The reservation schools have been grappling with other challenges, as well. Among them are the strict requirements imposed by federal and state education funding sources, such as the No Child Left Behind program. The K-12 schools are operated under a cooperative agreement between the federal, tribal and state governments. “This past year, we did make adequate yearly progress for the first time in a very long while,” District Supervisor Ed Slocum said. “We’re hopeful we will again this year." "The fact that South Dakota has submitted a waiver application in the No Child Left Behind program will be beneficial to us,” he noted. The federal No Child Left Behind calls for states to ensure that all students be “scoring proficient” by 2014. “That was a pretty unrealistic goal for any school,” said Slocum. Former school board member Les Ducheneux said problems in Cheyenne River schools are such that many constituents advocate separating them from the federal and state administrative involvement, contracting instead for the BIE money so the tribe can take over the programs. “We have lost control of our schools. Students are leaving because they’re not up to adequate yearly progress standards,” Ducheneaux said. He cited Tiospaye Topa High School, where enrollment has dropped from 230 to 150. Due to its failure to meet the rules of No Child Left Behind, the school has been put on alert status and must undergo corrective action, which entails a curriculum narrowed to mostly reading and arithmetic. If that doesn’t improve proficiency, restructuring is required. WHERE’S THE CULTURE?
Ducheneaux, who was a Lakota language and cultural teacher for 10 years, attributes the slack performance to the failure to uphold the tribe’s mandate for prioritizing those materials in the educational system. “What happened at Tiospaye Topa and in the Cheyenne-Eagle Butte School system is that the Lakota language and cultural ordinance is not being followed,” he said. Ordinance No. 66, The Lakota Language and Culture Education Code, states that all levels of the cooperative agency school system “shall provide … Lakota language, as well as instruction in Lakota history and culture,” according to specific terms. Ratified in 1994 and amended several times since, the ordinance establishes a compliance committee, among other points. However, Ducheneaux said, “Not only is the school administration not enforcing it, but the tribe has done nothing other than to pass the ordinance. A lot of the mind-set of teachers who work in the school system is they don’t see a need to do it.” “It used to be, there were all kinds of culturally relevant classes going on. One class we had was a medicine wheel project that involved science, math, English and Lakota language. Students got credit in the three other classes because they were integrated. We had three powwows at the school.” “It’s been a slow and gradual process,” said Ducheneaux. “If you go to the school today, there’s not much of anything of culture and that’s why these things are happening,” he said, referring to dress code issues, low proficiency gains and the recent resignation of a teacher after tribal council heard allegations that she punished students for speaking Lakota. “The problem is not that our children are not smart enough; it’s the methodology we’re using and also the lack of understanding of the socioeconomic problems such as rampant alcoholism and abuse of all kinds of forms in the communities because people are caught in a vicious cycle with a lot of underlying causes.” Ducheneaux said both Indian and non-Indian staff fail to take into account the need for “rounded-out, holistic education” to meet the challenge. “We’re losing our Lakota way to help heal children,” he added. “We send a lot off to college and find out when they get there, they’re not prepared. You have watered down curriculums that are dummied down. That’s not what they need. It’s a sad thing, the education on this reservation here.” FOLLOW THE MONEY
The education funding formulas in use complicate the matter, according to Ducheneaux. Per capita financing from special education and Indian student equalization programs attracts less money than needed to pay the comparatively high salaries and benefits package of the BIE staff, he said. Converting to tribal grant schools would mean paying teachers at least one-third less than BIE schools do. But, Ducheneaux said, “The solution to the problem is we have to get control of our schools. Public Law 192-90 gives you more control: You get the funding directly from the BIE and you are able to spend it for the most part as you see fit.” “You get 80 percent of money up front, and you are able to budget it, put it in an interest-bearing account that makes a little more money and break it down into (academic) quarters. You have more local control,” he said. Even then, favoritism and nepotism in the hiring process would remain to be conquered, according to Brandi Kills Crow Little Eagle, a 20-year veteran teacher in the CEB system who moved off-reservation to Aberdeen. “I thought there was a lot of prejudice toward those of us that were Native American teachers,” she said. “In one year, there was six of us that didn’t get contracts renewed.” Despite a series of changes in the BIE procedures, she said, “I don’t think it’s gotten any better. I really think that more of the decisions in the school system need to come from not just a little handful of people – because that is really a tough thing to fight,” she added. “If like four people who are related on the school board decide they are not going to give you your contract back, they don’t even have to have a justifiable reason.” This is the second part of a two-part article. (Talli Nauman is the Health & Environment Editor for Native Sun News. Contact her at talli.nauman@gmail.com) Related Stories:
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