significantly since the 50's and 60's. There was always alcoholism, but now there are drugs, suicide, and more problems, including more abuse. Higher unemployment.
My impression is that this author does not understand Fort Peck or reservations. Lots of facts and information. Nice research. But very incomplete.
I suppose the schools deserve some blame, but there are many organizations, institutions and people to blame. I believe the schools are one of the brighter spots on the res, despite some negative aspects and perhaps occasional bad people.
The culture of poverty arrived a number of decades ago. The towns on the res deteriorated. The downtowns fell apart or disappeared. Wolf Point is the largest city, and better than most.
Reservations in MT have always had a lot of prejudice--on the res and in the adjacent towns. It was worse in the past, probably much worse.
There are success stories, both in terms of people, Indians and non-Indians, and organizations.
Out of letters.
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@Green26
You made it! And you could have shown everyone else how to do it... but you worried about yourself first. Good for you... It still isn't too late .. why not teach Saturday School on one of the reservations? Why not volunteer your time? Too busy huh? So are many other Americans..
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@Aaron @Green26 lives in Bozeman, about a 7 hour drive from Wolf Point. However, I’m sure there is a need for youth volunteers in Bozeman.
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@Green26
Enjoyed your comment and it got me thinking.
To what extent do you attribute your own obvious success to leaving what appears a toxic environment when you were 12?
Do you think reservations are now really part of the problem and offer little in terms of hopes of a solution?
I know moving off the res could be seen as a silly panacea and one more way to blame the victims, but I'd welcome your thoughts as to the pros and cons of getting younger people off the res.
13
How Native peoples are treated across this country is abominable. I teach in a school with a small percentage of Native Americans. I pray they don't get particular teachers who have expressed exceedingly racist, hateful views towards Indians, Blacks and others. Racism and the consequent systemic oppression continue to plague our schools and poison future generations.
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As a current educator with 23 years of teaching, as a fellow teacher, you know you have a moral if not legal obligation to report these teachers to your administrator. Prayers won’t cover it. Teachers who feel comfortable enough to share racist views with any colleague must be dealt with immediately, similarly as it is required by law for us to report child abuse.
34
How does a country get to WE THE PEOPLE when it is comprised of so many THOSE PEOPLE?
26
When i was sixteen i was an exchange student to Europe. It was a life changing event.
I have often wondered what would happen if as a sixty year old I applied to be an exchange grandmother with a host family.
Would such a program help? Or would I be a white nuisance? Or would I lose all my romanticized literary ideals about the people who were here before us.
9
I turned 17 in Lima, Peru - where I, too was an exchange student. As you discovered, living in another country with a completely different culture and language is indeed life-changing. Simply traveling north into very different places - rural areas and small towns - gave me my first taste of being the target of racism. As a white girl with blue eyes and blonde hair, I looked completely different from Peruvians, who almost universally have darker skin (ranging from nearly white to very black, mostly in between,) brown eyes and dark hair.
My clothes were in sharp contrast to those worn by the natives, who wore subdued colors unless they were in certain smaller towns or villages and dressed in their local apparel - full of bright vibrant colors. And they had no way of knowing that I spoke Spanish fluently - and their first language wasn't Spanish anyway, it was usually Quechua (the official language of the country) or a local dialect.
Their looks of suspicion, disdain and even open distaste and disgust made me realize how black and brown Americans, as well as immigrants from non-English-speaking nations must feel. Although I was traveling with a native Peruvian woman who saw what was happening and told me to ignore them, I was uncomfortable and truly saddened. After all, I am a very nice person!
If we cannot learn to be open and accepting of our brothers and sisters who make up one race - the human race - we are doomed.
14
Every time I read a story like this one about American Indians, I feel sick.
We have endless sympathy for how many different groups? We supposedly espouse the importance of support for anyone who's an underdog.
But which political party has put the interests and concerns of American Indians front and center?
These kids deserve so much better. And I applaud anyone who is trying to help them. But all of us should make their welfare a primary concern.
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$5B would go a long way here, and for public education everywhere.
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@SolarCat Throwing more money at the problem does not necessarily work. Mark Zuckerberg donated 100 M to Newark schools and the affect was negligible.
11
Canada has a painful history of seizing aboriginal children from their families and placing them in residential schools to extinguish their native culture and heritage and, too often, their very lives.
To atone for this massive evil communities have gone through a necessarily painful truth and reconciliation process to tell the stories of families ripped apart.
And with this reconciliation comes restitution as the Supreme Court found that aboriginal title to lands and resources is not extinguished.
In Canada, first nations have seats at the table and major rights. First Nations university graduates have increased from the dozens to the tens of thousands. The larger first nations run their own school systems with resources comparing favourably to the main school system.
There is zero tolerance for any racism in the schools and it is shocking to hear that American schools keep detestable racists like de Vos in power.
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@Doug Broome, and a similar setup in Australia. The US ignores it's first peoples in every way. Australian Aboriginals struggle too but there are many more options to find good lives.
In my Australian local government workplace this year, everyone attended a half-day session on Aboriginal cultural awareness conducted by a local man. It was great, funny and hit home hard in the right places. It's not so much about yesterday but now and children's possibilities.
32
Perhaps the people on the reservations should reclaim indigenous lands and build a wall to keep the teeming hordes of druggies, rapist and murderers out of Indians lands.
20
There is something important lacking in this article. They skimmed over the part where the tribe ceded land in treaties and education was a part of that agreement. You, as Americans, have no right to this land unless these treaties are upheld. Underfunding education and healthcare is violating the treaties, as is polluting Native hunting and fishing areas. Treaties are the supreme law of the land, according to the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. Underfunding Native education is breaking the United States highest laws.
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The racism discussed in this article is troubling: slurs, preferential treatment for whites, etc. Schools should not be held accountable for all aspects of a student's success though, the student has to do their part too.
If a student is skipping class and getting into trouble the school should not be held accountable. If a principal scolds a student in the hallway for missing class, that's perfectly acceptable. If they miss class too much they shouldn't graduate. Students should show up to class and be well behaved. If students do that and they struggle to grasp the material being taught, then the school should step in and help with tutoring or extra instruction. If students don't do their part though, you shouldn't hold the school accountable for their lack of success.
26
Students are children. The adults bear the responsibility for whether those kids grow up demoralized or whether they grow up with their spirits intact.
15
I have never read any article about our First American Citizens ever being fairly treated. What a shame. We should stand together, bring them along, insure education, health, and welfare. We have polluted them and poisoned them to death, along with murdering them in Oklahoma.
I recall that President Obama made sure they were covered under Obamacare. What now? Large private charitable trusts, think Gates Foundation should be helping, instead of inoculating every African Child.
16
@J Fender I hope you meant to say that they should be inoculating Native American children AS WELL AS African children. Every child of every race is equally important.
23
I taught in a small community in far, far Northeastern CA with many Native American students. Racism stripped them of their dignity to the point where they just wanted to isolate themselves out on their godforsaken high desert reservation. Most in the community blamed the Native population for their poverty, dysfunctional families, drugs, alcohol and suicide and shrugged them off as hopeless. The shame is the dying little community out there had a very rich Native heritage and environmental beauty that, properly appreciated and displayed, could have lifted everyone up with school festivals and community events. But they chose as a community image the white cowboy with his John Wayne attitude that brought no more attention to the area than a black-and-white B movie.
22
Perhaps, multiculturalism and the reservation system don’t work. Natives—to their great detriment— have become segregated on a racial basis from the rest of society. We see something similar among African Americans living in the inner cities, a culture of poverty, unemployment, and educational non success. Both populations Are alienated or sidetracked from the paths of larger social integration. Canadian commenters here report the same thing about their Native populations. Perhaps it’s time to drop the romance of multiculturalism—that America is a mosaic of different cultures—and emphasize that we are an integrated society. Racism in part created or at least abetted the reservation system and now liberalism is this dysfunctional system’s greatest supporter. The liberal reporter here just piles up all the disconnects between public schools and Native students without exploring why these disconnects are inevitable and pre-determined by the de facto segregation of a reservation system.
29
I disagree with the premise that the answer should be to give up our culture. I certainly would not begrudge anyone who wishes to leave a reservation - I left myself - but forced assimilation is not anything I can ever get behind. Just my own opinion, as a Native.
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@Richard I agree 100%. Get rid of the romance of multiculturalism. Diversity does not make a society stronger , it makes it weaker as shown by a massive study in 2007 done by Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam. http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity/?fbclid=IwAR0YjFsShccBucmd5kUlQTl2Pz7lXCpG-8Ga0vzgfVB0gav42C893mOGajc
Nonetheless, we need to find an effective compassionate means to help the Indian students succeed at schooling and in our greater society
9
@Richard Assimilation was tried in brutal form -- taking Native children from their parents and putting them in boarding schools where they were forced to speak only English under pain of physical punishment. How'd that work out? History shows.
25
We should be doing better for the original peoples of the country. How about if our education system begins to redefine what a successful education is? How about if we begin to educate children on how to live their lives to be productive members of their community? The current education system is slanted towards the idiotic idea that everyone should be headed to college, and defines a capitalistic idea of success. Additionally, white students most likely are be doing better in school and on standardized tests because the curriculum and tests are bias towards white/ anglo/ European culturally specific interpretation of topics, test items and questions.
14
@Cathy
Shall we educate native American children to be proficient in hunting, gathering, bead work and dancing in quaint, colorful costumes? Is there something essential about these kids that makes learning to live in a modern, technological society difficult or inappropriate for them? When are we going to stop this destructive romanticism?
30
Native cultures and modern Western technology are not mutually exclusive. Just as I’m a techie who plays bagpipes, so can an Indigenous American dance at a Pow Wow and program.
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@Frank Knarf That's not the most generous interpretation of Cathy's comment. Both white and non-white students would benefit from an education that included more financial literacy, home ec, the arts, and vocational training. As a college math professor, I know that learning practical things like carpentry and sewing can really support the learning of analytic and differential geometry. Hunting can mesh very well with ecology and biology. In academia I try to both advance and apply knowledge. There's no need to sneer at art, culture, and activities humans have carried out for millenia to feed themselves, and there's no contradiction with using drones and programming to map the shape of the local watershed.
26
"The best of what this country's got was taken from the Indians" (Gimbel/Charlap); "Give it back to the Indians" (Hart/Rodgers). Broadway song lyrics by New Yorkers spanning generations express with jaundiced eyes the national disgrace said to have "all started with Columbus."
Throughout history, the Having Haves who enrich themselves and control so much of government are not about to genuinely address the failed attempt at genocide aimed at Native Americans, any more than they will actively turn attention to addressing related issues of inequality and poverty. Just before his murder, Bobby Kennedy was enlightened regarding "out of sight, out of mind" matters, and as Trumpism infects progress, we need a "new birth of freedom" related to those Four Freedoms set forth by Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Doug Giebel, Big Sandy, Montana
9
Clearly only the white population is reading this article and have zero understanding of who the Indigenous Nations are. These Nations still exist. These "reservations" are not "gifts" they are prison camps that forced the Native populations to inhabit as European colonialism systematically stole more and more of their homeland.
Very, very, very little of what was ever promised these decimated Nations was ever provided. The lands they were forced onto were remote and lacked the resources that these Nations traditionally relied on to thrive.
On these reservations aka prison camps, resources for schooling, jobs for families, healthy foods for people whose genetics do not handle literally White foods like flour and sugar, legal systems and social systems that coordinate with the conquering Euros have left these Nations of colored(Red NOT dead) people the most maligned, impoverished, yet persistently Culturally intact in America.
The comments that say, blame the home not the White schools, ignore entirely what this population endures. These White schools ARE abusive and dismissive and refuse to include Indigenous people on their boards. There is no possibility that Betsy DeVoss will do anything to mitigate the racism towards the Red populations as she cares not at all even about sexism and rape on college campuses.
But this article is a rarity in that it at least makes an attempt to address the plight of Indigenous students. Check out Native Hope if you want to more.
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@Lynne Perry
The Hmong, Somalis, Central Americans and the rest of us are expected to become part of the fabric of modern society while you go on about "Nations" as though the remnants of stone age hunter gatherer tribes have something to do with the modern nation-state. This is madness, and it is killing native Americans every day.
We don't prevent the Amish or the ultra-orthodox from choosing to live apart, so I suppose we should not deny those native Americans who prefer the tribal status quo, either. But please stop romanticizing the situation and pretending that the European conquest of the Americas is going to be somehow undone.
32
It was the primitive tribes of Saxon England who are credited with laying the foundations of English democracy and rule of law through their development of tribal councils that decided which person got to be King and for how long. Kings could be fired back then without an armed revolution.
It was the more modern British who had agriculture and architecture and military technology who adoped the Divine Right of Kings to govern with zero oversight or term limits at all.
IMO the former group helped the found the ideals behind the modern nation-state, while the latter group's craving for wealth and power hindered its development for centuries.
Respect the hunter-gatherers for that, at least.
4
@Frank KnarfYou tell Lynne Perry to "stop romanticizing the situation and pretending that the European conquest of the Americas is going to be somehow undone."
No, the "settler colonialism" can be undone. I was at Standing Rock to protest the pipeline, and experienced the Lakota Sioux's incredible spirituality, and also got an idea of the racism of some of the North Dakota neighboring whites.
We need to uphold the treaties, not break them. We also need to research, and read the history of the tribal nations in this country. I live on land that was previously lived on by the Lenape tribe. In New York City.
6
I am guessing that this is not a wealthy community on the white side either. Part of this misery and bias may stem from a struggle for scarce resources - a belief that only one side can win. That they can’t afford the staffing and programming necessary to serve all students. That headset, unfortunately, makes eliminating problem students from mainstream classes appealing. and not only in a small school in Montana.
Note - they lose about half of the Native American students before graduation, but they are also losing about a quarter of “white” kids: what gives?
All schools - especially those in poorer areas - struggle with students who have serious disruptions in their lives. Abuse, alcoholism, absent parents, homelessness, poverty. Schools often argue that they are not there to treat mental illness. Correct. But what a school does with a child every day has a major impact on his/her emotions and self-esteem. Interactions should therefore be “therapeutic,” thoughtfully done to encourage participation and learning. The school needs to collaborate with mental health services- and expertise in approaching behavior problems behaviorally. The objective is to teach effectively. If many students from a certain group are failing - or "disciplined" out of - regular classes, they are NOT being educated - the process isn't working.
No need to say bullying and insults should not be a part of school culture.
The adults in charge are supposed to figure out what will work better.
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@cheryl The billions Trump wants for his wall would be better spent on improving mental health services for all Americans.
11
I grew up part-time in Wolf Point and, after graduating from the Naval Academy and serving years as a naval officer, returned to a neighboring reservation and taught high school math and English for two years through the Troops to Teachers Program, before joining the corporate sector for better pay.
Incredible talent, and incredibly wasted talent on U.S. reservations.
The problems are many, but are centered on school board and administration decisions (and non-decisions) that undermine teachers (leading to too few talented teachers applying, and high turnover among the few talented teachers that do apply), exacerbate disciplinary issues, and reinforce the lowest of academic standards (some graduates could not read or do double-digit subtraction).
The school board and administration - with most emphasis on the school board - need to fear being replaced if poor student performance continues; today, they are hardly afraid and fully emboldened.
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This article calls for follow up action, not just a one off.
Some of the comments are demoralizing, pathetic. Sure many of these children come from abusive families and that needs attention. Yet there were many examples of official over site, disregard, and neglect that require attention and follow-up. I'd like to challenge the author of this article to stay with the story, do follow ups, create vehicles for support and intervention. If you want to make a difference where do you donate to? There is a form of research that goes beyond collecting data and is designed to create interventions as the research unfolds, I believe it is called "participatory research."
In Hawaii there was a class action law suite that resulted in psychologists and social workers placed in every school. The DOE still has many problems yet does a much better job of being culturally relevant than this article documents for Montana.
12
I'm Native. My mother was in the Air Force so I attended schools across the United States. I never attended a Native school. I ended up with a high school GPA above 4.0 and, although I didn't attend, admittance to both Yale and Stanford.
My mother and I have wondered how I would have turned out if we had stayed on the reservation. Looking at the outcomes of family members, it would have been unlikely I would have excelled.
The downside is that my connection to my tribe is more tenuous than most. In order to succeed, often you have to leave. Assimilate into white culture. That shouldn't be the case. So I take issue with anyone who says the answer is to simply leave. That shouldn't be the solution. It should not have to be an either/or proposition.
We are already disappearing. The state of education and support amongst Native tribes is simply speeding this up.
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@Erin A classmate in medical school, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe, returned to work and live in the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. It has not been easy, but I think she finds it very rewarding. Like you, she does not want Native cultures to vanish, yet under the current conditions many of these cultures are not sustainable.
It seems to me that all cultures change over time, yet most also manage to change in ways that respect heritage and important customs. But given the poverty and isolation of many reservations, it's not clear that Native cultures will persist and/or change in positive ways.
I wish my classmate the best. I respect her enormously.
29
@hammond, You make a very good point here and I'd like to expand on your thought. Instead of all of these Apple Camps's opening up in New York and Washington D.C....Google, Microsoft, H P, and these big tech companies should be plowing money into these reservations and towns. They should be opening up Learning Centers across the entire country to serve the underprivileged communities first. Starting with the people of the First Nation, and moving out from there. Black Americans, Spanish speaking communities, and others. And don't just teach Hight Tech. Teach kids about their own culture!, re learn the native languages, dance...everything. Then fold in modern life coping skills, be that computer skill, automative skill, airplane skill, everything. Also math and science. If these companies would get off their profit motive scheme for a few years you would see great growth and sense of pride in these underserved communities. Then make a contract with young adults getting out of college. Teach at one of thee Learning Centers for three years and the college tuition is paid off! A win win for all sides, invest in our young people again, help them with a leg up. Eventually this will enhance your bottom line! Respectfully, Dennis King
20
People all over the country often have to move for economic opportunity. I did it. My husband did it. It’s hard. Why are Native populations exempt from this economic reality?
18
Part of the problem may be the continued existence of Reservations in the modern era. Aside from those with big money gaming establishments (and I have no idea how their schools are performing) Reservations seem to build an enduring cycle of poverty, alcoholism, obesity, and alarming rates of diabetes. Perhaps this practice of homelands has become antiquated. It served its purpose by keeping them from being wiped out but now maybe encouraging Native Americans to leave the Rez and integrate into society would help.
Even some of the well meaning comments seem to continue stereotypes about them being primitive and somehow more attached to the land. This is embarrassingly dated thinking. These are people not your living history documentary. Diversity is in order now not tribalism.
18
@Magawa7
The reservations preserve their Native and First Nation culture. Dancing is a form of prayer, as is drumming. Pow wows are important for this reason.
2
Some thoughts and experiences:
I taught Native Americans of a variety of tribes at Northern Arizona Univ.
I had a student, bright fellow, A college Jr. who had trouble reading. I thought it was his eyesight. Had him tested, he was illiterate. He was passed up the ladder because he was a great football player. His wife read his work to him and he studied from memory. No one realized he never learned to read.
I had a woman who had given birth the week before classes started. She hitchhiked 60 miles every morning, left her baby with friends and made it to class every day
High school students from the reservations who could not get into the Indian dorms would stay at the library until it closed and then sleep curled up, outside in shop door alcoves while the snows of Flagstaff raged around them. They'd eat the school provided breakfast as their only meal and take the school bus home on weekends...a 3 hr. drive.
DON"T TELL ME NATIVE KIDS DO NOT WANT TO LEARN !!!
223
When I return to my classroom in January, I'm going to do everything I can to ensure that my kiddos do not feel invisible, but instead loved, listened to, respected and encouraged. Unfortunately, I cannot move to Montana to support these young folks, but I am able to support my students. If every teacher who reads this article commits to giving 100% to their students, wherever they may be, our future (and their futures) will be brighter.
It breaks my heart that nonsense like this still exists in America...
22
"I see my students and their families face these same struggles everyday. These systems, especially the education system, was not set up for them. It was meant to oppress. We're fighting that system everyday. Thanks so much for sharing" - Teacher friend who teaches Navajo children in NM.
Another important factor that this article overlooks is the condition in which these families have to live in on the reservations. It really is a system of oppression.
23
The article describes beautifully what happens when you have bad immigration policy, as Native Americans had beginning in the 17th century. Next thing you know, a bunch of folks that don’t share your values takes over and shoves you into a corner of useless land, then imposes cultural, and even ethnic, cleansing. Ms Green, thank you for your position paper regarding immigration policy!
13
Europeans showed up armed with rifles and artillery. This was a military conquest. Indians didn't have steel. America did not have accessible tin or nickel back then. Indians had copper metallury, but copper doesn't make good swords or guns. They were out-armed by many orders of magnitude.
The asylum-seekers at our border bear zero comparison to the Spanish or British or American military. Stop trying to twist this into a Trump tweeting point.
This is not about immigration. It is about the long demoralizing aftermath to conquest and extermination.
Just like Cromwell in Ireland. There was no Irish immigration policy that could have kept Cromwell's troops out either. And guess what -- the Irish had problems with alcohol and child abuse in the aftermath of British colonialism too.
15
First, we must decide if we all agree that the US tradition of "assimilation". It is what immigrants did for centuries and it is what has made the US a cohesive nation. But the tide appears to be changing and now "other cultures" must be embraced and supported. I strongly question this!
When I was in grade school in KS in the 1950's, we had a few Potawatomi in my school, and one boy in my class. Tom had lots and lots of problems and was not adapting well at all. He would come to school covered in bear grease. It smelled. He smelled. And yes, the 9 yr olds told him so. The teachers were very patient with him, but he was a trying boy. He dropped out of school the minute he turned 14.
My late husband taught in a boarding school in rural ME that had a full scholarship for a Native American each year. They had never gotten one to graduation. When we got there, they thought they were finally going to achieve this. The boy went home for Christmas to the reservation, the young there mocked him for "being white" and he did not return to graduate just one semester later. He had all the support in the world.
The level of poverty in which most tribes live is astounding. The level of alcoholism and abuse is horrid. The schools cannot solve these problems. And teachers are not trained in suicide prevention - that is asking a lot and they already do far more than teach.
This is not about racism but poor assimilation.
45
@India Shouldn't the native culture, which existed in the US before the Europeans came, be the one that WE assimilate to? They were here, they did not choose to leave a country for a better life in America. They were America. Why should they assimilate to a culture that does nothing but take from them?
23
@India Help me understand why it is the Native Americans who need to assimilate to the inhumanity of the European colonialists who have destroyed their culture, stole their land and perpetrated the most massive genocide in human history? I ask this as a white descendant of Scandinavian homesteaders who were among those who participated in the land theft and denigrated the few remaining Native Americans in that part of Central Montana. I cannot right the massive wrongs of my ancestors, but I can at least see the injustice.
37
@India I volunteered with my city's crisis line service for four years. Suicide prevention counselling takes a day and is not asking a lot of teachers working with first nations students. You may benefit from reading about the holocausts visited upon the first nations, and yes, they are nations. For anyone with the slightest knowledge of aboriginal relation it is perfectly understandable why a young indigenous male would not fit into private school. In first nations religions nature is a mother; for too many whites nature exists for raping.
18
This is a very troubling article on so many levels.
I am sure that there is blame and finger pointing from all sides as reported, but I see little in the way of solutions being seriously offered or considered.
At the core, we have the over riding fear of "the other", a situation that has existed for indigenous people since Europeans first stepped ashore on this continent. Until we overcome this fact, developing a workable path forward will be nearly impossible.
Add to this the invisibility of so many among this population to most of the country makes it even harder. As described in the piece, most live in isolated areas in extremely rural parts of the US. Locations that are geographically absent from the minds of most urban and suburban communities.
The plight of the Native Americans aren't shown on the nightly news in the way the drive by shootings and anger of youths in densely populated urban areas are portrayed.
Out of site. Out of mind.
So, here's my challenge for Betsy DeVoss.
You believe charter schools are the answer to all the problems of public education? Fine.
Let's rally the financial support of your wealthy 1 percenters, and the organizational skills of your for profit charter school advocates. Put their combined resources to work solving this problem. Turn every school serving a native population into a charter school.
What better way to showcase your belief in this alternative to the "failing" public education system that you feign such concern for.
13
Expecting school systems to fix problems which are deeply rooted in the home lives and culture of native American communities is folly. Establishing the reservation system in the first place was a catastrophic mistake, with generations of dysfunctional, dependent families the result. Any real change will have to start at the source of the problems.
32
@Frank Knarf
You're right, Frank, though perhaps not in the way you imply. It's hard to recover from an ongoing genocide. White people in America need to look more critically at the devastating consequences their values have had the world over. Not just on reservations here, but in the Middle East (possibly a million dead in Iraq) and in Latin America, our arrogant, competitive, ethnocentric and often racist worldview has failed everyone, even us, as we're just beginning to understand. True, we can't be held responsible for all the suffering on the planet, but we've created enough of it to be more self-critical.
16
@Kurt Spellmeyer
Our self criticism and virtue signalling is not going to help native Americans trapped in a self-perpetuating cycle of poverty and dependence.
16
When I see the phrase "virtue signaling," I can't help wondering when conservatives began embracing sin so openly as a superior way of life.
8
This article glosses over "the physical and emotional abuse at home." It says it and then moves on to why everything is the fault of the school. We have to stop expecting schools to be able to make up for physical and emotional abuse at home. I asked a therapist once why she didn't treat children and she told me that people think they can drop their kid off and tell the therapist to fix him, but that if the parents don't get help themselves, it's an uphill battle at best and generally just a useless exercise. And teachers aren't therapists.
82
"They told Ms. Cheek she would also have to give rewards to white students"- as if being born with white skin in this retched world is not gift enough? This is Jim Crow Native-American style, a systemic, DELIBERATE suppression of these people and their children. The school district wants these kids to fail. Even when they're in the minority white people rule over them with an iron fist. Its terrible.
24
The reservation system was created in the 1800s because Native Americans were considered genetically incapable of assimilating and acculturating into U.S. society. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was created in1824 because Native Americans were considered too childlike to manage their own affairs.
Today, a small percent of reservations are prosperous, due largely to their location near major population centers. But the reservation system has trapped most Native Americans in misery and poverty for nearly two centuries. It should be abolished. Didn’t Martin Luther King teach us separate is never equal?
The Indian Citizenship Act was enacted in 1924. There is no longer excuse for treating Naive Americans differently than other Americans Native Americans are the nation’s largest landowners. Approximately 56.2 million acres are held in trust by the United States various Indian tribes and individuals. The land should be sold and the proceeds should be distributed among the nation’s 5.2 million Native Americans.
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@William Case
Spoken like a true colonialist. Wrong, it would end up disastrously. Indigenous peoples have the knowledge of our ecological systems over a long period of time. If relocated, they still have ways to relate to local ecologies that mainstream culture does not.
We need peoples who will be the water protectors and nature protectors through their respectful use...your ideas are just what one would expect of someone from mainstream culture who thinks their own culture to be superior.
We are in a time when it is being shown as having very serious fault lines and potential for volcanic eruption.
If you are willing, please think more gently and respectfully about people who have a different culture than yours. It would help us all tremendously to show respect back and forth.
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@William Case
The current plight of Native Americans proves there IS a need for "treating Native Americans differently than other Americans." Obviously the nation has failed to remedy centuries of abuse and neglect -- not that we have tried very hard to address these issues. Electing more Native Americans may make a small difference, but to "make America great" (if it means anything), it means more than admitting there are problems but failing, again and again, to effect solutions.
dg
22
After all the land we took from them, your solution is to take the rest away, take their homes away, take their communities away, and hand them each a little roll of cash?
63
American education is failing the 'majority' of our kids. Our schools test 'average' or 'below average' on nearly all international tests.
The NYT should look more 'broadly' at the quality of education in America as it is not just the kids in this article that are being cheated of a quality education. What do Finland, Poland and South Korea know about education that our education leaders do not?
11
I've worked as a doctor in Montana for over 30 years. I've worked on it's reservations.
I had a native patient once, a woman stabbed in the left eye. She told me, "My mother was stabbed in the left eye."
Abuse. More abuse. Abuse you can't stand anymore.
45
Despair unmoors people. Hatred goes in one way and comes out another.
14
Every, yes every indigenous culture struggles with basic school curriculum. Most natives never developed written language. Is the article asking for more intensive remedial education programs?
Or is that throwing money at the problem? I wish it was as simple as blaming white culture, but it isn't. Peoples that onced lived in a tribal cultural must re-adjust to a fast-paced, technologically complex world. Hunting and gathering has just left some far behind. Stop the blame game. This is one example where liberalism turns off many potential voters.
29
@A. Reader Unbelievably insensitive comments. I certainly hope you don't work in education or in any other career that requires interaction with anyone besides corn-fed midwesterners like yourself. Montana has a long history of discrimination against indigenous peoples - it has nothing to do with inability to adjust to technology nor being "hunter gatherers".
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@A. Reader
What? Where in this article did it state that the kids can't cope with technology? You know we were all hunter gatherers at one point, right?
What is happening is that the school administrators are not following their promises to Native students and are actively hindering processes to help them achieve in high school.
As always, the people in charge don't care about the poor, non-white people. Scoff alll you want, but your nonsensical liberalism statement shows further that you don't want to address the problem - you would rather that they shut up and stop complaining, better yet, die off!
White students are more than 10 times likely to take an AP course(a necessity if they want to get into a good college), half of the Native students graduate, but 75% of the white students do. Even though the Native students make up more than half of the population.
That's not fully serving your student population, and even more so when you know that their is a history of the subjugation, even as a casual observer of the school system.
Conservatism is ruining American's ability to be free.
See, I can do nonsensical political statements too.
33
@A. Reader
Never will America be "exceptional" as the term intends until it places doing right by our indigenous citizens at the top of our priorities. Deep, deep problems require exceptional treatment and we have failed miserably. And no, it isn't the fault of a hunter/gatherer past.
19
A school superintendent in the heart of Indian Country doesn’t want to address this “Native American thing”? American racism at its finest.
189
I attended elementary school in North Dakota in the 1990s. I remember my fifth grade teacher, during a lesson on Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., saying that there were no problems with racism in our state because there were no minorities. At least three Native American students heard that statement, in a class of about 25.
The discrimination against Native Americans in this country is so profound and pervasive that it's hard to even know where to begin to describe it.
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The principal who scolded the student in an open hallway in front of others and threatened to block him from graduating is not fit to be a school principal.
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@An American Moment "Threatened to block him from graduating"? Or "articulated the potential consequences of his choices?"
Like too many NYTimes articles, this reeks more of a piece intended to gin up our emotions rather than to give us any real understanding of the issues. I agree that confronting him in the hallway was probably not the best move, but perhaps the issue was actually that the kid was at risk of failing all his courses and thus not graduating because of his lack of attendance. Are you suggesting that it was somehow evil or inappropriate of a principal to tell him this? Or that applying standards for graduation is an oppressor move?
A decent article would have explored the issues in more depth (with more detail) rather than just pile up little vignettes intended to inflame the reader's emotions rather than help them actually understand the issues.
23
Have the schools failed the students or have the students failed the schools? An objective view of the evidence indicates it is the latter.
12
@Peter Johnson
Really?? You have no idea of the outrages visited on Native Americans in this country! An example: my husband & I were driving through a Native American reservation with our 4 year old daughter. She said "mommy, what did these people do that was so bad that they have to live here?". Out of the mouth of babies.
18
There is a difference between a simple explanation and a simple-minded explanation. Your solution falls into the latter category.
I am white but I come from a violent home with alcohol and economic despair. My school guidance counselor was a former cheerleader who spent all her time grooming the cheerleader squad. My math SAT was 790 and she didn't even think of recommending I ever do anything with that. When my PTSD got so bad in my senior year that I almost flunked out of school, she was no help at all.
I do not attribute any of my later achievements to anything that happened at that school.
I feel deep empathy with the students portrayed in this article because I have had experiences that overlap with theirs even though mine don't include racism.
22
@Peter Johnson
Please explain how students fail the schools.
6
Erica Green has certainly done her homework on this topic. What struck me is that the reactions and non-comments made by school staff all the way up the line are similar to what you get in Canadian schools. In Canadian schools , as in those featured in her article, there are many more students from minority populations on individual program plans and service plans. The performance on standardized tests for these minority groups ( in Canada notably Blacks and Indians) is much worse than the predominant student population- i.e. white students. Our administrators simply shrug and say that they are addressing the situation; they aren't , and ,unfortunately, advocates for these minorities do not persist and get the results hoped for. Shrugs and denials put advocates off, and it is hard to make any headway with these issues.
All of the education officials offer nothing in the way of addressiing the problems of lagging academic skills and mental health concerns in the student population. Instead we see posters sending simple messages to the effects that "Words Matter" and "Be the change" and "place of Refuge". All of this is bunk. Where are the programs to correct the situation with lagging academics? (Recommended reading: Ross Greene's LOST AT SCHOOL. Mr. Greene has some usable solutions. Good luck trying to get a school or a school systen to buy into his approaches. Too bad; they'd work if given a chance.)
11
Great article, BUT--
I have seen this complaint many many times and it evolves around school teacher and administrators holding students accountable for misbehaving and or acting out because of abuse and problems that started at home.
This is a social problem that is multigenerational that cannot be solved via school policy. While I agree that the schools must be empathetic and responsive, they are dealing with a deep seated problem in many students that are seriously harmed because of dysfunctional home violence and ignorance. For the schools, it is a problem they are presented to solve that is permeated with failure.
While is it the responsibility of the school, the community and the government to provide funded opportunity, if the native American community leaders do not take advantage and apply that support where it will disconnect the young population from the multigeneration harm that permeates their lives, then failure will prevail.
This is a foregone conclusion that has been and is being repeated thousands of times and will continue until pride and self-worth is instilled in these young people so they can break the mold and develop a life that is positive for themselves.
37
The endemic racism present in the schools will take a huge cultural shift to correct. Even if the administrators don’t mean to be racist, the biases run deep and it’s a painful process to make progress on lessening bias, for everyone. Native people should not have to take the sole responsibility for educating the schools on reducing the effects of bias (and outright racism, such as the practice of picking up Native students in the dog catcher’s van, a practice that is dehumanizing to the student, but also demonstrates to non-Native students that Natives are less than human). The educational system must take responsibility. AND poverty has to be dealt with - which is often a result of the same kind of biases! Dysfunction in families is not to blame for poor graduation rates and poverty. The institutional structures and policies, the abuse of power against Native students in the schools, the poverty and literal disenfranchisement of Native communities are what lead to dysfunction, low graduation rates, etc. It’s important for the schools to not push Native students out in order to avoid the close examination of how the school contributes to students’s failures. One duty of the schools should be to TEACH OTHER STUDENTS to be fair, to see ALL STUDENTS AS HUMAN BEINGS DESERVING OF RESPECT AND CARE. Compassion, fairness, and respect are important foundations for learning, and all students deserve to see it modeled by the adults and institutions around them.
9
My brother’s girlfriend is a Native American. She is continually hearing about all the resources our country is putting into programs for migrants, and wonders why our country has been neglecting Native Americans.
The federal government sets the overall educational agenda. It has been focused on educating legal and illegal immigrants from poorly educated families and on educating record numbers of needy refugees rather than on educating our own citizens. We need to stop accepting so many migrants so we can focus our resources on our own citizens, particularly on those Native Americans and the descendants of African slaves who continue to suffer from wrongs our country committed against them in the past.
20
@ann What makes you think the federal government is suddenly going to care about Native Americans or any PofC and their plight if only we don't educate the immigrants??? The government (read Republicans)doesn't consider people of color citizens. The evidence: their actions from 1776.
3
We tested our mentoring approach for 5 years, helping all students, but targeting Native students, to see if we could increase retention. I have not ever met a student at UNM who lacked the intelligence to succeed, but many have not and I wanted to understand why. At the end, our retention/graduation was 70% for Natives, 80% for everyone (n=100). Many have gone on to great success.
From experience, I learned that a good, motivated young person can learn no matter what high school they come from - once they know they believe in themselves and have a few key tools.
I know that everyone has an opinion on why students fail. Honestly, unless you know these students by name, it’s almost impossible to know what the issues are. And the successful people who are there, don’t have the space to write articles about paths that work.
A man said to me recently, well, of course your students have opportunities because you take the cream of the crop! I had to laugh. I chose kids who had felonies, were in gangs, were abused, and weren’t seen as stars their whole lives - to me, they were the most interesting ones. They had the most amazing transformations, and who brought lifetimes of deep experience to the table as 20 year-olds.
Our program wasn’t for everyone. But it was very successful for more traditional students, especially from rural areas. Kids who’d grown up with chores and seen the stars at night and who now have bright futures. I would love to see this tried elsewhere.
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@Margaret Washburne
Thank you. Your post just reiterates that human beings regardless of circumstances-especially children- can overcome their circumstances and succeed.
Can you share a link to your program?
19
@Margaret Washburne
Margaret, the difference is you "mentored" and became involved with these students. There are no "white" academic mentors where these kids live on the reservation. I lived in Rio Rancho and tutored in the public schools, so I too know what a difference you made to these students.
11
There has never been an official declaration that the "Indian Wars" are over. This nation engaged in centuries of violent conflicts with and against Native Americans, and when the battles ceased, there was never a declaration to mark the end. So the wars continued through suppression of languages, forced removal of children who were placed in hostile reeducation schools, corruption at the BIA and a culture of racism and neglect that has never shown any real signs that Indigenous lives are valued. When an institution, such as public schools, continue the legacy and fail Native American youth, it is a continuation of the cycle in less obvious, but still impactful ways. The problem goes much deeper than schools, our nation owes the Native community massive apologies, along with public resources to improve community centers, infrastructure on reservations, social services, schools, and more.
118
@outwest And many millions of acres of good land too.
10
Broken promises is all we have ever given the Native American people. It is shameful we allow them to live with high crime and poverty on the reservations with hardly ever a mention of their plight. The US government caused this situation, not the schools, and it could remedy the situation.
117
It is shameful, but WE are the U.S. government. Overturning institutionalized racism is everyone's responsibility.
20
It's easier to read an article like this and think "how awful", or think of where to place the blame, than to look into it more and do something. The reports in the links referenced in the article summarize the government's findings and recommendations. Whether you agree or disagree with them, contact your representatives and the relevant government departments with feedback. Make your voice heard even when it is not election day.
10
What is not being discussed is the isolation of the Fort Peck Reservation. It is one of the most isolated and impoverished places in the U.S., and Wolf Point is far from any type of prosperity.
The better answer may be looking at the existence of the reservation itself as the root cause of poverty.
20
For those requesting success stories... Consider the students of the Red Cloud School on the Pine Ridge rez. More Gates scholars than you could possibly imagine at a school of that size. 72 Gates Scholars as of 2016 - 568 students in K-12. 90% of students go on to attend a 4 year college. It is possible!
27
I urge everyone to view the documentary Paper Tigers, about a small high school in rural Washington state and how they are working to overcome some of these issues. These children have grown up with trauma, and adding more trauma to their lives in the name of discipline is not education.
Students are not their behavior.They deserved to be loved and cared about. Advocates like Ms. Cheek should be welcomed and supported, not pushed out. All educators, but most especially those who work with traumatized populations need training about the effect of adverse childhood events and trauma informed care.
36
Our indigenous people need to be treated with dignity and respect. Their children's educational and mental health needs are paramount. If it take billions of dollars so be it. At some point whites have to make things right....the children should not suffer.
183
Perhaps the president or some charity needs to see this article. A private academy for native american children that focuses on their unique needs would be something I would support. Especially considering how the federal government has mistreated them through history, unlike say the descendants of slaves.
4
Thank you for publishing this important information that should be widely disseminated. News coverage of issues specific to American Indians is scanty and difficult to find through mainstream media sources. Perhaps if more people were aware of these gross disparities and obvious prejudices, then some progress could be made. It's not just a failed school system - that's the tip of the iceberg. This is another example of racism. It's criminal and immoral, yet nobody is doing anything about it.
22
What are the solutions besides lawsuits? Lawsuits will not solve the issue I fear.
They need to hire some elders who are recognized as wise by tribal members. And then persist through disagreements. Or get elders onto an advisory board, and hire Native staff who can support and implement. And then the Native staff need to work with other staff to move toward healthy outcomes for all students.
I don't know if this is a solution, hoping someone can suggest other approaches if it is not.
And, implement a Native language course in the school system, and hire a linguistics staff who can help students investigate sociolinguistics. This will go far in recovering cultural models of living, including social and economic and environmental lifeways that may well be corrective of the problems in the dominant culture in the U.S. (increasing disparity of wealth and opportunity, loneliness, disrespect of elders, et al).
We need to take advantage of a variety of cultural ideas in trying to figure out our lives in this era.
Best wishes to the Native students who are struggling. Keep trying. Please.
15
@MJB If the tribe wants to support their language or culture they can do that outside of education. A public school might not be the place for their education, but that education should cover traditional subjects and career education as my high school did long ago.
7
@vulcanalex your statement implies that "traditional" subjects are fixed. Why shouldn't public education be the space where students learn to affirm their identities in ways that are academically sound, and recognized for their long-term value? White/colonial/imperialist history certainly has benefited from this process, and - in some places - being effectively deconstructed and criticized, leaving room for other voices/views/perspectives, and cultural practices to be validated, and interwoven with what we consider "traditional" subjects.
8
@vulcanalex
You missed my point, clearly. Languages are resources for everyone, now. They embed and structure different ways of being and behaving in the world. Complexity science strongly supports the need for diverse resources to keep systems resilient. One way..."traditional subjects and career education" will lead to demise, as we are seeing evidence of in our mainstream culture.
Schools should foster ideas, thinking, enthusiasm for learning, and trying on different modes of livelihood and choices for the future. Native languages are HUGE resources for everyone, not just the tribal members. Listen to one spoken by an elder. Musical. Beautiful. Calm.
are these not important and useful aspects of being alive in a healthy way?
11
I suppose it makes sense to focus on the shortcomings of these schools in a vacuum, just for the purposes of this story. But for those of us with firsthand experience on the rez, there is a key actor entirely omitted from this story. If you think that anything (and I do mean ANYTHING) that can be done by schools will ever make a dent in the hopelessness instilled by the pervasive and inescapable abject poverty in which these children grow up, you are dreaming.
Until and unless we address that poverty, things will never get better. It's disgustingly inadequate to pretend that we have only to deal with these problems in the school setting. To put the blame on school staff and administrators who are neither paid nor trained nor equipped to deal with the quality and quantity of problems these kids face is cowardly. A teacher cannot possibly fix this. Educators cannot bear the blame for failing to repair a life that society has broken.
The education necessary is for your readers to see the full picture: the level of despair that persists in these places; the raw power of poverty. To see it break people and families and beat them to dust. These people have no access to opportunity, and with each generation they lose more ground. If we do nothing, their situation is as hopeless as it feels. The problem is not the school official who fails to cultivate optimism; the problem is a society that fails to provide any reason for it.
294
@Andre The school can play a major force is neutralizing poverty ensuring all students receive access to a high quality education.
22
@Andre
I guess you didn't bother to read the article or you wouldn't have missed this, :"On the school’s basketball court, a coach has used derogatory slurs, such as “prairie Indians” and “dirty Indians,” in front of Native students, according to the tribal board’s complaint."
Yes, of course poverty is brutal, but that poverty is both tolerated and encouraged by people who think like the school coach. To think they are separate is misguided.
40
@Andre
All teachers everywhere know that respecting another human being is foundational teaching. If a teacher has to be trained not to insult, put down and generally disrespect a student they have no business being a teacher. NONE.
47
Having grown up in a small Montana town near a Native American reservation, and having taught in both rural communities and urban/suburban schools and colleges, I wrote a longish note to Ms. Green, and as with some others I noted the absence of success stories -- stories that must also be told to inspire students, families, educators, government officials and foundation boards.
Montana has a notable program for assisting Native American and other disadvantaged students: Hopa Mountain in Bozeman. It's worth a look. Although limited,
Native American students have done (and are doing) well in higher education. They need to be recognized and utilized when finding ways to improve a truly unfortunate situation.
The general need to enhance/augment rural education across the nation means "attention must be paid." Innovation and serious financial investment is required.
Singing sad songs and describing despicable situations --
only the beginning of the long trek ahead.
Doug Giebel, Big Sandy, Montana
27
I would like to see the names of organizations including legal entities that are providing resources and working on behalf of Native students in public schools so that the readers are not left with a sense of impotence. The spotlight, articles such as this one provides, is important, but avenues to support change must receive an equal spotlight. We can never hear enough about injustice. Injustice is never old news.
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What a sad, sad story. I had the privilege of going to school with American Indians in Gowanda, New York. They were some of the best friends and people I will ever know. They deserve our respect, protection and be given every available opportunity.
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There is no mention in this article about dysfunctional families. I want very much for our current administration to be replaced, but if we continue to blame government and make government/money to be the only cure, we are going to end up with four more years of Republicans.
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@Rosebud And just which administrations do you blame for getting things to this point? Not the current one, they might if approached correctly do something to improve the situation, like they have in criminal reform.
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@Rosebud
Got institutional racism?
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It's so convenient to blame this on Republican administrations but these issues are not unique to Democratic or Republican administrations- they have existed and prevailed during both. The problems are intractable and are larger than a school system alone can fix. There might be no mention of families that are "dysfunctional", but the reservation itself is a depressed place where the children come to school with an enormous load of problems that the schools, with all the meager resources of low-income public schools all over the country, don't have the resources to deal with. It's obvious that the crude comments from coaches and administrators in this article warrant some form of consequences from the district supervisors (and they might considering that they have now been embarrassingly highlighted in the NYT), but to place the responsibility on the schools and then also on the Republican administration for the misfortunes laid out in this article...well that just contributes to the lack of understanding and does nothing to help any of the people featured in this piece.
7
Tell us about success. Tell us about success.
Recitations about educational messes and failures are that.
Is there no evidence of a route to improved results?
The Times shares the city streets with Columbia Teachers College, supposedly one of the authorities on teacher education. The PhD's at Columbia advocate what for improved teaching results?
Give us the profile of the most effective schools in the nation compared with the least effective. I suspicion class size, equipment and supplies, teacher training, course offerings, tutoring, etc. will indicate doing things differently gets better results for the underclasses.
Woe-are-they is a very overworked topic.
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@stewart bolinger
I think you miss the fundamental point. With all due respect to your CT/NYC centric world view, I suggest you take the time to actually visit, and understand the plight of indigenous peoples, especially in the west. It is not just eduction, it is not just being poor, it is not just being poorly fed (not just calorically!), but a deep rooted, endemic systematic, often unadmitted racism that permeates multiple generations. I myself as a white liberal know that I have (and have demonstrated) bias regarding natives, and I come from a place where I have immersed to a greater or lesser degree in native communities. Natives (in a stereotypical sense) heaven much work to do as well. Substance abuse, undertanding the value of education and how it represents the future (if there is to be a future). As the piece shows, it is a complicated issue and for the sake of the young, and future native generations, it needs to be address.
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@Tony Ickes Well I don't believe that I have any such bias, and if I did I could keep it out of my actions, if you can't it is just you won't.
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@stewart bolinger
The fact that they are still alive IS the success. Native people's have been decimated over and over since 1492. This story is about institutionalized racism that exists in towns where Euro-Americans are a significant minority. This is about the failure of Euro-American culture to care about anyone other than themselves. The "discipline" used in Wolf Point doesn't work for anyone - threats, bullying, and taking away something of value don't make anyone grow. These are real people with hopes and dreams and potential who are being thrown away. That is the story. "Woe are they" is not a topic to native people. What they know is that all their grandparents were killed in Indian wars, or died of smallpox. For someone on Wolf Point to become a nurse is a pinnacle of achievement. Bravo to all of them - ya-ya's and parents and kids of the tribes for their resilience, their persistence, their strength.
16
Thanks so much for posting this. I work in Indigenous education in Canada, where many of the stories shared here have resonance. We are finding our way though, through changes to provincial curricula, and through commitment from Faculties of Education to make Indigenous education, identity, and self-representation a priority. I know our education systems differ, but there is hope, though the road towards change is long. Untangling the colonial myths of terra nullius, manifest destiny, and the doctrine of discovery, for non-Indigenous folks is a good place to start to rebuild national narratives and create empathy and understanding.
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@Shannon Thanks for mentioning the Doctrine of Discovery. I was touched to watch a video made at Standing Rock of a large group of religious leaders apologizing for the Doctrine of Discovery. This was issued by the Pope back before Christopher Columbus "discovered" America. It gave the right to European Christians to take the land of people who were not Christians. And gave them the right to rape and plunder the First Nations of this country. A tragedy.
4
Why does disparity in outcome always mean discrimination? Cultural factors are just as plausible explanations for disparate school outcomes, but it is taboo to say so. If the true cause is ignored conditions will not improve for those students doing poorly.
69
@Naysayer your arguments are tired and used by racists everywhere. There are the same old arguments used against African American, Hispanics, Irish and Italians in their turn. It’s just lazy, bigoted thinking. There is plenty of evidence that denigrating a child’s culture leads to exactly the results we are seeing with Native People’s. There are tons of experiments that show that expectations of children’s performance gets you to situations like this this.
60
What an outrageous and unfeeling thing to even suggest. Did you even read it, or just skim the first part and make up your mind? Because the article is replete with example after example of discriminatory behavior.
45
@Naysayer which cultural factors are you referring to, specifically, that lead to disparate outcomes? You refer to a "true cause". And that is what?
9
Thank you for this important story. Each of these students deserves a quality education and the support they need. The response by school administrators is sad and inadequate. The American Indian College fund is a 503(c) organization helping Native students stay in college and get a degree. ProPublica also publishes information about school districts and disparities across the nation.
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