Facebook Twitter Email
MONDAY, JULY 23, 2001

On What Is The BIA's Role in Education:
"You've got to have math, science and communication skills proficiency to compete in the knowledge-based economy. One of the things I want to is keep the BIA focused on education. That's our job: to teach reading, writing and arithmetic and to do a good job at it."

On What Isn't The BIA's Role:
"Its important for the kids to have a high appreciation and a good self-image about their culture but I don't think that's fundamentally the job of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I think keeping the culture is the responsibility of the elders and leaders of the tribe. Clearly, we need to abandon the role of trying to kill the culture but for us to become the self-appointed keeps of culture is an arrogant statement, on my part."

On His Education Expertise:
"I'm not an educator, I'm a sticks and bricks guy. I bring some special knowledge in building the schools but I'm going to rely heavily on guys like [BIA Office of Indian Education Programs Director] Bill Mehojah."

On What is a Good Indian School:
"We need a building, a place, conducive to learning. That's not a place with a leaky roof or that's cold in the winter and hot in the spring and fall months and that has asbestos in it that's dangerous to the kids. There's got to be safe and affirming environment."

On The State of Indian Schools:
"I really liked [public] school. Part of that is having a building that parents enjoy coming to and that the kids are safe in and that's conducive, and our system isn't like that. We have a $1.3 billion backlog in deferred school maintenance and replacement."

On Funding Tribal Schools:
"We're going to probably have to be a little creative and advance fund some of these schools. We put $30 million in [an escrow fund] and sell $70 million in bonds. Instead of paying interest to bond holders, we pay tax credits in lieu of interest. So what we do is double the speed in which can construct schools."

On Risks of Creative Financing:
"I'm a conservative, politically, but I'm not afraid of advance funding. Its time that we took a little risk for the Indian kids in this country so that they can reap the rewards of economic parity."

On Risks Facing Indian Children:
"I think the incidences of social dysfunction and social pathology are evident, in terms of alcoholism, teenage suicide. That doesn't happen because people feel good about themselves. When people feel good about themselves they don't do things that are self-destructive . . . [but] just being wealthy doesn't solve problems."

On Growing Old:
"I happen to believe that senior years are very productive years. That doesn't mean you have to go out split logs or pick cotton but it means that you make a contribution to your community -- that's an Indian tradition. We've always placed a high value on our elders."

On Sovereignty:
"[Sovereignty] will work because of visionary tribal leaders. Bureaucrats can help -- they can provide technical assistant and they can encourage and they can be cheerleaders and evangelize -- but sovereign governments have to depend on sovereign leaders."

On Treaties:
"A lot of them [treaties] haven't been honored. But really in the long picture of things, the United States -- although a lot of people look at our history and see infamy -- we really have kept a lot of our commitments. The very fact that we have sovereign governments in a country where we represent less than 2 percent of the population is remarkable."