- Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black
HELENA - Montana educators and lawmakers face some excruciating questions when it comes to deciding the course of Indian education in the state.
But what will it cost? What will be taught? Who's going to teach it?
It's an “enormity of tasks,” said Joyce Silverthorne, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes education director. “But it's possible. It's doable. There is a place to start and we can start.”
The current dilemma has been sparked by renewed interest in adhering to Montana's unique Constitution, the only one in the country committed to preserving the cultural integrity of Native peoples through education. Meanwhile, state lawmakers have been forced through the courts to create an equitable funding system for quality education, including Indian education for all students.
It's up to the Legislature's Quality Schools Interim Committee to help determine those costs. Committee members listened to more than a dozen people present testimony on how to breathe life into a failed mandate.
“When people look back at the 2005 session - and the special session if there is one - I hope history includes a look at what those legislators did to implement the Indian Education for All Act and to close the achievement gap,” said Rep. Carol Juneau, D-Browning. “Can you imagine what Montana will look like when we have 80 percent of kids graduating from high school?”
A recent Harvard study showed 82 percent of white students graduated from high school, compared to 51 percent of Native students. In Montana, 48 percent of Native students graduate from the state's public school system.
Juneau told members of the Quality Schools Interim Committee that they have a chance to change history. “It's going to take money,” she said.
Friday's Indian education seminar at the state Capitol, organized by the Center for the Rocky Mountain West and the Tribal Leaders Institute, provided a broad forum for issues, ranging from closing the Native achievement gap to the role higher education will play in carrying out Indian education to why anyone should learn about Native people.
Juneau, who sponsored the 1998 Indian Education for All Act, a reminder to lawmakers about Montana's Constitution, suggested the interim committee should appropriate money for Indian education into two categories: the achievement gap and teaching Native culture and history.
In an Oct. 15 report prepared for the Interim Committee and the state Legislature, R.C. Wood and Associates put a $21.2 million estimate on the cost of implementing Indian education. The report will be given to the committee on Monday.
The projected cost includes a $5.1 million “achievement gap” pilot project and $16.1 million to implement Indian Education for All.
So far, the Legislature has allocated $4.4 million for Indian education, which includes money for the K-12 system and tribal college history projects.
But none of the estimates include the money needed in higher education to create professionals who know how to teach Native culture and history. Paul Rowland, dean of the School of Education at the University of Montana, estimated it will cost $31 million for the state university system to provide teachers with professional development opportunities and to strengthen university curricula.
“If we are serious and if we believe teachers will make changes, that's the cost,” said Rowland.
Missoula County Public Schools Trustee Teresa Jacobs sat in the House Chambers Friday listening to speakers talk about how the state could breathe life into the Montana Constitution.
When Jacobs had the chance to ask panelists a question, she repeated a question she hears frequently: Why should non-Native students learn about Native culture and history, as opposed to opening a book that reflects the dominant culture's European history?
For Native education advocates in the chambers, it was question they've also heard before. Laurie Smith, a Missoula parent and educator, said most people forget that Native people are the only group in the United States with a unique political status. Native people have a land-based culture, a privilege derived from being the country's original landowners, she said.
Great Falls attorney Steve Doherty prefers to point to the legal obligations of Indian education directives outlined in federal treaties with Montana tribes, the Montana Constitution, the Indian Education for All Act, a U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report, the 1st District Judicial Court and the Montana Supreme Court.
It's time, said Doherty, for the state to pay attention to the lawsuits won by Native education advocates.
“If this isn't done, the plaintiffs will be back in court,” he said. “That's not a threat. It's a reality.”
Reporter Jodi Rave can be reached at 523-5299 or at jodi.rave@missoulian.com
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