<DOC> [109 Senate Hearings] [From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access] [DOCID: f:21951.wais] S. Hrg. 109-115 INDIAN EDUCATION ======================================================================= HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION ON OVERSIGHT HEARING ON THE STATUS OF INDIAN EDUCATION __________ JUNE 16, 2005 WASHINGTON, DC U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 21-951 WASHINGTON : 2005 _____________________________________________________________________________ For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512ÿ091800 Fax: (202) 512ÿ092250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402ÿ090001 COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS JOHN McCAIN, Arizona, Chairman BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota, Vice Chairman PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming KENT CONRAD, North Dakota GORDON SMITH, Oregon DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota MICHAEL D. CRAPO, Idaho MARIA CANTWELL, Washington RICHARD BURR, North Carolina TOM COBURN, M.D., Oklahoma Jeanne Bumpus, Majority Staff Director Sara G. Garland, Minority Staff Director (ii) C O N T E N T S ---------- Page Statements: Beaulieu, David, president, National Indian Education Association................................................ 20 Bordeaux, Roger, superintendent, Tiospa Zina Tribal School; executive director, Association of Community Tribal Schools, Inc............................................... 25 Cason, Jim, associate deputy secretary, Department of the Interior................................................... 3 Dorgan, Hon. Byron L., U.S. Senator from North Dakota, vice chairman, Committee on Indian Affairs...................... 1 Johnson, Hon. Tim, U.S. Senator from South Dakota............ 13 Lowery, Nick, acting chairman, National Fund For Excellence In American Indian Education, Inc.......................... 17 McCain, Hon. John, U.S. Senator from Arizona, chairman, Committee on Indian Affairs................................ 1 McDonald, Joe, president, Salish Kootenai College, representing the American Indian Higher Education Consortium................................................. 22 Parisian, acting director, Office of Indian Education Programs, Department of the Interior....................... 3 Thomas, Hon. Craig, U.S. Senator from Wyoming................ 11 Vasques, Victoria, director, Office of Indian Education, Department of Education.................................... 4 Appendix Prepared statements: Beaulieu, David.............................................. 35 Bordeaux, Roger (with attachment)............................ 53 Cason, Jim................................................... 74 Inouye, Hon. Daniel K., U.S. Senator from Hawaii............. 112 McDonald, Joe (with attachment).............................. 87 Leonard, Leland, director, Division of Dine' Education, Navajo Nation.............................................. 33 Lowery, Nick (with attachment)............................... 80 Vasques, Victoria (with attachment).......................... 99 INDIAN EDUCATION ---------- THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 2005 U.S. Senate, Committee on Indian Affairs, Washington, DC. The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m. in room 485 Senate Russell Building, Hon. John McCain (chairman of the committee), presiding. Present: Senators McCain, Dorgan, Johnson, and Thomas. STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN McCAIN, U.S. SENATOR FROM ARIZONA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS The Chairman. Good morning. This oversight hearing will focus on Indian education. Exactly 1 year ago today, this committee held an oversight hearing on the No Child Left Behind Act. It is timely to have an update on the implementation of that Act and other education issues. As we all know, education is critical to preparing children for future leadership and productive employment and to strengthening Indian economies. The committee's hearing yesterday on Indian youth suicide reminds us, however, that there are many challenges facing Indian youth which limit educational achievement. We must overcome this. We know that the Federal Government has a special historic responsibility for Indian education. Indian tribes also have a responsibility for their children's education. The committee is deeply concerned about the academic performance levels and dropout rates of American Indians and Alaska Native students. So we are particularly interested in hearing how Federal agencies and Indian tribes are working together to improve Indian education, particularly in areas such as academic achievement, safe schools and post-secondary graduation rates. I would like to welcome the witnesses here today and look forward to their testimony, especially any recommendations for improving Indian education. Your entire statements will be made part of the record. Senator Dorgan. STATEMENT OF HON. BYRON L. DORGAN, U.S. SENATOR FROM NORTH DAKOTA, VICE CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS Senator Dorgan. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Thanks for holding this hearing. I think education is one of the critical pieces of trying to improve the situation on reservations in this country. I thought, with your permission, instead of an opening statement, I just want to read a 2-page letter which I think describes better than I possibly could the urgency of dealing with education issues. It is from a young woman. She starts in her letter, she wrote to me: I grew up poor, considered backwards by non-Indians. My home was a two-room log house in a placed called The Bush on North Dakota's Turtle Mountain Reservation. I stuttered. I was painfully shy. My clothes were hand-me-downs. I was like thousands of other Indian kids growing up on reservations across America. When I went to elementary school, I felt alone and different. I could not speak for myself. My teachers had no appreciation of Indian culture. I will never forget that it was the lighter-skinned kids who were treated better. They were usually from families better off than mine. My teachers called me ``savage.'' Even as a young child I wondered what does it take to be noticed and looked upon the way these other children are. By the time I reached 7th grade, I realized if my life was going to change for the better, I was going to have to do it. Nobody could do it for me. That is when the dream began. I thought of ways to change things for the better, not only for myself, but for my people. I dreamed of growing up, of being a teacher, where every child was treated sacred and viewed positively, even if they were poor and dirty. I did not want any child to be made to feel like I did, but I did not know how hard it would be to reach the realization of my dreams. I almost did not make it. By the time I was 17, I had dropped out of school, moved to California, had a child. I thought my life was over. But when I moved back to the reservation, I made a discovery that literally helped me put my life back together. My sisters were attending Turtle Mountain Tribal College which had just started on the reservation. I thought it was something I could do, too, so I enrolled. In those days, we did not even have a campus. There was no building. Some classes met at a local alcohol rehabilitation center, an old hospital building that had been condemned. To me, it did not matter. I was just amazed I could go to college. It was life-changing. My college friends and professors were like family, and for the first time in my life I learned about the language, history, and culture of my people in a formal setting. I felt honor and pride begin to well-up inside me. Her letter goes on, and she said: I loved college so much that I could not stop. I had a dream to fulfill or perhaps an obsession. It turns out, this young women is now a Ph.D. involved in Indian education and the administration of a number of different schools. What a remarkable story that she sent to me in her letter. Her name is Loretta. I have known Loretta for some while. This letter describes from the standpoint of a young girl and now a grown woman who has her Ph.D. It describes the importance of education. Yes, in her life, but I think also in a broader scale the importance of education in lifting people out of poverty, lifting people from hopelessness and helplessness to opportunity. I wanted to read this letter. I have read it once before, but it so well describes, I think better than any of us can, the importance of education in the lives of young Indian children. It is why we must focus on education in a way that puts together the kind of success stories that we know can happen and will happen if we make the right kind of decisions with respect to education policy. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for letting me do that. The Chairman. Thank you very much, Senator Dorgan. It is compelling testimony. Our first panel is Jim Cason, who is the associate deputy secretary for Indian Affairs. He is accompanied by Ed Parisian, who is the acting director of the Office of Indian Education Programs. Victoria Vasques is the director of the Office of Indian Education of the Department of Education. Welcome, Mr. Cason. Why don't we begin with you. STATEMENT OF JIM CASON, ASSOCIATE DEPUTY SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ACCOMPANIED BY ED PARISIAN, ACTING DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF INDIAN EDUCATION PROGRAMS Mr. Cason. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice Chairman. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here to discuss Indian education and the status of the program. I am sitting in here as associate deputy secretary with the duties and responsibilities of the assistant secretary, pending a search for same. I am accompanied here with Ed Parisian, who is the deputy director, basically leading the Indian education program. We have been going through a process, Mr. Chairman, over the last 3 months taking a look at Indian education and the results we produce and the funds flow we get through the program to try and improve our results. What we are finding basically is that our school system is not producing the results that are acceptable. Out of the 184 schools that we have, only one-third of them are meeting AYP targets right now, the adequate yearly progress goals of No Child Left Behind. That is clearly not sufficient. So we have a big job ahead of us to figure out why it is that we are only producing those kind of results, and do the job to take care of it. There are a couple of things that we have started with that I would like to just share with the committee, and we can discuss at whatever length you would like to. The first is, we are seeing this as a job where we have to buckle down, roll up our sleeves, and get results in this program that we do not have right now. What we are trying to do at this point is to partner with the Department of Education to make sure that we are clear about what actions need to be taken and what results we need to get on an item-by-item basis so that we have a clear plan and a concerted effort on the part of the Administration to get results. We are working closely with the Department of Education now on reviewing our program, developing an action plan that includes the elements that are important to meet our statutory requirements, and to make sure we are in concert on the most important items that need to be addressed first. So with that, I appreciate Vickie Vasques being here. She is part of the team in trying to improve the performance we have in the program. Second, we are developing an action plan in concert with DOE. The action plan is broad and includes a lot of elements. That action plan was initially developed by the Department of the Interior and has been shared with the Department of Education. They are very graciously sharing it with their senior staff to give us suggestions on how to improve that. We are going through a process now of mapping out and flow- charting all of the funds flow that goes through our education program. We have identified about 50 different streams of funding that go through the program. We are mapping out what all the requirements are for those streams and what performance is expected from them. And then we are looking at school construction to see what we can do to accelerate the pace of school construction to effectively and efficiently use up the unobligated balances that we have and actually get results of bricks and mortar buildings that are available for schools. We have an assignment going on right now with our education line officers. We have them all in this week and we are going through the process of trying to get ahead of the curve right now for 2005-06 education school year. We have provided to our education line officers all the accountability workbooks on a State-by-State basis where our schools are located so that they become very clear very early in the process of what standards they have to meet in order to pass our schools through the AYP goal line. They have an assignment to go back to each school that they have a relationship with to share the accountability workbook standards, to be clear about what is expected on a school-by- school basis, to examine where we are currently, do the gap analysis between our current performance and what performance is acceptable, and develop a school-by-school action plan as to how we can drive that school across the goal line. That assignment needs to be done in about the next 2 months before we start the 2005-06 school year. I am looking forward to seeing the results from that so that we can be a proactive element in improving performance. Last, Mr. Chairman, I would like to share that this is a commitment from the Secretary on down. We had Secretary Norton in with our education line officers yesterday so that she could tell them personally that this is an important thing for us to get done; that educating these Indian kids is an important thing and that is a mission we need to do better at. With that, we would be happy to work with the committee in the future and I appreciate the opportunity to be here. [Prepared statement of Mr. Cason appears in appendix.] The Chairman. Thank you very much. Ms. Vasques. STATEMENT OF VICTORIA VASQUES, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF INDIAN EDUCATION, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Ms. Vasques. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. On behalf of Secretary Spellings, let me thank you for this opportunity to appear before you to discuss the current status of Indian education. I serve as the assistant deputy secretary and director for the Office of Indian Education. I am also from the San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians in Southern California. I am here, as you mentioned, with my colleagues Darla Marburger and Tom Corwin. Today, I will provide an overview on the educational performance of American Indian and Alaska Native students from their early childhood years, for elementary and secondary education, and through the post-secondary education level. Collecting accurate data on the American Indian and Alaska Native population has been a long-term challenge for the department. Indian students are a highly diverse group. There are over 560 federally recognized tribes in the United States. Indian students, though, constitute a very small portion of the overall student population, and many Indian families reside in small towns and rural areas. For these reasons, it is difficult for any study to include a sufficient number of Indian students to yield accurate, high-quality data. I am pleased that the department in recent years has taken major action to collect, analyze and report useful high-quality data on the education status and needs of our Indian students. Our efforts have covered the schools operated or funded by the BIA, other schools that have high concentrations of Indian students, and Indian children and adults more generally. One example of this activity is our over-sampling of American Indian students in the national assessment of educational programs, NAEP, in order to generate adequate representation of Indian students in the NAEP. This will give us reliable national-level data on Indian students' performance in reading and math, adding a whole new subgroup of students to the Nation's report card. Indian students constitute about 1 percent of all students enrolled in public schools and often attend rural schools. Over one-half of all Indian students attend schools in small towns and rural areas. In 2002, there were approximately 628,000 American Indian and Alaska Native students in public elementary and secondary schools, including BIA schools. Approximately 582,000, over 90 percent, attended public schools, and 46,000 attended schools administered by the BIA. Department of Education programs contribute a significant amount of funding to the BIA for the education of Indian students who attend BIA schools. The department has a longstanding partnership with the BIA over the administration of these programs. We expect to sign a new MOA, memorandum of agreement with the BIA covering No Child Left Behind issues very soon. My written statement provides many of the key statistics on various aspects of the educational status of American Indians and Alaska Natives. I will highlight just a few of them. First, the overall data from NAEP on Indian students show that their performance continues to lag below the national average on reading, math and science assessments. This is true for both 4th and 8th grade assessments. It is clear we have our work cut out for us in closing the achievements gaps. It is important to note, however, that before 2002 NAEP did not consistently assess enough Indian students to provide reliable information about their performance. The department has embarked on an effort to ensure that NAEP produces more reliable national-level data on the performance of Indian students. We now have a benchmark to measure Indian students' academic progress through the years. Our work also supports the department's accountability efforts. Disaggregated data are a key tenet of the accountability embedded in the No Child Left Behind Act. We will use NAEP data to measure the performance of Indian students and the programs that serve them over time. Second, I am pleased to report that in some States, including Arizona and North Dakota, we are seeing meaningful gains in achievement by Indian students. Third, high school dropout rates for Indian students continue to be too high. In addition, Indian students often have higher rates of absenteeism, suspension and expulsion than others. Fourth, with respect to higher education, the number of Indian students enrolling in colleges and universities has more than doubled in the last 25 years or so. The number of degrees awarded to Indian students increased dramatically between 1976 and 2002. Mr. Chairman, the department is making a serious effort to produce up to date, high-quality data about Indian students. We have been working to collect and release data on this population so that we know how Indian students are doing and can adjust policies and provide resources to address the needs that the data show are most critical. We plan to publish four important documents on American Indian and Alaska Native students by the end of the year. One report will contain an overview of demographic characteristics of Indian students and further analysis of Indian student performance along a number of key indicators. Another will address the demographic and family characteristics and early mental and physical development of 9- month-old American Indian and Alaska Native children. Two other reports, one on post-secondary education and Indian students, and another consisting of a special analysis of decennial census data on the Indian population are planned for release later in the year. Next year, we will release special NAEP reports that will provide information about the educational experience of American Indian and Alaska Native students and the role of their Indian culture in their education. Before I conclude, I would like to take 1 minute to talk about how NCLB holds great promise for improving the education and academic achievement of Indian students. Its emphasis on stronger accountability for all students and the use of desegregated data ensure that schools address the needs of all their students, including those of Indian students. NCLB's emphasis on teacher quality will require that all students, including Indian students, are taught by highly qualified teachers who are certified, hold a bachelor's degree, and have demonstrated knowledge of their subject matter. President Bush's Executive order which recognizes the unique educational and culturally related academic needs of Indian students will assist us in implementing NCLB. My office has taken a lead role in the implementation of that order. The department, in partnership with the Department of the Interior, just convened a national conference this past April which brought together representatives from Federal agencies, State educational agencies, tribal educational agencies and local officials. At the conference, we discussed how to implement NCLB in a manner that is consistent with tribal traditions, culture and language. It identified five key areas: Closing the achievement gap and appropriate assessment of Indian students; training and developing American Indian and Alaska Native teachers; promoting continuity of tribal traditions, language and culture; scientifically based research on Indian education and the training of American Indian and Alaska Native researchers; local, tribal, State, and Federal collaboration. The department's work in the immediate future will focus on developing solutions, strategies, resources and technical assistance in the areas for agencies that serve Indian children. There are significant achievement gaps between the American Indian and Alaska Native student population and the general population. Although Indian students have made some progress in recent decades and score higher than some other major ethnic and racial groups on some indicators, the Indian student population continues to be subject to significant risk factors that threaten their ability to improve their academic achievement and their general well being. Strategies to improve their education will need to take into account these risk factors, as well as the challenges of educating a culturally diverse population in rural and remote areas. Our efforts to collect reliable data on the Indian population have yielded a number of useful data sources that can be used to hold educational agencies that serve these students, and us, accountable for the performance of Indian students across this Nation. In closing, I applaud you, Mr. Chairman, and the other members of this committee for steadfastly confronting the challenges facing Indian education. I look forward to working with you, Mr. Cason and our tribal leadership as we reach a solution or solutions to ensure that future generations of our Indian students are not left behind. I thank you for this opportunity and I welcome your questions. [Prepared statement of Ms. Vasques appears in appendix.] The Chairman. Thank you very much. Mr. Cason, on September 4, 2003 the GAO delivered its report to Congress as required by the No Child Left Behind Act, noting that BIA schools have certain characteristics that make them more costly to operate than the average public school. I certainly accept that thesis. The GAO noted, quote, ``the agency has little financial data to use in forming the budget that Interior proposes to the Congress.'' The GAO concluded the BIA has no formal mechanisms such as a needs assessment for determining how much funding is needed for instruction or transportation. Have you addressed those issues, Mr. Cason? Mr. Cason. Mr. Chairman, I do not know how completely they have been addressed. I will have Ed comment on that as well. He is probably more familiar with it. One thing that we are doing, though, Mr. Chairman, to make sure we get a comprehensive look at the evaluations that have been made about the education program is we are going through a process of pulling all the GAO reports, IG reports from the Department of the Interior, IG reports from the Department of Education and any other external evaluation that has been done. We are going through a process of cataloging all the funding recommendations from all those reports to actually give a definitive answer on what steps have been taken to implement responses to all of them. So I know we have that effort ongoing. I have seen a draft of that. I do not know in this particular case what has been done. So Ed, could you comment on that? The Chairman. That is a pretty fundamental and important issue that we do not have a needs assessment for determining how much funding is needed for instruction or transportation. Mr. Parisian, do you want to comment? Mr. Parisian. Yes; good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the panel. What we are doing presently is putting together a data system nationally where we can collect that information. We do not have that currently available. We have a contract out. We hope to have that up by July 2006. Part of that GAO report had to do with getting information from our tribal grant schools. We need to work with them more closely to get accurate information that we can put into our data system so that we have it across the board, not just for our bureau-operated schools, but for the tribal grant schools that we also provide service to. The Chairman. You have 64 schools operated by the BIA? Mr. Parisian. Sir, 62 bureau-operated schools and 122 grant and contract schools. The Chairman. And it is going to take you until July 2006 to find out what the instruction and transportation needs are for these schools? Please. Ms. Vasques, it is interesting that you were testifying to all the things that you are going to do to comply with NCLB. It was signed into law three-and-a-half years ago by the President of the United States. What have you done so far to implement NCLB? Ms. Vasques. Sir, we have gone out and met with all of our---- The Chairman. So you have had meetings. Good. Ms. Vasques. Well, we have also been working with the BIA on their No Child Left Behind negotiated rulemaking. We have been working with the States. The Chairman. Have they completed that rulemaking? Ms. Vasques. Yes, sir; it was just finalized 1 week ago. Mr. Cason. Sir, the final regulations came into effect May 31, 2005. Ms. Vasques. We have also been working very closely with the Counsel of Chief State School Officers, which are the State Chiefs that oversee the public education systems. They have now formed a Native American task force to work with us where we have highly populated areas of Indian students in their particular States. I think that was an area, in all honesty, that was missing in these discussions with No Child Left Behind. We see a lot of progress going from the State Chiefs and many Governors that are working with us on the challenges of No Child Left Behind, especially in those communities where the public---- The Chairman. You are working with Governors to determine the needs on Indian reservations? Ms. Vasques. No; the Chief State Schools are working with their Governors because they are working for the State. The Chairman. What role does the State play in the administration of a BIA school? Ms. Vasques. I am speaking for the public schools, sir. The Chairman. The purpose of this hearing is to discuss the state of Indian education. Ms. Vasques. Yes, sir; 90-some percent of our Indian students attend the public schools. The Chairman. I understand that. We are talking about BIA schools. Ms. Vasques. We are working very closely with Jim Cason on the issues that he reported to you earlier on helping assist them with their action plan. He sat in a meeting with us with our senior-level officials and allowed us to be brutally honest on the issues that the Department of Education has with the BIA on their high-risk areas. For example, we are working with him on their program performance, their program outcomes, helping them with their human capital. We see a lot of issues with high turnover, teacher quality, management, the accountability assessment. The Chairman. What is the average salary of a teacher at a BIA-administered school, Ms. Vasques? An entry-level salary? Ms. Vasques. I do not know that answer. The Chairman. Are you familiar with an Office of Inspector General report that says the central office of the Office of Indian Education has not adequately managed its administrative funds, resulting in a failure to maximize monies available for distribution to Indian schools? Are you familiar with that report? Ms. Vasques. Somewhat, I am. The Chairman. Has any action been taken? Ms. Vasques. Several of our program offices are working very closely with the BIA to make sure that there is corrective action taking place with several fiscal years of funding. The Chairman. Senator Dorgan. Senator Dorgan. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I am trying to understand this. I have heard the testimony here, Mr. Cason and Ms. Vasques. Some of it does not sound to me like it is in English. You are talking about all these acronyms and these programs and the coordination. I know money is not everything, but I do not understand what is happening with respect to funding. You do not have a needs assessment yet. I have been to many of these schools, as have my colleagues. We understand the shape they are in. We have GAO reports and Inspector General's reports that describe the desperate need to bring these BIA schools up to standards. Yet, let me go through the recommendations. Let me start with the tribal colleges. The President suggested we cut tribal colleges by $10 million. Is that a step forward or a step backward? What is the basis for saying we ought to cut funding for tribal colleges? Mr. Cason. Is that 2006 spending, Senator, that you are talking about? Senator Dorgan. Yes; the President's budget recommends cutting $10 million from the previously appropriated level of funding for tribal colleges. How does that advance Indian education? Mr. Cason. Taken in microcosm, I think you would say it probably does not. But as you know, Senator, when we go through the budgeting process, there are lots of considerations that enter into the decisions about where you place money, what the priorities are. The budgeting process with Indian country ends up being one that starts with a BIA tribal budget committee meeting. There is lots of discussion about what the relative priorities are there. There are discussions within the Department of the Interior, balancing the BIA budget against all the other budgets in the department. It goes to OMB and it comes up to Congress. There are lots of people that have a role in the process. Senator Dorgan. I understand that process. Mr. Cason. So if you just look at it in a microcosm and that is the only consideration in developing a budget, you would have, say, 1 dozen. Within the broader context of all the priorities we have, I am not sure who influenced the process to arrive at that conclusion in the past budget. Senator Dorgan. It sounds to me like you are saying do not take a close look. ``Microcosm'' is a close look. Mr. Cason. No; it needs a close look. Senator Dorgan. Well, a close look would suggest that the President's budget cut funding for tribal colleges by $10 million; cut funding for replacement school construction from $105 million to $43 million; and cut funding for facilities and improvement repair. I do not understand this. How can you come and talk about a commitment to education when you look at these cuts, yet we know the needs are so great. And then you say, well, you can't look at it that way. You are taking a close look. You are looking it in microcosm. All I know is that Donald Trump is going to get another big tax cut if the priorities that exist through the process you described somehow prevail. With tribal colleges, for example, or facilities improvement repair of these schools that are in desperate need of repair, and you know what the GAO and the IGs have said, all I know is that if you take a close look, and that is what we are trying to do this morning, this does not meet the test of commonsense. I am just asking the question, who makes these decisions and why? And do you support the decisions? Mr. Cason. Well, Senator, on this particular issue about the school construction, as I recall you and I had that discussion when I testified on the budget, that for 2006 the underlying rationale for the cuts in that program were associated with the pace at which we are getting school construction done. Within that, we had a very large unobligated balance in the school construction fund. So basically, we were looking at trying to get caught up in getting these schools constructed we already had funding for which we had not been able to get done. If you go back and look at it historically, the President has placed a huge amount of emphasis on additional school construction. If I recall the figures correctly, we have invested somewhere on the order of $1.5 billion new dollars into the process or asked for and Congress has been gracious enough to give us about $1.5 billion over the last four years for new school construction. That was a substantial increase over the amount of monies that were available in the prior 8 years. We have been attempting to increase our ability or capacity to build schools much faster and get those dollars used effectively. That is exactly what we are doing right now, to be able to use the unobligated balances during 2006. Senator Dorgan. Well, all I know is that this does not add up. Mr. Chairman, I am the Ranking Member on the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee. We just marked up that bill. We are spending $500 million less than we spent last year. This is not a cut in the rate of growth. We had $500 million less than we had the previous year. We have a fiscal policy that is just off the tracks. So what happens? Indian children who go to these schools are going to pay the price for it because we are not willing to own up to the needs. I think the chairman sitting next to me seemed to express some concern, perhaps that is too mild a word, at the fact that we do not have a needs assessment. A needs assessment ought to be the first criteria here. This is a needs assessment for the welfare of children. These are little kids that we send to these schools. I have seen these schools. I have been to these schools. I have talked on the floor of the Senate about a school with 150 kids, one water fountain, two bathrooms, desks an inch apart. The fact is, we have to do better. I am not very impressed with the priorities. I do look at this in a microcosm, but if you are trying to run a tribal college system to give hope for people to get up and out of poverty and get training and skills and education, and then you see a recommendation saying let's cut it by $10 million, what kind of commitment is that to that system? I happen to think tribal colleges are enormously important because they allow people to go to college who otherwise could not go, because in their communities where they have extended families and can get child care and the other things, this system works. It allows people to go to college who otherwise would not get a college education. So I am just expressing some frustration that all the nice sounds you are making this morning are not matched by the commitment to fund that which we need to fund, in my judgment. Mr. Cason. Thank you, Senator. I think we both agree there is an important mission for us to serve in Indian Affairs at the Department of Education in getting Indian kids educated. That is an important mission and clearly, as I said in my opening statement, we are not doing enough to get the results that we need in that program. So we are going back to basically look at what is it that are the causal factors for why we are not being successful. If funding is one of those issues, that will be something on the plate with the Secretary and I to talk about. Senator Dorgan. Mr. Chairman, let me ask consent that a statement from Senator Inouye be entered in the record at the start of the hearing. The Chairman. Without objection. Senator Thomas, welcome. STATEMENT OF HON. CRAIG THOMAS, U.S. SENATOR FROM WYOMING Senator Thomas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Sorry I was a little late and did not hear it all. We had some energy things going on, as you know, but I am very much interested in Indian education, of course. We have one BIA school on our reservations. I think 90 percent of our Indian kids go to the other kind of schools, as a matter of fact. I am a little surprised to hear a little bit. I did not know that some of these things had an impact so much on it. I understand that there has been a $3.6 billion increase since 2001 for Indian education. In our State, we spend about $8,000 per pupil and the Indian schools spend over $9,000. Of course, spending is easy, but I did not know Bill Gates had anything to do with it, Frankly. Senator Dorgan. It is Donald Trump. Senator Thomas. Oh, Donald Trump. I am sorry. I got confused. Senator Dorgan. I could mention Bill Gates, though. [Laughter.] Senator Thomas. You mentioned trying to find some solutions. Just in broad terms, what do you think are the basic problems facing us in terms of Native American education? Just shortly form all three of you, very quickly, what are the major problems facing us? Ms. Vasques. It is important, and I apologize, Mr. Chairman, to not focus just on the BIA schools. It is important to note that the Department of Education provides almost 25 percent of the Office of Indian Education program dollars for their education efforts. We also have seen major increases in the past few years in their special education and title I dollars. On the question that you ask---- Senator Thomas. What do you think are the basic challenges facing you? Ms. Vasques. For us, I would have to say making education the number one priority for not only this committee, but our tribal leadership. Whenever I go out and speak, my number one challenge to those that will listen is to challenge our tribal leaders to put education on their agenda. Many times, I am asked to speak and I am at a sub-level meeting and not the General Assembly. Education, as you all have said so eloquently, should be number one on our agenda, on everyone's agenda. It is the answer to our economic prosperity. Senator Thomas. I am assuming you are saying it is not. Ms. Vasques. I think it is our number one agenda. I know it is our number one agenda, but I do not know if I feel that it is the number on agenda out there when I am working in the field. Senator Thomas. Mr. Cason. Mr. Cason. Senator, I have maybe a little different view within the Department of the Interior for the Indian education program. I think, first, there is not a clear set of expectations about roles and responsibilities to get the results that we need. We have a fairly complicated environment. Some of the schools are run by BIA directly and 122 of our schools are run through tribal grants where the tribe is essentially responsible for running the school. It is not entirely clear throughout the organization and with the tribes as to what the roles and responsibilities are to give performance results; what is acceptable; what is not acceptable; and having any clear mechanisms to do something about the unacceptable. So that is something we need to develop. Second, I think profile is part of the issue, that currently the education program resides within BIA, but it has not been the principal focus of BIA as opposed to other issues like trust, providing welfare services and general assistance. It is certainly an important program, but it has not had the profile that maybe it needs. That is one of the issues that we are taking a look at changing. Third, I think that local socio-economic considerations are a driver; that as this committee probably knows, Indian country in general is one of our poorest sub-populations. I was speaking with the director of BIA this morning. He had just gotten back from Pine Ridge and he told me that the unemployment rate on Pine Ridge is 89 percent. That is a terrible situation for us and it is a terrible situation from which you can send children to get them educated and have the kind of family support that they really need to participate in educational programs. Family support is a key issue, that there has to be an expectation on the role of parents to encourage their children to be in school, to participate in school, to excel at school. I know I have to do that with mine and it takes parents everywhere to be active participants in the process. In some cases where you do not have parents doing that, it becomes a problem. I think another area that is important for us is the leadership of the program within Interior. Right now, we are sitting in a position that Ed represents the only SES person in the Indian Education Program. We have about 5,000 employees there, and Ed is the SES person. So that is one of the issues that we are taking a look at, to add some leadership capability into the organization. That is not completely defined yet, but that is one of the things that we need to get done. Senator Thomas. Thank you. I have taken more than my time. Sorry. The Chairman. Thank you very much. Senator Johnson. STATEMENT OF HON. TIM JOHNSON, U.S. SENATOR FROM SOUTH DAKOTA Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to you and Senator Dorgan for holding this hearing. A special welcome to Dr. Roger Bordeaux, who is superintendent at Tiospa Zina School located on our Sisseton- Wahpeton Reservation. I look forward to his testimony. I have competing obligations and will not be able to stay for the entire hearing, but there are a couple of points I want to raise and questions I have today. First, obviously, we must retain the appropriate area and agency technical support of our BIA schools. We have to be assured that the AYP does not realign or reduce the regional line officers in our region. If realignment is deemed necessary, I think this has to be done with true consultation with our affected tribal parties. Second, we continue to have financial problems and disagreements in South Dakota. Currently, the St. Francis and the Enemy Swim Schools have reached the construction stage, but we continue to have conflicts with the BIA over square-footage issues. We are at great risk of building new schools that will be inadequate from day one because of the square-footage issues. I know Enemy Swim in particular had an agreement with BIA and then the BIA seems to have reneged on its agreement about the square-footage being involved. I may submit written questions to you for a response to that. Another more immediate problem that is of great urgency has to do with our Crow Creek School on the Crow Creek Reservation. The dormitory for the Crow Creek School literally burnt to the ground. It is gone. The BIA has said that they can have some money that they have held back for gymnasium reconstruction, which is a separate matter. They have provided a modest amount of money, most of which will go for tearing down the burnt-out facility and taking care of the damage there. A small amount will be left for emergency dormitory space that they will have to put in this summer. However, the BIA has come up $4 million short for what is necessary for that temporary dormitory space. As a consequence, a good share of the students who attend Crow Creek will not longer be able to attend Crow Creek. That means that their budget falls off, the funding drops off, which means that they are going to have to fire faculty and staff because they are not going to have the budget for this fall. I am immensely frustrated that in an emergency situation like this, that reprogrammed or some sort of money could not be made available in order to at least accommodate the dormitory needs at Crow Creek so that they can open school this fall. Time is running. If we start now, it is going to be difficult to get all of this done. There is a South Dakota corporation working with the Governor that has volunteered to put Crow Creek at the head of the line for the temporary housing space, but I see just utter inaction on the part of the BIA at this point about what are you going to do about the Crow Creek School with the crisis that they have right now, if they are going to in fact be up and running this summer. Now, Crow Creek is number nine on the facilities list, so ultimately I am certain they will get a new proper school, but what do you do between now and the fall? This is a matter of great urgent crisis that frankly the BIA has not been responsive about. I find this enormously frustrating. Let me ask Mr. Cason, what should we do? What should the people of Crow Creek do and what should their children do? Mr. Cason. Well, Senator, I am pleased that you brought that up. That is an issue that I dealt with personally so I have a substantially different view of the circumstances than you have just expressed. In fact, the BIA started working on providing assistance immediately after the fire. Our SES staff person in charge of facilities, a guy named Jack Reiver was in contact with the tribe immediately thereafter to assess what their needs were. We had extensive discussions with a person for the tribe. I talked to the tribal chairman myself. I talked to the guy for the tribe that actually works on the schools, that is in charge of the schools. I talked to the Governor's staff person, I think it was his chief of staff, that was working on this issue. Basically, what we tried to work out was a partnering relationship, who could contribute what, to get them back up. The objective shared by all was to ensure that they could be back in operation August of this year, so that they could have a complete school year. That basically entailed providing a replacement temporary dining facility and kitchen, which the BIA is contributing. It also involved dormitory space, as you mentioned. The issue on the dormitory space is we very carefully looked at what the need was in light of being a temporary solution. What we found is that at the beginning of the last school year, there were approximately 200 students that were dormed; that at the time of the fire there were approximately 120 students that were dormed; that in the aftermath of the fire, the tribe managed to house the approximately 40 to 50 students who were brought in off-reservation from other reservations at a local hotel facility, and that they were able to successfully employ a busing program to bus all the other students that had been living in the dorm, but actually lived on the reservation. So we had some flexibility in how we addressed the issue. The critical mass was basically the 40 or 50 students from off the reservation. We definitely needed space for them. We needed space for another amount of students that lived on the reservation, could have been bused, but maybe were not in housing situations that were optimal. What we worked out with the tribe is that we could basically provide approximately $600,000 to build temporary dorm space, the equivalent to about 120 students. We also worked out with the tribe that if the Governor's office could come through with another $300,000 on environmental assessment, we would move our $300,000 that we had dedicated for that into dormitory space. It is my understanding at this point that that is what we are doing. So we have not attempted to replicate in toto temporary dormitory space equivalent to the maximum number of students that had been in the dorm, but we tried to give a lot of flexibility to the tribe by providing temporary dorm space that would accommodate all of the off-reservation students and a large number of on-reservation students who needed better housing. Senator Johnson. We will follow-up with you on that. I appreciate that you have been in communication with the tribe. One of the questions that was raised to me while I was there, and I do not know if this is conveyed to me correctly or not, but the school indicated and the tribe indicated to me that previously the tribe had insured the school facility, that they were directed by the BIA to drop their insurance. They did maintain insurance on the contents, but not of the building itself. Is that correct? Is that BIA policy to tell tribes not to insure school facilities and BIA facilities? Mr. Cason. I asked that same question, sir, and I do not believe it is BIA policy, but we were trying to determine who exactly told them that. We have not gotten a name on that yet, so we tried to follow up on that because it is not our policy to say, no, do not insure your buildings. Actually, we recommend that they do insure their buildings. Senator Johnson. I would appreciate your getting to the bottom of this a little bit. It sounded sort of counterintuitive, but I did want to see if you are pursuing in fact what occurred in that situation. Mr. Cason. We are. And Senator, would you mind if I just follow-up on a couple of other things. You had mentioned the name of a school that there was a square-foot problem in. What is the name of that? Senator Johnson. Yes; we have two schools. One is at St. Francis and the other is at Enemy Swim. Enemy Swim is on the Sisseton-Wahpeton Reservation and St. Francis is on the Rosebud. Mr. Cason. So it is ``enemy'' as in a person I do not like? Enemy Swim? Senator Johnson. Yes; Enemy Swim. Mr. Cason. Okay. We will follow-up on that. Senator Johnson. I appreciate your following up on that. My last comment, and I know that the committee needs to move on, I really do think that, and I do not lay this blame at the feet of the BIA particularly, but I am enormously frustrated about our national priorities. The level of poverty on our Indian reservations in South Dakota is simply immense. It is breathtaking, the multiplicity of problems that these people face and there is no silver bullet out there. I know that. But I do believe that education is one of the keys, from early Head Start all the way through our tribal college programs. We need a larger pool of Native American teachers and nurses and managers and entrepreneurs who become role models for other young people. We need more of a private sector economic activity going on, and only education and job skills can make that happen. I share Senator Dorgan's concern about overall levels of funding and priorities. He and I have worked on the college funding issue, a $10 million recommendation for reduction in funding. When you come back from Pine Ridge, Oglala Lakota College is the college that happens to be on the Pine Ridge. We have several. They are accredited. They are doing great work. They are creating a new generation of leaders, but they are operating on a per capita per student funding level of about half of what a community college anywhere else in the country would be expected to have. It seems to me at a time when the Administration is talking about a $10-million cut there, at the same time, and I know some people do not like it when some of us bring this up, but the cost of the extension of tax cuts given to people who make over $1 million per year, not millionaires, people who make over $1 million a year, the cost to the Treasury in fiscal year 2006 will be $32 billion drained out of the Treasury. And then we say, well, we do not have $10 million for Indian kids to get a college education. I just find that mind-boggling as a priority for this, the richest Nation on Earth, to be essentially pulling up the ladder for academic success for a new generation of young people who we are in dire need of to provide leadership on these reservations. It is so penny-wise and pound-foolish and a distortion of what I think really are values as Americans ought to be. I share Senator Dorgan's distress about that. I know I am talking into the wind here, but I simply cannot conclude my remarks without making reference to the priorities and the values that Senator Dorgan and I share. Thank you. The Chairman. Thank you very much, Senator Johnson. I thank the witnesses. I would like to just comment as you depart that you are in a process, according to your testimony, in making various assessments, completing studies and plans of action. We probably will have another hearing perhaps in the fall to and maybe you can give us some more definitive results at that time. It might be appropriate then. Mr. Cason. That would be great, Mr. Chairman. The Chairman. Thank you very much. I thank the witnesses. Ms. Vasques. Thank you. The Chairman. The next panel is Nick Lowery. He is the acting chairman of the National Fund for Excellence in American Indian Education; David Beaulieu, who is the president of the National Indian Education Association; Joe McDonald, who is the president of the Salish Kootenai College in Pablo, MT. He is representing the American Indian Higher Education Consortium. And Roger Bordeaux, who is the superintendent of Tiospa Zina Tribal School and executive director of the Association of Community Tribal Schools in Sisseton, SD. I welcome the witnesses. All of your complete written statements will be made part of the record. We will begin with you, Mr. Lowery. STATEMENT OF NICK LOWERY, ACTING CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL FUND FOR EXCELLENCE IN AMERICAN INDIAN EDUCATION, INC. Mr. Lowery. Good morning, Senator McCain. It is a true honor to be here and to represent the outstanding board of directors of the National Fund, one of whom is next to me. I ask that a copy of my written testimony, along with the attached proposed draft amendment language be accepted in the record of this hearing. The Chairman. Without objection. Mr. Lowery. Thank you. I represent the National Fund for Excellence in American Indian Education, known as the National Fund. The National Fund is a charitable foundation first authorized by Federal statute almost 5 years ago and initially known as the American Indian Education Foundation. I am here today to provide you with a brief progress report, as well as to discuss certain changes to our statutory charter that would provide the National Fund with some essential administrative flexibility and better safeguard its funding base and its purpose. The National Fund was authorized by Public Law 107-568, the Omnibus Indian Advancement Act of 2000. The primary purpose of the National Fund is to encourage, accept and administer donations to support the mission of the Office of Indian Education Programs. There are currently an estimated 49,000 students in 184 schools, as you heard earlier. In addition, perhaps as many as 900,000, if you believe the census, American Indian students are educated in public schools in 50 States, enrolled in about 10,000 school districts. Like those in BIA schools, many often exist below the radar screen of society. Most confront high rates of apathy, alienation, alcoholism, teenage suicide, teenage pregnancy, and gang violence. No one here, I believe, denies that more must be done to reach, train, mentor and inspire our most precious resource, and no one here, I believe, denies that we must do more to help Native American youth embrace a robust self- determination and higher destiny. The history of our formation efforts have been problematic, to say the least. When the foundation was authorized in late 2000, Congress directed the Secretary of the Interior to appoint its board and provide it with financial support. There are several models for the foundation in the sense that they were initially created by Congress, given birth within an agency such as Interior, with the intent and the eventual result that they would become fully independent entities. Two of those, the National Park Foundation and the Fish and Wildlife Foundation are exemplified to my right. The board was sworn in in March 2003. Since that time, we have met on four occasions to set priorities and plan for the future independence and effectiveness and impact of the foundation. First, the name change. The initial obstacle in incorporating into filing the necessary application for nonprofit tax-exempt status was the discovery in November 2002 that another organization held prior and superior legal rights to the same name, the American Indian Education Foundation, given our foundation by Congress in late 2000. It took us a full year, Mr. Chairman, to change our name, which is now the National Fund. We are grateful to former Chairman Ben Nighthorse Campbell and other members of this committee, as well as Representative Rick Renzi for assistance in securing the name change. It should be noted that during this time, there was nominal support from the Department of the Interior for the name change. The National Fund was incorporated in the District of Columbia in July 2004. Subsequent to that, as soon as its name change statute was signed and shortly thereafter, we filed our application for nonprofit tax-exempt status. In November 2004, we received our determination letter from the Internal Revenue Service. Let me just go briefly over the obstacles we need to remove to allow us to achieve effectiveness and impact on some of those issues that were addressed earlier today. At this point, the board of directors of the National Fund has identified several obstacles. What follows is our description. First of all, redesignation of the chief operating officer. The authorizing statute oddly requires the chief operating officer of the foundation, who is Dave Beaulieu, actually, that he must be a board member who is secretary to the board of directors. A second is adjustment to the ceiling set on administrative costs. As you see from this chart, neither the National Park Foundation, the Fish and Wildlife Foundation, indeed we know of no similar restrictions being placed upon other similar fundraising organizations that need to spend money in order to raise money. We might suggest that the most efficient way to do this would be to extend the section 501(l) of the original legislation, which is a waiver, and extend that through fiscal year 2007. Any number of articles, including an article from the Center for Philanthropy at Indiana State mention the importance of setting up effective infrastructure at the beginning of an organization to make it achieve its mission. Second, repeal of reimbursement requirements. Once again, this is something that is not required of the National Park Foundation or the Fish and Wildlife Foundation. We would like to see this also repealed because fundamentally, we need to maximize the dollars available, as you just talked about, for the classroom and the hearts and minds of Native American students, not simply to reimburse the Secretary of the Interior. Finally, requests for oversight assistance to transfer donated funds. We met with Jim Cason yesterday and are trying to work out transfer of funds. We hope this will be followed- through on. We are optimistic that it will, but it has been quite a problematic process. In addition to releasing these funds in short order, which amount to only $200,000 at this point, we will ask the committee and the Congress to work with us to authorize and fund an endowment appropriation by which we can begin to operate the National Fund and raise private contributions and offer the program services that were in our initial charter. In conclusion, the National Fund's board of directors desires this committee to know that despite all of the obstacles identified along the way, we are proceeding as best we can, given that we have no accessible resources. The actual process of putting the organization together highlights new challenges, all of which were unanticipated by the National Fund's originators and sponsors. Without any funding, the foundation board and staff have begun to identify private sources of support and are drafting grant fund proposals that will generate some revenue. Our testimony reflects a summary of the concerns and accomplishments of the board of directors of the National Fund for Excellence in American Indian Education. The board took an oath, Mr. Chairman, to serve the best interests of American Indian education. We request the committee's help in modifying the statute, as well as providing some assistance in gaining greater financial support for the fund. We have attached proposed draft legislation on the statutory amendments. An estimated 60 percent of the 49,000 students in the 184 BIA schools are dropping out. Approximately three-fourths of schools in the system are failing the No Child Left Behind annual yearly progress standards. This does not include the up to 900,000 potential Native students at non-BIA schools. The time is now to do all we can to build as much sense of urgency, leadership, vision and capacity into the system as we can. Mr. Chairman, I will conclude by simply saying we have an outstanding board of directors. David Beaulieu, his track record speaks for itself, as a former president. He is now the current president of the National Indian Education Association. He was the former director of Human Resources for the State of Minnesota. Sharon Darling is a founder and president of the National Center for Family Literacy. She is an internationally recognized leader in the field of family literacy and has raised $80 million for family literacy. John Guevremont is the COO of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, of which he is a member and which is taking a more national role in pursuing Indian education benefits and improvements. Regis Pecos is currently the chief of staff to the New Mexico Speaker of the House. He is a Princeton graduate and is the first American Indian appointed to the Board of Regents of Princeton. Jo-Anne Stately is a member of the White Earth Ojibway Tribe. She currently serves as president of the Native Americans in Philanthropy and is overseeing millions of dollars of grants for Native American projects. Linda Sue Warner currently works as associate vice chancellor for the Tennessee Board of Regents. She is a member of the Comanche Tribe of Oklahoma. And finally, Gwen Shunatona, who currently works as director of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation Education Office. Myself, I worked in the Office of National Service for President Bush and President Clinton. I was cofounder of Native Vision, which is beginning today, actually, in New Mexico with 800 young athletes from 30 tribes. I am founder of Nation Building for Native Youth, which is a leadership and self- governance program in keeping with the vision of recently departed Secretary of Indian Affairs Dave Anderson. I also happened to play almost 20 years in the National Football League, which I think actually has helped me see the impact that role models can have on young people if they are given the opportunity. Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the board of directors, I wish to extend to you and the members of the committee our gratitude for this opportunity to testify at the hearing, and thank you for the time and attention you have given us and our concerns. Thank you. [Prepared statement of Mr. Lowery appears in appendix.] The Chairman. Thank you very much. Mr. Beaulieu. STATEMENT OF DAVID BEAULIEU, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL INDIAN EDUCATION ASSOCIATION Mr. Beaulieu. Chairman McCain, members of the committee, my name is David Beaulieu. I am a member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe from the White Earth Reservation, and president of the National Indian Education Association. The National Indian Education Association has within the last year begun to focus, and we encourage the committee to also focus comprehensively on the needs of Native children in light of the long and growing health and overall needs of Native children. Mental health issues, including high levels of substance abuse, suicide rates, poor housing and health conditions all impact the capacity of Native children to learn and schools to be responsive to their principal education purposes. We must comprehensively develop strategies that engage families, communities and tribes in every aspect of the care and education of Native children. Although the National Indian Education Association supports the broad-based principles of accountability and documented results of No Child Left Behind, there is widespread and growing concern about the many obstacles that the NCLB presents to Indian communities who often live in remote, isolated and economically disadvantaged communities. Specifically as detailed in our written testimony, we have identified many factors that we think are important to note, specifically financial resources. We believe that schools serving Native students receive inadequate levels of funding. As noted in the September 2003 GAO report on BIA schools, the student population is characterized by factors that are generally associated with higher costs in education. We simply need monies to invest in Indian education. This lack of investment, combined with the shortened time frame for results and the focus on attempting to meet tests that often are incompatible with actually documented results that are being accomplished, are causing in a sense a train wreck. Our schools are often feeling in crisis. Many positive and wonderful aspects of the educational programs are being eliminated to focus on tests and driving performance to test results, without considering the broad-based quality of educational programs serving Indian children. Many of our school officials and others are reporting, or parents and tribal leaders are reporting that students often bear the responsibility of schools not being able to accomplish results and are being identified as the reason why. There appears to be a growing incongruence between the purposes of title VII within No Child Left Behind and the general operating principles, and consequently the implementation of NCLB by States and the BIA for schools with Native students. Title VII, which expresses a purpose of meeting the unique education and culturally related needs of Native students so that they can achieve the same high standard as other students is not sustained or supported in the general operating provisions of the statute in a way that will allow for the development of congruent educational programs and services consistent with the purposes of title VII. Instead, the approach appears to be increasingly focused on providing extra time for practice in teaching to the test. In 1997, the GAO issued a report that documented an inventory of repair needs for educational facilities totaling $754 million. Since then, the backlog for construction and repair is reported to have grown to $942 million. Completing construction of a high school since 2001, while progress, is not enough. The need for additional school construction dollars is so great that there should be no slow-down in appropriations. Instead, there should be an increased effort to get tribes and the BIA to work more efficiently on completing school construction projects, recognizing that schools take time to plan and build. On an average, the BIA education buildings are 60 years old; 65 percent of BIA school administrators report one or more school buildings in inadequate physical condition. NIEA strongly opposes the realignment and restructuring of the Office of Indian Education Programs within the BIA that will cut the total number of education line officers from 23 to 11 and cut the funding of these offices by 18 percent. Since the function of these offices has significantly increased due to the passage of NCLB, NIEA believes the offices should be expanded, rather than reduced, to ensure timely service to BIA schools. The National Indian Education Association opposes a proposal by the Department of the Interior to decrease the educational line officers and encourages the Department of the Interior to work both with BIA-operated and tribal grant schools on school improvement and efforts in training. In addition, the NIEA requests the committee to probe the Department of the Interior as to why the Office of the Director of the Office of Indian Education Programs has remained vacant for almost a full year. We understand there is an effort at the BIA to elevate the director's position and I hope the position will remain an Indian preference. NIEA has been holding its own field hearings in Indian country on the No Child Left Behind, and will publish a report in October that outlines the information gathered at these hearings and provides recommendations for legislative amendments to existing law. We have held hearings at Window Rock in the Navajo Nation; Tacoma in the Northwest; Montana; Green Bay with the National Congress of American Indians; and in Albuquerque. And we intend to hold hearings in Oklahoma and in South Dakota as well. Our constituency is becoming ever more alarmed. We are now receiving testimony from tribal chairs and council people, as well as educators, about their concerns with the statute and what is happening to Indian education generally. The National Indian Education Association encourages the committee to conduct field hearings on NCLB and Indian education in Indian country, and suggests that the committee consider holding their own field hearings and include it at the National Indian Education Association convention in October, between the 6th and 9th, in Denver, CO. In closing, true success in Native education will come only when Native students are receiving high-quality education that not only prepares them for the demands of contemporary society, but also thoroughly grounds them in their own history, culture and language. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [Prepared statement of Mr. Beaulieu appears in appendix.] The Chairman. Thank you very much. Dr. McDonald, welcome. STATEMENT OF JOE McDONALD, PRESIDENT, SALISH KOOTENAI COLLEGE, REPRESENTING THE AMERICAN INDIAN HIGHER EDUCATION CONSORTIUM Mr. McDonald. Thank you, Chairman McCain and distinguished members of the committee. On behalf of the 35 tribal colleges and universities which make up the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, I thank you for this opportunity to testify. My name is Joe McDonald. I am a member of the Confederated Salish Kootenai Tribe and president of Salish Kootenai College, which is located on the Flathead Indian Reservation. Our college was chartered in 1977 for the simple reason of the near-complete failure of higher education in the United States for American Indians. In 1935, there were 570 American Indians in college. After World War II, in 1957, there were 5,700 American Indians in college. In 1968, we had 181 American Indians graduate from college in the whole United States. There was a horrendous report from GAO in 1976 on the condition of American Indians and higher education. That led a lot to the formation of the tribal colleges. Our college has grown from a very small college to relatively large among the tribal colleges. We offer 6 bachelor degrees, 14 associate degrees, and 70 certificate programs. Last Saturday at graduation, we awarded 161 degrees to American Indians from 40 different tribes. Over the past 30 years, the idea of tribal institutions of education has spread throughout Indian country. Today, despite severe budget cuts and inequities in Federal budgets, there are 35 tribal colleges and universities in 13 States, and we have upwards of 30,000 students attending from 250 federally recognized tribes. I have some key issues I would like to discuss this morning. One is general core funding. Despite trust responsibilities and treaty obligations, the Government has over the years not considered funding of American Indian higher education a priority. For the past 24 years since the initial funding of the Tribal College Act, we have been chronically underfunded. To illustrate the degree of inadequate funding, the current authorized level for tribal college operations, which is $6,000 per Indian student, has the same buying power, when you consider inflation, as the initial fiscal year 1981 appropriation which was $2,800 per student. Despite the much- appreciated increases that Congress has appropriated over the last several years, we are still receiving only about 75 percent of the authorized level. What we would like to talk about is forward-funding. If the tribal colleges' accounts were to be forward-funded when appropriations are not completed by October 1 of any year, which has become more the norm than an exception, we would not have to identify emergency lines of credit. It is really creating cash-flow problems at many of the tribal colleges, and they have to borrow money then to continue until the money comes to them. The delayed appropriations, or even less than timely distribution of funds after appropriations are completed, make it really difficult to plan and project operating funding needs. It hamstrings us in many ways. In short, when funds are not available on October 1, tribal colleges many of them are forced into, a borrowing status. It is a crisis of confidence with faculty, staff, with everyone. So forward-funding would go a long ways for us. The HEA title III is a very important program on us. It affords us the ability to fulfill a vital role in providing access to higher education. We would like to have formula funding for title III. Tribal colleges would clearly benefit from formula funding this program. Right now, they are competitive grants and at the end of each competitive grant, we have to realign ourselves and do something different. In the 5 years, you get something going, it is going well, then you have to drop it and go to something else. It is competitive and it may not even be awarded if you are not successful competitively. So if we could get that changed so TCU-title III became formula-funded, it would be much better. Section 102 of S. 2539, a bipartisan bill introduced in the 108th Congress and referred to this committee includes language that would accomplish this recommendation. The National Science Foundation TCU initiative was created to help our institutions develop and expand high-quality science, technology, engineering and mathematics called STEM. We have had great success with STEM. We have encouraged a lot of young Indian people to go into science and mathematics fields. Colleges have increased their math participation greatly as a result of STEM. Currently, the United States is trending toward a shortage of scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and researchers, and all of the Nation's institutions of higher education must begin graduating more students in science, engineering and mathematics or STEM fields, or we will not have the workforce needed to stay competitive. To help remedy this, we propose the creation of a new section under HEA Title III, Part A, to establish programs that will allow for more efficient and effective application and administration of STEM-related programs. So Mr. Chairman, because NSF has committed increasingly more of its resources towards expanding basic scientific research and strengthening graduate programs, we believe the program should be moved to the Department of Education, Office of Post-Secondary Education, in conjunction with the tribal colleges' title III program. Equally as important as institutional development programs are programs that focus on student development and capacity. The Department of Education's TRIO student support service program is critical to tribal colleges. However, the fiscal year 2005 program competition resulted in 25 percent of the tribal colleges that had student support service grants losing their program funding. The grant-scoring cutoff for institutions that would receive an award was 99.33, which is very, very competitive. In September 2003, the department recognized that many of our institutions face any number of challenges to operating high-quality accountable TRIO projects and awarded supplemental grants to each of the tribal colleges that were administering a student support services grant. Simultaneously, the TRIO Training Institute at my institution, Salish Kootenai College, received additional funds to support the collective efforts of these colleges to improve their TRIO-SSS projects. So we did this and we did this very, very successfully. We worked with AIHEC. We worked with the Council for Opportunity in Education. We used the successful TRIO program officers throughout universities and colleges in America. In a short time, the project had made tremendous progress we really made a lot of improvement in these programs. So we would like Congress to encourage the Department of Education to extend for a minimum of 2 years the funding of these programs. I know that Mr. Parisian talked about data. We have been collecting our own data under a program called American Indian Measures of Success [AIMS]. We are very excited about it because it not only takes into consideration the data that the BIA requires, but also takes into consideration what IPEDS wants. We think that we are on to something. We have not seen the final product, but we think that it contains all the data that we would need. We encourage Congress to consider that AIMS data collections be adopted as a primary mechanism for data collection for all TCU Federal programs. The Chairman. Dr. McDonald, you are far exceeding your time, but please proceed. Mr. McDonald. Okay, really quickly. Technical assistance contracts, we would like to make sure that when a technical assistance contract is awarded by a Federal department to help an Indian program, that it be awarded to an Indian organization or somebody that understands Indians. I am sorry for exceeding my time, Senator. Thank you. [Prepared statement of Mr. McDonald appears in appendix.] The Chairman. Not at all, Doctor. Your complete statement is made part of the record. I did have a chance to read it last night and I thank you for not only your testimony, but your outstanding efforts on behalf of Native American education. Dr. Bordeaux. STATEMENT OF ROGER BORDEAUX, SUPERINTENDENT OF TIOSPA ZINA TRIBAL SCHOOL AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE ASSOCIATION OF COMMUNITY TRIBAL SCHOOLS, INC. Mr. Bordeaux. Mr. Chairman, thank you for giving me the opportunity to come into town today and testify. I am a Si Tanka Lakota from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota and currently working for the Sisseton-Wahpeton up in North and South Dakota, in the northeastern part. I would like to first respond to something that you said and something that Mr. Cason said. You talked about academic achievement for Indian kids. On the second page of my testimony is one source of achievement data from our school, which identifies anywhere from 50 to 75 percent of our students are proficient or advanced according to the bureau's definition in different areas. One of the problems that we see with the No Child Left Behind is when you have to desegregate data and look at the disaggregated data that is a good thing. But when you determine a whole school's academic achievement or making adequate yearly progress based on sometimes one or two children, and in our case children with handicapped conditions, one or two children could put the whole school in jeopardy just because of the way the thing is structure. So this clearly outlines the difference between looking at the total population and then looking at the population without the special education students. So I just wanted to make sure that you get a chance to look at that data. Another thing that kind of disturbed me when Mr. Cason was talking this morning. Their solution for improving schools and improving academics of Indian children appears to be adding more SES positions and high-level management positions within the bureau, which is going to solve the problem. I would almost venture to guess that I would be willing to bet part of my salary that that is not going to make a difference over time. As a matter of fact, they presented a PowerPoint earlier in the week which I would like to present as part of the record. It looks like at least there are seven SES positions in their plan for education, and probably 10 to 15 GS-15's or higher. All of those positions probably get anywhere from let's say $110,000 to $150,000 a year in salary, plus fringe and everything else. So if they are going to spend $2 million or $3 million, I would suggest that they spend it at the school-level in the classrooms instead at senior management-level positions. I know that that is the case because I would also like to present and put as part of the record part of their internal documents for fiscal year 2007. Part of their budget request discussion includes taking $3.4 million from ISEP and using that money for that senior management stuff. So they are directly taking money from children and trying to set up this system. I do not think that is going to work and I do not think it will make that much of a difference. And then one other thing I would like to present, which is at the end of my testimony, is a letter from Senator Dole to Senator Cochran that deals with a food service program in trying to fund a pilot program within the Child Nutrition Program to allow for schools, for their free and reduced lunch meal, to set up a program so they can use the WIC criteria instead of the other criteria, which would allow more children not to have to pay for lunches, especially since Senator Johnson talked specifically about 90 percent unemployment rate on the reservation in Pine Ridge. That would be something that could really help them. So I would like to present that and make it part of the record. A couple of other things that I would like to do before I get done is talk about three things. One is I think over the last 3 to 5 years the bureau itself and the structure has allowed the misuse or misappropriation of available resources. I know for sure that there is special education money that comes from the Department of Education that goes to the BIA. Upward of 20 percent to 30 percent is kept at levels and never gets to the schools. I think that needs to change because the money that you should be spending is stuff that happens in the classroom and no where else. Even at my level at the Superintendency, it is necessary to have leadership, but where you really make differences is to allocate your resources in the classroom. I think earlier you said that one of the GAO reports said that bureau-funded schools are spending about $10,000 per student. If you look at that, even Ms. Vasques said that 25 percent of the money in the bureau comes from the Department of Education. If you add that 25 percent plus the other discretionary dollars that schools have to go out and hustle for, I would contend that about 40 percent of the total funding at the school level is discretionary funds that could theoretically be gone next year if people decided not to fund certain things. So then you get down to the base amount, which might be somewhere between $4,000 and $6,000. Of that $4,000 or $6,000 amount, which is ISEP, transportation, administrative costs and operations and maintenance funds for bureau-funded schools, those four levels, if you look at the amount of revenue they have received over the last 4 or 5 years, some of them have actually decreased in revenue over the last 3 or 4 years, and some of them they may have increased $3 million, but when you spread $3 million over 50,000 children, that does not make a lot of impact at the school level. So I think you really have to take a look at the base funding for the schools. Even though some of the discretionary funding has increased, the base money has not made a lot of impact. So I think that in looking at what needs to be done for schools, what has to happen is things inside the classrooms. We are required at the school level to have a comprehensive school reform plan. The bureau has encouraged us to look at data to make decisions on what is best for children in the classroom. I heard this morning that they are just now starting to do a needs assessment to figure out what is going on. If they are making us do this, and we have done it for, well, I have done it myself for at least 15 or 20 years, but the schools that are doing it well have done it for a lot of times, looking at data, disaggregating data to find out what is going on. If they are just now starting to look at it, there is some kind of disconnect that is going on. So I think if you look at the stuff that I have submitted in written testimony, the stuff that I am providing today. I am willing to talk to any of the staff on the Committee on some real specific issues that I think are hampering schools in making differences for children. I would be more than willing to do that. Thank you for your time. [Prepared statement of Mr. Bordeaux appears in appendix.] The Chairman. Thank you very much, Doctor. Mr. Lowery, what is the justification for increasing the cap on administrative costs from 10 percent to over 20 percent? Mr. Lowery. We are looking for that in the first 2 years of the foundation, Mr. Chairman. As I refer to in the research we have done, the ability to establish effective infrastructure with proper staffing is essential to long-term efficiency. We are simply looking at this for the first 2 years. If you look at the numbers, no numbers that I saw in my research, for instance even the United Way, which is essentially overhead of overhead with the Combined Federal Program for themselves, is at 12.7 percent. The Better Business Bureau looks at 30 percent. The Federal guidelines for the Combined Federal Campaign is 25 percent. So we still remain within those figures and we hope that we will reduce it even further, but that gives us some flexibility given the difficulty we have had the first several years of our existence. The Chairman. Tell me again what is the status on getting funds released from the Office of Special Trustee. Mr. Lowery. We had a meeting yesterday with Mr. Cason. It is the first time we have actually been able to talk in person on this subject. We are supposed to have a follow-up meeting on July 6. It is our understanding that he is going to do all he can to release these $200,000 in unrestricted funds. Unfortunately, the other $1.4 million are very specifically restricted. The Chairman. Dr. Beaulieu, what is the percentage of teachers in BIA and tribal schools that are not highly qualified, roughly? Mr. Beaulieu. I do not know the exact number, Senator. The Chairman. Do you have a rough estimate? Mr. Beaulieu. No I do not. I am sorry. The Chairman. One-half? Are one-half the teachers, to your knowledge, designed, quote, ``highly qualified''? Mr. Beaulieu. I believe that there is a significant issue of being highly qualified in the BIA system in terms of being subject-matter qualified for the courses they teach, which is also a condition in rural schools as well, just generally. The Chairman. Maybe you can provide that for the record for us. Mr Beaulieu. Yes. The Chairman. I think that is one of the challenges of complying with NCLB is this issue of teachers that are, quote, ``highly qualified.'' Mr. Beaulieu. Senator, I might add we also are concerned about the highly qualified in terms of expanding the definition a bit to include competence in the ability to teach culturally unique children, so that we would emphasize greater professional development of the staff in schools with Indian children. The Chairman. Thank you. Would you send copies of the field hearing report you mentioned in your testimony to the committee? Mr. Beaulieu. Yes; we will. The Chairman. Thank you. We would be interested. Dr. McDonald, what is the status of your American Indian Measures of Success initiative and when are the reports due out? Mr. McDonald. It is going to come out right away. All of our data was to be turned into the AHEIC at the end of May, so I think we are going to get a report here in this next month. The Chairman. Yes; I hope you will send us a copy of that. Mr. McDonald. We surely will. The Chairman. Thank you very much. Dr. Bordeaux, you testified 1 year ago on NCLB. What improvements have you seen over the past year in implementing No Child Left Behind? Mr. Bordeaux. In the big picture, I think there are two things. One is it is forcing public schools to look at their disaggregated population, which in this discussion means looking at the Indian students and actually recognizing that they are in the classroom and they really are part of the student population, so they are looking at them and finding out what is going on with them academically, and recognizing that there is a need for them to work and try to improve the achievement of academics for Native American children in public schools. In BIA-funded schools, I think the success stories are still being written, but delays have happened because of the negotiated rulemaking process, where the rules are just now going into effect about 1 week ago, which should probably have been done a couple of years ago, but because of how long it took for them to go through the process. It is hard to tell what is going to happen. I do know that at our level at the school that I work at, we have made a lot of successes academically. I am not convinced it is because of NCLB. I am convinced it is because the Sisseton-Wahpeton people made the decision that they wanted to be better educated, so that is what they are doing. The Chairman. What is your school doing to meet the highly qualified teacher requirements? Mr. Bordeaux. I think the are biggest impact is, I made a commitment a long time ago in looking at a research report that I looked at when I was getting my doctorate that said that in business and industry they were spending nearly 5 percent of their money in professional development and training and retraining their staffs to make sure that they are always up to date on what is going on in their industry. In education at that time, they were spending less than 2 percent on professional development. So I have made a commitment always to spend at least 5 percent on professional development. As a matter of fact, this last year, I think there are three of us right now who are doctorates at an elementary and secondary school. We have three other people working on their doctorate degree. We have four of them finishing their specialist. We just have 14 graduated with master's degrees from Southwest State in Minnesota. So we have about 45 certified positions in our school and of that amount over 30 of them have at least a master's degree in curriculum and instruction or in educational administration. So I think that is one of the keys. The other key is making sure that in the classroom, that what is going on in the classroom is highly active and culturally relevant. For Indian children, those things are really important. The Chairman. What would motivate a young graduate of a university with a teaching degree to want to come to teach at Red Lake or Lakota Sioux Reservation or Chinlee, Arizona? Mr. Bordeaux. The hardest thing I think to motivate somebody to come to a reservation to work is the economic condition on a lot of reservations is real tough. It is hard to get housing. It is real hard to find a quality of life on a lot of reservations that they are used to if they have never lived in poverty. So it makes it a lot more difficult. What you have to do as a teacher, and most good teachers have something in their heart that makes them a good teacher, and it does matter where they go to. The Chairman. But you have a relatively high turnover. Mr. Bordeaux. In a lot of schools. In our case, I think part of it is location because where the Federal Government put that reservation just happened to go where there is an Interstate that goes through it now. So it is location. And where they put other reservations at Pine Ridge and some other places where they put Indian people, it is completely isolated. You do not have access to much of anything. There are places that do not have good Internet access, not very good telephone service; where there is still a lot of multiple connections and stuff like that that is going on, too. The Chairman. What is your comment about that, Dr. Beaulieu? Mr. Beaulieu. About teachers, Senator? The Chairman. What do we need to do to motivate a young American who graduates with a teaching degree to go to Tuba City, AZ or Red Lake, the more remote areas of America that are mired in poverty? Mr. Beaulieu. Senator, we have had some experience with teacher training. We have had two Native teacher training programs at Arizona State University. The Chairman. Is the answer to recruit more Native Americans to be teachers? Mr. Beaulieu. Yes; indeed, I would say. In fact, focusing on people who are already in those schools who have a commitment to teaching the children and enabling through programs such as we do have with the Indian Professional Development Program which has been very successful with the students that we have educated, which requires that you teach in the school with a high Indian population once you graduate from the program. The Chairman. But neither these programs nor the number of Native Americans that are graduating with teaching degrees would anywhere near fill the requirements for teaching positions on Native American and BIA schools, right? Mr. Beaulieu. They would not, but they would also---- The Chairman. So then it seems to me then you have to have some other program which would at least in the interim motivate non-Native Americans who are teaching-qualified to go there, just like we increase pay and bonuses for men and women to serve in the military. Mr. Beaulieu. That is correct. The Chairman. So have you all ever come up with any plans or ideas that we could motivate young teachers to go to these places and fill these positions? You are eager to answer, Dr. Bordeaux. Go ahead, and then Dr. Beaulieu, if you would like. Mr. Bordeaux. I think one of the things that has been successful in some places, too, is to allow schools over time to grow their own, so that they hire para-educators that want to become teachers and let them work as para-educators for 2 or 3 years. When they get close to having teaching degrees, let them teach, even though they are not fully certified and do not meet the highly qualified requirement yet, but let them teach and work in that school at the same time so that they can get their degree plus gain the experience. That is how you grow Indian teachers. A lot of the Indian teachers that we have within our school have gone that way. I think that is something that I think can work and it has worked in certain areas. I think another thing is we talked about loan forgiveness for some of those that really want to come to poverty areas. The Chairman. Go ahead, Dr. Beaulieu. Mr. Beaulieu. I was going to suggest a similar idea in terms of in Tuba City we are currently working on the development of a teacher program there through a program funded through the Arizona Department of Education. There are identified 23 individuals who wish to become teachers there within the staff who are not currently teachers. We are focusing on the development of a program there over time to develop that teaching corps. I think it is not only an issue of supply, but also an issue of turnover rates. The turnover rates in some of these places are very high, which creates another issue which has to do with long-term improvement. If you are constantly changing teachers year after year after year, you are not improving the school through professional development efforts as well. The Chairman. Mr. Lowery, do you have any comments about that? Mr. Lowery. Yes I do, sir; the Santa Fe Indian School Leadership Institute, which was cofounded by Regis Pecos, one of the board members for the National Fund, created a community dialog which forces each community to develop a community-based set of principles and ideals, asking the question involving the entire community: What legacy do we want to leave our children 100 years from now? The FACE Program, which is the BIA's best example of effective programming, has within it the seed of a principle, which is they go into the homes of students and they actually tutor the parents in how to tutor their children, how to support their children. They get a two-fold benefit. One is the parents are more highly motivated, more self-confident in pursuing and completing their own education. Their students are as well. Until we develop a holistic strategy that involves the entire community in owning its own responsibility and support for education, we cannot have the kind of comprehensive, long- term support for young people growing up on a reservation that want to stay on the reservation, but come back highly qualified to an environment where there is little reinforcement for their ideals and for their commitment. The Chairman. Do you want to weigh in on this Dr. McDonald or pass? Mr. McDonald. I would certainly take the opportunity to weigh-in. It is a long term. There is not a short-term situation for it. Certainly, as an emissary of the tribal colleges, I would have to say that a recent report of the College Board statistically has proven that if they graduate from college, they take more active interest in the community. They are more active in the schools. They are more active community volunteers. Their children are more liable to go to school, so it makes a more wholesome community for a long-range effect. For short range, certainly loan forgiveness is one; certainly some priority pay. If you look at the future of one going to an Indian school with very poor retirement, certainly way out there in the middle of nowhere, with very poor medical help, poor housing, it is not very attractive. One has to address all of those in order to get really good quality teachers. The Chairman. Well, Dr. Bordeaux? The State Department, when you are in the Foreign Service and they send you to a remote outpost, Uzbekistan, they give you additional pay, additional incentives, more enhanced opportunity for promotion. But there are rewards and incentives associated with it. In the military when we send someone to a remote area separated from their family, et cetera, we give them financial rewards for doing so. It is a pretty bizarre statement, but why don't we think about providing financial and other incentives and rewards for young Americans who graduate with teaching certificates to go to Chinlee or Window Rock or Red Lake or these other places where the conditions exist that all of you have so adequately described. Mr. McDonald. Yes; even in the urban areas or the big city of Ronan, MT, it is very difficult for teachers there because of the politics between Indian and white and poor Indians and tragic youth deaths. It is just tragic. The Chairman. I would start out with BIA schools specifically. What do you say, Dr. Bordeaux? Mr. Bordeaux. I think what you are talking about is a plausible solution for part of the population that really wants to try and work on Indian reservations, give them something in addition to what they would normally get, but it cannot be the only answer. I think there also has to be a process to try to grow Indian teachers from within, too. The Chairman. Could I remind you that in the military and the State Department, it is not the only reason. We appeal to people's patriotism and willingness to serve, but we also reward them for taking on additional burdensome tasks. It seems to me that to ask a young teacher to go to a geographic area that has all of the conditions which you all have described and I am familiar with as well, that maybe we should develop some kind of program that would reward them for that kind of service. First of all, it is patriotism, but second of all it would be some kind of system where we might make it more rewarding in a fiscal way than it is today. In all due respect, if I was a young teacher and I had a choice of Window Rock or Maricopa-Pima in Phoenix, I think I would choose Maricopa-Pima. Right? Mr. Bordeaux. I am sure you would because I have been at teacher fairs where people from Dallas public schools would be up in Sioux Falls, SD offering $3,000 and $5,000 bonuses for those teachers coming out of South Dakota universities. They would much prefer to go down and do that instead of staying in South Dakota in the rural areas. The Chairman. Well, maybe we ought to look at that because it is obvious that it is a significant problem, one, in attracting people; and two, as you pointed our Dr. McDonald and all of us know, the turnover is horrendous. I think we ought to think outside the box on this issue. I thank the witnesses for being here. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your commitment to Native American education and we appreciate very much your valuable testimony. This hearing is adjourned. [Whereupon, at 11:20 a.m., the committee was adjourned, to reconvene at the call of the Chair.] ======================================================================= A P P E N D I X ---------- Additional Material Submitted for the Record ======================================================================= Prepared Statement of Leland Leonard, Director, Division of Dine' Education, Navajo Nation Within the Navajo Nation there is concern among teachers, communities, and administrators on the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act [NCLBA]. While there certainly is room to improve the education of Navajo students, meaningful discussions need to be held on the impact the NCLBA will have on the education of Navajo students. Without meaningful discussions the Navajo Nation will struggle with the impact of perceived negative test scores and the labeling of programs as failing that are actually quite successful. Responsible educators on Navajo have struggled for years to increase student achievement. Simply mandating student achievement without having a meaningful dialog on the definition of achievement and how to reach it will inappropriately label schools as failing. With that introduction, we wish to comment on some specific areas of NCLBA, starting with initial testing results and provide a recommendation. Navajo schools testing results--As of 2003-04 School Year. Under the NCLBA nearly 11 percent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs [BIA] schools are meeting Adequate Yearly Progress [AYP], down from 44 percent in SY 2002-03. These numbers confirm our fears that move and more schools and students will fail as the AYP bar rises. Testing results in the public schools are not much more encouraging. Schools either make AYP or they do not under the NCLBA because the act does not provide a middle ground. Narrow scope of testing--NCLBA tests only in three subject areas: Reading, Math, and Science. While these subjects are important, students maybe excelling in other areas, such as music, art, history, vocational subject, or Navajo language and culture and receive no credit under NCLBA. Schools will be tempted to focus on the areas where the statute requires testing and de-emphasize or eliminate programs that many students are excelling in. The focus on testing--Focusing on testing results has had predictable results. In many cases teachers are increasing homework, expanding drill time, teaching to the test; i.e., doing more of all the things that weren't working in the first place. The NCLBA does not encourage innovation and imagination. Scientifically based curriculum--There is not a lot of data concerning ``what works'' with Navajo children. The existing data suggests that the most successful curricula are those that are oriented in the Navajo culture. Many schools will disregard this information or not have access to it, and simply pick programs that have found their way onto an approved list at the state or national level. Schools that have a large Native American population must have the opportunity to develop and implement culturally based curriculum and there needs to be specific research funded to evaluate its effectiveness, preferably available to the tribes themselves. On Navajo, we have the beginnings of such research under the Navajo Nation's Rural Systemic Initiative program under the National Science Foundation, but the funding for that program ended. The large gap in proflciency--The goal of full proficiency within a 12-year period is far more realistic in schools where students are already testing at a high level of proficiency than in those where proficiency levels are very low. For example a school where 75 percent of the student body is already rated as proficient, may have a relatively easy time of achieving the small increments necessary to make AYP. A school that begins with 10 percent of its students rated as proficient will have to consistently make dramatic gains. Even exceptional progress may still not be enough to avoid being labeled as failing. The great danger is that even students who are trying hard and doing reasonable well will be labeled as failing. The law could require ``gains `` in student achievement with recognition that every student is an individual, with his own talents and interests. Testing should be used to identify a student's aptitude and provide guidance for the future direction of his/her education. Schools need to provide more options as the needs of our society expand. Every student should not have to run the same race or be expected to arrive at the same finish line. We have a Recommendation: Enhancing the opportunities for tribes to develop tribal educational systems where tribes can actually control the educational programs. The Navajo Nation is in the process of assuming authority and responsibility over the educational programs on Navajo. We are negotiating a Public Law 93-638 contract with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to assume responsibilities relating to the provisions of technical assistance and training of school personnel, school boards and parents. In addition, we are proposing new tribal legislation that would establish a Navajo Nation Board of Education with authority to develop standards and accredit schools, collect and analyze date, and license administrators and teachers. This option was one of the opportunities that was enhanced with the passage of NCLBA and we plan to make full use of it to make a positive difference in the education programs on Navajo. While this legislation will relate primarily to the BIA funded school system, the Board will also have authority to negotiate Memoranda of Agreement with the three States that operate schools on the Navajo Nation. The Bureau makes no provisions for implementing the statutory option for tribes to develop their own alternative definitions of AYP. This again requires resources. States received funding for this AYP planning, but nothing seems to be available for the tribes that may wish to pursue their options to actually develop appropriate measures for student progress. The Bureau should provide for such resources in its MOU with the U.S. Department of Education. To do this successfully requires resources. Congress has authorized such funding but has not appropriated any funding for the past several years. See 25 USC 2020. The Navajo Nation renews its funding request for tribal education departments in the BIA budget at the authorized level of $2,000,000. While the BIA has proposed ``privatization'' realignments on top of illegal reorganizations, budget cuts to offices charged with providing technical assistance, and new programs with no statutory authorization; it ignores and neglects those things it is truly charged with; i.e. encouraging and enhancing tribal self-determination. Additionally, planning grants under section 103 of Public Law 93-638 have gone unfunded for many years. No funding is requested for the critical planning for tribal control under the authorizations cited above, nor is there any request for adequate funding for administrative cost grants and indirect costs. The BIA also ignores opportunities for encouraging tribal control of education and centralizes the resources it receives from the Department of Education rather than distributing them to the offices where technical assistance could be provided, and could more easily be contracted by tribes. Conclusion: The No Child Left Behind Act needs to be amended. Its accountability provisions need to recognize gains in achievement and must not be so narrowly drawn. Testing is a tool that should be used to identify the aptitudes and performance of students but success on a test must not become the goal of education. Opportunities should be expanded for students who have an interest and aptitude in something other than a traditional 4-year college. In Indian country, the Federal Government should make use of statutory authorization that already exist to encourage and enhance tribal control of education as a major tool for implementation of quality education programs. 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Daniel K. Inouye, U.S. Senator from Hawaii Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I commend the committee for holding this hearing today. Education is the cornerstone that helps to build our Nation to what it is today and to prepare for our future. This is also true for native nations. In Hawaii, we have several education programs available for Native Hawaiians, separately funded from Indian programs, of course. Native Hawaiians experience similar concerns as other native students, with a majority of the schools in Hawaii that do not meet Federal elementary and secondary education standards having a predominantly Native Hawaiian population. Although all native children are improving their test scores, they still fall behind other children and the schools are still not meeting Federal standards. But those Federal standards focus on reading, math, and science. I mention this because there may be other factors that are causing the lower achievement scores and creating negative consequences. The Federal Government must consider and address the impact that inadequate funding, poor school facilities, geographic isolation, culture, and other factors have on the ability of schools to educate native students and on the ability of native students to learn. We must realize that there are additional means to improve the education of native peoples of all ages, both in and out of the classroom. Perhaps most importantly, we must recognize that native peoples must be involved in the education of their students to ensure that their unique needs are addressed. This is critical in ensuring that native peoples can define and build their communities to reflect their respective cultures and needs. Providing an effective, relevant and quality education is important to every nation in order to prepare future leaders with the skills necessary to address social, health, and economic conditions. We must assist native nations in doing the same. Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this much needed hearing. <all>