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“The population is also among the most at risk: Underachievement and limited emotional support at school can contribute to a number of negative outcomes for Native youths — even suicide. Among people 18 to 24, Native Americans have the highest rate of suicide in the nation: 23 per 100,000, compared with 15 per 100,000 among white youths.
Citing these factors, in 2014, the Obama administration declared Native youths and their education to be in a “state of emergency.”
While the Interior Department’s Bureau of Indian Education runs about 180 Native-only schools, more than 90 percent of Native students attend integrated public schools near or on reservations, like Wolf Point. A wealth of rarely tapped data documents their plight.
In public schools, white students are twice as likely as Native students to take at least one advanced placement course, and Native students are more than twice as likely to be suspended, according to an analysis of federal civil rights data conducted by ProPublica and The New York Times. Native students also score lower than nearly all other demographic groups on national tests, and only 72 percent of Native students graduate, the lowest of any demographic group.
– The New York Times, Learning With: ‘“I Feel Invisible”: Native Students Languish in Public Schools’.
“A year and a half after receiving a detailed complaint from tribal leaders, the Education Department plans to investigate their accusations that the Wolf Point School District in Montana discriminates against Native American students.
In a Dec. 28 letter, sent hours after The New York Times and ProPublica published an investigation into racial inequities in the district, the department’s Office for Civil Rights notified the lawyer representing the tribal executive board of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in eastern Montana that it would look into the complaint. The board includes members of the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes. Native American and mixed-race students make up more than three-quarters of Wolf Point’s enrollment.
According to the letter, the investigation will focus on whether Wolf Point schools discipline Native students more harshly than white students, shunt them into remedial programs without appropriate cause, and deny them special education evaluations and services.
The department said it would also examine whether the district failed to respond to a parent’s accusations that a Native student was racially harassed. The student was not identified in the tribal complaint or in the letter.”
– The New York Times , U.S. to Investigate Discrimination Against Native Students on Montana Reservation.
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Indian Country 52
Indian Country 52 is a weekly project by David Bernie that uses the medium of posters that promote issues and stories in Indian Country. Follow the series: Indian Country 52
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