By Bill Lawrence and Clara NiiSka

The chart on page 6 chronicles American Indian students’ basic skills test results from the thirty-six state school districts and tribal schools which educate the majority of Indian students in Minnesota.  According to the data provided to Press/ON by the Department of Children, Families & Learning, there has been a gradual increase in the rate of Indian students’ passing the tests.  In 1998 and 1999, 38% of the students who took both tests passed them; this year the “pass” rate had increased four percentage points to 42%.

The total number of eighth-grade Indian students tested is small, and varies slightly from year too year.  This year, 1180 students were tested in math, and 1252 in reading; in previous years less than 1200 students were tested.  Thus, the increase does not indicate a solid statistical trend, and at least some of the apparent improvement may come from certain students not taking the tests, rather than from an actual increase in basic skills levels.  For example, Minneapolis public schools tested 190 Indian eighth-graders in 1998, but during 2000 only tested 131.  Also, not all of the students took both tests, more schools are being tested, and some of the schools which gave the basic skills test in previous years did not test year, or the test scores were not reported.

A slight success for State schools is one way of interpreting the numbers.  Another way of looking at that data is that almost two thirds of the Indian students in Minnesota either did not take, or failed, the basic skills test in math this year, and that about half of this next generation cannot read.

And, as the debate about how to improve Indian education continues in the public forum, nearly 700 Indian kids are privately coping with a perhaps all-too-familiar label—“failure”—even though the fault for their failure lies more heavily with the educational system and the community, than it does with eighth-grade kids.

What’s wrong?  The problem is not money: Red Lake, the school district with the highest rate of failure, spent almost six thousand dollars per pupil on “regular instruction” last year, $2,534 more than the statewide average—and Pine Point spent $7,444 per pupil on regular instruction.  The problem is not in-school discrimination, nor lack of Indian control over school—almost all of the students at Red Lake are Indians, as is the school board.  The problem is not a lack of multicultural education, nor is it old and crumbling schools: Red Lake and some of the other heavily-Indian schools have extensive “cultural” programs and expensive new school buildings.

No few Indian parents and grandparents at Red Lake are sharply critical of the amount of time taken away from basic education by cultural programs.  “Children should learn culture from their parents and community” and the schools should focus on “the three Rs.”  About a fifth of Red Lake parents have chosen to bus their children to school in Bemidji, where the curriculum is more strongly oriented toward teaching children basic skills.  Some grandparents point out that thirty years ago—before the emphasis on “culture”—the Red Lake schools and other mostly-Indian schools were “about average,” The majority of Indian students got a “reasonable education,” and left school able to read, write and do basic math.

During the Spring of 1999, Press/ON published a series of articles and letters addressing the educational system’s failing Indian students.  Based upon the most recent test scores, there has only been a slight improvement, or perhaps a manipulation of the test scores by “teaching for the tests,” and/or not testing the poor students.  The issue remains the most serious concern facing the Indian community, and Press/ON encourages community participation in addressing the issue.