DOCUMENT RESUME RC 022 186 ED 436 336 Chavers, Dean, Ed. AUTHOR Exemplary Programs in Indian Education. Second Edition. TITLE Native American Scholarship Fund, Inc., Albuquerque, NM. INSTITUTION 1996-00-00 PUB DATE 249p.; Includes photographs, figures, and reprints of NOTE newspaper articles that may not reproduce adequately. Native American Scholarship Fund, Inc., 8200 Mountain Road, AVAILABLE FROM N.E., Suite 203, Albuquerque, NM 87110 ($29.95 plus $3.50 shipping). -- Reports Reference Materials - Directories/Catalogs (132) PUB TYPE Descriptive (141) MF01/PC10 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE Adult Education; *American Indian Education; American DESCRIPTORS Indians; Educational Improvement; Elementary Secondary Education; Evaluation Criteria; Higher Education; Profiles; Program Descriptions; *Validated Programs ABSTRACT This directory profiles 16 exemplary programs serving American Indian students in elementary and secondary schools, colleges, and community adult education programs. An introduction discusses what "exemplary" means, the history of Indian education, the lack of Indian programs in the National Diffusion Network's (NDN) directory of exemplary programs, characteristics of exemplary programs, and other exemplary programs in the United States. Each program entry contains: contact information, program focus, population served, personnel, sources of support, indicators used to measure program success, changes in baseline indicators over time, evaluation methods, technology use, details of program features contributing to success, comments on program replication, outreach efforts, parent involvement, student selection, and recognition or awards received. The (1) Dropout Prevention Program projects and their sites or sponsors are: (2) Indian Homework (Cass Lake Local Indian Education Committee, Minnesota); (3) Denver Adult Centers (Davis County Indian Parent Association, Utah); Education Program (Native American MultiEducational School, Colorado); (4) (5) Cool School Project (Ganado Intermediate Ganado Primary School (Arizona); (6) MESBEC (math, engineering, science, business, School, Arizona); education, computers) Scholarship Program (Native American Scholarship Fund, (7) Mississippi Choctaw Adult Education Program (Mississippi New Mexico); (8) Total Quality Management Program (Mount Edgecumbe High Choctaw Tribe); (9) National Honors Program (National American Indian Honor School, Alaska); (10) Tradition and Technology (Peach Springs School Society, Arizona); (11) Individual Student Learning Program (Rock Ledge District, Arizona); School District, Wisconsin); (12) Salmon River Central School Indian (13) Tohatchi High School Career Center (New Education Project (New York); (14) Student Support Services Project (University of Mexico); (15) Focus on Excellence Program (Wellpinit School Alaska-Fairbanks); District, Washington); and (16) Native American Student Services (University of Wisconsin-Madison). Appendices include contact information for agencies selecting exemplary programs, criteria for exemplary status in this directory, and criteria for NDN exemplary status. (SV) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. PROGRAMS IN N IAN JCA ION U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS Office of Educational Research and Improvement MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION . CENTER /ER/C/ ('.)'aver bean document has been reproduced as Necrus received born the person or organization Originating it O Moroi changes have been made to improve reproduction Quality Points 01 view or opinions stated in this doCui meat do not necessarily represent officrel TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES OEM positron or policy INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC).. DR. DEAN CHAVERS EDITOR MONICA CHAVERS COPY EDITOR cl BEST COPY AVAILABLE 2 SECOND EDITION 1996 Native American Scholarship Fund, Inc. 8200 Mountain Road, N. E., Suite 203 Albuquerque, NM 87110 (505) 262-2351 Fax: (505) 262-0534 Typesetting by Diane Cooka and Monica Chavers ©Copyright, 1996 3 Page I. INTRODUCTION 1 II. PROJECT DESCRIPTIONS 12 1. DROPOUT PREVENTION PROGRAM Cass Lake Local Indian Education Committee, MN 19 2. INDIAN HOMEWORK CENTERS Davis County Indian Parent Association, UT 38 3. ADULT EDUCATION PROGRAM Native American Multi Educational School (NAMES), CO 48 4. GANADO PRIMARY SCHOOL Ganado Primary School, AZ 61 5. COOL SCHOOL PROJECT Ganado Intermediate School, AZ 78 6. MESBEC SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM Native American Scholarship Fund, NM 94 7. MISSISSIPPI CHOCTAW ADULT EDUCATION PROGRAM Mississippi Choctaw Tribe, MS 99 8. TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT PROGRAM Mount Edgecumbe High School, AK 116 9. NATIONAL HONORS PROGRAM National American Indian Honor Society, AZ 126 10. TRADITION AND TECHNOLOGY Peach Springs School District, AZ 137 11. INDIVIDUAL STUDENT LEARNING PROGRAM Rock Ledge School District, WI 150 12. SALMON RIVER INDIAN EDUCATION PROJECT Salmon River Central School, NY 158 13. TOHATCHI HIGH SCHOOL CAREER CENTER Tohatchi High School, NM 165 14. STUDENT SUPPORT SERVICES PROJECT University of Alaska, Fairbanks AK 171 15. FOCUS ON EXCELLENCE PROGRAM Welipinit School District, WA 194 16. NATIVE AMERICAN STUDENT SERVICES University of Wisconsin, Madison WI 217 III. ADDENDA 1. List of National Exemplary Programs 2. Criteria for Exemplary Program status 3. Criteria for inclusion into NDN Exemplary status I. A Short History of Exemplary Programs What "Exemplary" Means magnificent programs This directory is about outstanding, well-above-the-norm, superb, It is about the high audience. in schools which have Indian students as their intended target in Indian Country's schools. success rate which is just starting to emerge It is not for others. The word "exemplary" means basically a thing which is an example which sets the standards for others. That we now have one of a kind, not unique, but a model Indian people. Just ten years ago, we at least 19 such programs is quite an accomplishment for had almost no exemplary programs. stellar, superlative, Some of the other words used with exemplary programs are outstanding, These words describe programs which do not even entertain pre-eminent, and magnificent. constantly on excellence, thoughts of mediocrity. Their heads are in the clouds, their minds are and their expectations are extremely high. in their These programs, by definition, are in the top five percent of education programs In the U. S. Department of In most cases, they are in the top one percent. outcomes. 222 Exemplary education Education, the National Diffusion Network, for example, lists only Indians are over-represented projects in the entire U. S.' Thus the ones listed here may mean Country. in the number of Exemplary programs which exist now in Indian by the outcomes it The Exemplary program, almost by definition, achieves its status It is not programs, practices, plans, and professional development. achieves with its students. exemplary way, and the program Any one of these elements may be present in a program, in an work, academic performance, and outcomes for students may not be exemplary. It is only in the that Exemplary status is achieved. from other students. They are Students in Exemplary programs have different behaviors high rates of attendance, often over 95% for the year. They eager to attend school. They have day. They take homework home every day; if they have are eager to learn. They study every They read dozens of books outside the curriculum, in no homework, they read books at home. It is not unusual to find an addition to the books assigned to them to read, every year. year-round. Exemplary student reading three to four books per week, and on that area alone. Four of Exemplary programs are generally focused on one area, comprehensive set of goals and objectives. the ones in this directory are schools which have a After that was thing well at first. However, in those four cases, the schools set out to do one in another area, then another, and so on. done well, the school then added another component Work." Longmont, Co.: ' Moore, Raven. "Education Programs That Sopris West, 1996. Most of the programs described are now so new that total, comprehensive reform is still a few years ahead. Only two of them started its new direction with total reform as its goal. Most Exemplary programs come from the bottom, apparently, and not from the top. That is, school boards and superintendents can mandate change, can come up with magnificent plans, and can find funds for the programs. This scenario has been followed hundreds of times, in Indian Country and elsewhere. But it seldom works in reality. In contrast, programs which are started from the bottom, by parents, teachers, students, and counselors, can work and work well. This is not to say that the principals and superintendents should not support such programs. They should support them, very strongly. Too often, the person who develops an Exemplary program and nurtures it through to full growth and maturity Thus the system kills its most promising children. is fired for his or her excellent work. It does not seem to matter to them if Change is dangerous, to the trustees of the system. outstanding or poor things are happening in the systems they inherit. School board members and school administrators almost always look upon themselves as the trustees of the schools and all their programs. They often insist that everyone in the system follow their rules. Thus often Exemplary programs are a threat because they do not follow the rules. The rules in Indian Country are that Indian students are not to be challenged by school work very much, their parents are to be excluded from the process, homework is to be given lightly if at all, and students will be educated for blue-collar work. We certainly hope that being featured in this Directory is not the kiss of death to any of the projects and schools we feature. Instead, we hope that more and more teachers, counselors, and principals will try to surpass what these ones have done and go even further in achieving exemplary outcomes. A Brief History of Indian Education Educating Indians was a rationale for the English, Dutch, Spanish, French, and other The Christian Europeans European settlers to leave Europe and settle in the New World. thought it highly important to bring education to the so-called "heathens" of the New World, in addition to finding gold, pearls, and other things which were to make them rich. Providing formal education to the American Indian was cited in the charters of the Virginia Colony and the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the early 1600's as justification for settling in the New World. The idea of "civilizing the savage" was used as the justification of establishing colonies at Plymouth Rock and at Jamestown. In both cases, the early settlers, soon after they had learned how to live in the New World, The charters of Dartmouth College, of the started efforts to provide education to Indians. College of William and Mary in Virginia, and of a few other early colleges, spelled out their role in educating Indians, among other things. Within less than a decade of the founding of the 2 Virginia Colony, Samson Occam, a native Virginia Indian, had been taken on a fund raising trip to England with his missionary sponsor. The Red Man'talking to English people in their own language impressed and amazed them. Money for education was raised on the trip, and a school for Indians was started inland in Virginia, near the present site of Henrico, near Richmond. A mission school for Indians had been established even earlier, in 1564, by the Spanish in Florida. The schools established for Indians by both the English and the Spanish were operated mainly by missionaries until after the Civil War. Almost no tax money was raised to pay for them. The funds were raised through contributions and subscriptions. Thus, while there was a great deal of interest in educating Indians from the very earliest history of the European settlement of the U. S., relatively little was done to imPleMent the programs of education. Mission schools for Indians in the 1600's, the 1700's, and the 1800's were small. Probably no more than 10,000 Indian children at any one time, out of a total Indian population of close to 10 million, attended these missionary schools. Missionary teachers often complained to their superiors about the difficulty of keeping Indian students at the schools. Either they escaped the schools and ran away back to their homes, or they died. Colds, influenza, pneumonia, and other respiratory diseases killed millions of Indians. Fighting to preserve their lands killed millions more. When the Indian wars were over, soon after the end of the Civil War, the federal government began its first full-fledged efforts to educate Indians. The leading denominations engaged in Indian work met in Philadelphia in 1867, and developed what came to be called "Grant's Peace Policy." President Grant adopted the policy wholeheartedly. It called for the confinement of Indians to reservations in the West, for their conversion to Christianity, and for their formal education. The alternatives then seemed to be total extermination, or genocide. Funding Grant's Peace Policy and its education component did not come about immediately, however. It took a strong leader, an Army captain named Richard Pratt, to convince the War Department and the Congress to take Indian education seriously. He was selected to be in charge of a delegation of Apache leaders who were captured in Arizona and imprisoned in Florida in 1876-77. While he had them in prison, Pratt began to teach them to read and write in English. They made such remarkable progress that the next year he was able to persuade his superiors and the Congress to let him transfer them to an abandoned Army base at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. The year after that, he "recruited" heavily on the Plains. The chiefs and headmen on reservations were told that their children had to go away to school. Then, when the children had been taken away, their parents were told to obey the orders of the Army officers and Indian agents who were there to guard them--if they wanted to see their children alive again. Most of the BIA schools which were established after Carlisle was operational were modelled after Carlisle. They were abandoned Army barracks (Fort Wingate, Fort Chilocco, Fort Carson). They adopted uniforms for students, and a quasi-military environment. ,Children were brought to the schools and boarded there, away from the supposed debilitating effects: of their parents on the reservations: They marched to classes. They sat in rows in the classrooms. 3 7 They were often made to work in the fields and shops to produce the things they ate and wore. They were forbidden to speak their languages. This system was often called bad names, one of the mildest of which was "captive education." Indian leaders and elders bitterly opposed it for It attempted to suppress the freedom the students living in a tribal environment had decades. learned. By the 1930's, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), which operates Indian education and most other Indian programs, had expanded its schools to include over 200 institutions. All along, though, mission schools for Indians had existed, and still exist today. In 1892, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs began a system of paying local public schools to educate Indian students which the BIA schools did not have room to house. By 1938, half the Indian students in the U. S. were in public schools. Today, public schools educate 82% of Indian students, and 12% are in BIA schools. Another 3% are in mission schools, and 3% are in contract schools. (Contract schools are BIA schools now operated by tribes under contract with the BIA.) BIA schools started as "pre-vocational" schools, and remain so today. Few if any of them, or the public schools on reservations, operate true pre-college programs. The result is that even the highest-achieving Indian students, leaving high schools with GPA's of 3.5 or 4.0, do not have the four years of math, English, science, and foreign language they need for success in college. Consequently, about 80% of them drop out of college before they are graduated. Few are fully prepared to be successful in the study of math, science, engineering, and computer science which are so badly needed in Indian Country. The Lack of Exemplary Indian Programs The public schools which now educate four out of five Indian students are modelled after the BIA's post-Civil War military-style boarding schools for Indians. New teachers either fit into the culture of the schools, and accept the customs and rules, or they resign and leave.2 Teachers do not realize, of course, that they are adopting the culture and the customs of their predecessors going back six generations. But one could make a case that they are. Some of the attributes of the public schools on or near reservations which have been inherited from the Civil War era are: o An emphasis on vocational/technical education for Indian students; o Discouraging parents of students from being involved with the schools; o Low expectations of students, as evidenced by: 2 Chavers, Dean. "Social Structure and the Diffusion of Innovations." Doctoral dissertation, Stanford University, 1976. 4 -- Not giving students much homework; Not requiring students to read books outside the required ones; Not challenging students to do their very best; -- Accepting low attendance rates for students. o Forbidding the speaking of Native languages in the classroom; o Lecturing to students as the only method of teaching; o Not preparing students for college; Accepting mediocrity from teachers and students; o Not communicating with the parents of students; o Accepting curriculum which is watered down, weak, and out of date. In the history of the National Diffusion Network (NDN), there have been only two Indian In the late 1970's, a Cherokee Right to Read project and a Cheyenne- programs featured. Arapaho Right to Read projects were featured in the annual directory of NDN Exemplary Projects.' The following year, both programs were not included in the directory, and no Indian programs have been in the directory since until this year. One of the programs in this Directory is included in the present NDN Catalogue Davis County. We hope more of them will apply and be accepted into the NDN program. There are now some 1,550 school facilities in Indian Country, and 840 of them are high schools. NASF has a goal of seeing at least 50 Exemplary Projects in Indian Education (EPIE) by the year 2000. Within ten years, we would like to see as many as 100 such projects. There are so many areas of improvement needed that anyone with the vision and the determination can develop an Exemplary project within three to five years. What is Necessary to Be an Exemplary Program Our review of Exemplary programs reveals that several things are included in the Exemplary package. Among the elements are: 1. Acknowledgement of the problem. Without knowing or wanting to know what problems exist, it is almost impossible to deal with them. When this author noted in a letter five years ago that one largely-Indian district had a 65% dropout rate for Indians, the 'Moore, op. cit. 5 Superintendent disagreed vehemently, saying, in effect, that it was none of his business. When the State of South Dakota acknowledged in 1992 that it had a 74% dropout rate for Indian students, Indian educators all over the state howled and disagreed; they stated publicly that the actual rate was not nearly this high. Pretending the problem does not exist will not make it go away. Whether it is lack of ability in English, or high dropout rates, or low attendance rates, or poor math scores, or poor reading ability, or the failure of Indian students to read regularly outside the classroom, it does no one any good to pretend that a problem does not exist. In most of the projects featured in this Directory, an explicit, open acknowledgement of the problem was made early along. 2. Set priorities for problems. Not all problems have the same importance. If students are not attending school regularly, it will do little good to initiate a college-prep program or a science program. Certainly an advanced math program will fail. In other words, first things have to come first. Paying attention to the basics--high attendance, high graduation rate, high levels of time on task, basic ability in reading, parent commitment- are sometimes necessary to address before a college-prep track can be implemented, for instance. This is not to say that multiple projects should not be implemented in a school. Our experience is that meaningful change and upgrading of a school only occurs when a multitude of projects are implemented over time. Having one project which is exemplary operating in isolation in a school in which no other changes are taking place is asking for defeat. But sequencing is important. We know of some projects which were on their way to being exemplary, but which died for lack of support because they did not have the things which should have come in advance. 3. Vision. This ability is one which lets the project leader see what the final outcomes are going to be for the affected students. It is absolutely essential. Without vision and leadership, it is unlikely that an exemplary program will develop anywhere. Much has been written and talked about in visionary terms. But no one has yet, it seems, been able to capture it on paper. We think of it simply as the ability to "see" in one's mind what the final outcomes will be for students, and then to develop ways for them to reach the outcomes. 4. Planning. What vision is to the qualitative aspects of life, planning is to the quantitative aspects. Both need to be present in developing exemplary outcomes. Planning requires one to bridge the gap from where students are now (the status quo) to where students could be (the vision). It is mechanical, simple, and can be understood by a wide variety of people. It also forces the planners to make choices. There are 6 10