Northwest Education: Native Students: Balancing Two Worlds
Spring 2004
The statistics are alarming: more than a third of all Native American students don't finish high school. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the high school completion rate in Northwest states ranges between 55 and 65 percent. In Oregon and Alaska, Native students are twice as likely to drop out as their white, non-Hispanic peers. In Montana, they're three times as likely.
As a result, efforts are under way across the region to stem the tide of youth leaving school without diplomas. Many of these programs seek to salve past injuries and engage the entire community in keeping students in school.
"We're looking at ways to foster trust and a relationship not only with the child, but with their family and their community," explains Julie Cajune, Indian education coordinator for the Ronan-Pablo School District in Montana. "Distrust is a community issue, not just a school issue. We need to recognize there are wounds in order for healing to take place."
The Ronan effort, funded by a $255,000 grant from the Kellogg Foundation, is directed by a steering committee representing the entire community: elders, school staff, business leaders, working people, and even middle and high school students. After conducting exit interviews with students who chose to leave school, the committee developed several strategies to address the most common causes.
Since teen pregnancy is one of the leading reasons, a child care facility now operates in a building donated by the tribe, enabling young parents to stay in school. To help failing students, computerized classes are offered after school so they can make up lost credits and still graduate with their peers. A mentoring program using community volunteers targets sixth-graders and high school freshmen because those are difficult transition years.
Because research shows that feeling connected to just one adult at school can increase a student's chances for academic success, faculty members meet daily with small groups of eight to 10 students and engage them in out-of-school activities throughout the year. These activities have included rafting, rock climbing, and camping trips, as well as community service projects such as tutoring elementary students or shoveling snow for elders.
"The idea," says Cajune, "is to build a community of belonging."
The approach seems to be working. A student Cajune describes as "never excited about school—let alone talking about a school activity" enthusiastically flags down Cajune in the library to show her photos of his school-sponsored rafting trip. Quantitative data are beginning to support the qualitative: During the program's first year, the dropout rate for American Indian students in the district fell below the rate for non-Native students for the first time in years, perhaps ever.
A similar effort, the Montana American Indian Dropout Prevention Program, targets other Native communities in the state. Funded by a $300,000 federal grant, the program involves a two-tiered approach at the state and local levels.
At the state level, an advisory council is using existing data to develop a comprehensive plan for student retention. "Essentially, (it's) a research agenda to look at different practices that could help," explains Lori Falcon, the Indian education specialist with Montana's Office of Public Instruction who oversees the project. The council is studying the accreditation process for alternative programs and reexamining absenteeism policies to make them more culturally sensitive. For example, when an extended family member dies, a Native student may miss several days of school due to the cultural traditions of his tribe, potentially causing him to lose credits and fall behind.
Studying achievement data has been helpful in pinpointing trouble spots for Native youth, says Falcon. Though Indian students often enter kindergarten with lower English proficiency than their non-Indian classmates, early literacy activities can close the gap. However, "at eighth grade, we see a real drop in achievement," reports Falcon. "Somewhere between fourth and eighth grade, the whole phenomenon of oppositional identity comes up."
She explains that as young Native people begin forming their identity, they often find their traditional values—beliefs that come from family, home, and community —at odds with the values they are encouraged to adopt in school. "Middle school is a tough time for all kids, but especially for Indian kids. They start disengaging," she says. "It's in ninth and 10th grade when they start dropping out."
To combat that, six middle and high schools located primarily on Montana reservations—Browning, Heart Butte, Rocky Boy, Box Elder, Lame Deer, and Poplar—have received approximately $40,000 each to develop local retention strategies.
As in Ronan, approaches here involve developing community partnerships, mentoring, adding classes in tribal culture, and building a day-care facility in at least one school. Efforts are also under way to improve the collection and use of data, including a survey of 12th-grade students to learn what has helped them stay in school.
While the program is currently looking at short-term strategies for students on the verge of dropping out, Falcon has her hopes set on some long-term solutions. She suggests policy changes like extending the age range for public education programs from two to 21 years old. That would allow for the establishment of preschool programs to boost school preparedness as well as alternative programs to help young adults return to school and obtain their diplomas into their early 20s.
In Juneau, Alaska, alternative high school Yaakoosgé Daakahidi—Tlingit for "House of Knowledge"—offers students who have been unsuccessful in the mainstream a "last chance" to achieve their diploma before pursuing a GED or leaving school entirely. With a small staff and just 90 students, Principal Ronalda Cadiente reports the school has been successful in creating an atmosphere where kids who may feel lost or invisible in a large traditional high school are able to find a connection. According to Cadiente, it's a common problem for Tlingit students, who make up about half of Yaakoosgé Daakahidi's population.
The program offers both structured and independent classes to meet the needs of its students. That may mean allowing them to make up missed credits or arrange their schedules to accommodate working and caring for children. But, staff and program graduates say, the key is the personal attention and support students receive.
"What's working?" Cadiente asks. "Most obvious are a smaller learning environment and a less formal student/teacher relationship. Students connect with our staff and know that we care about their growth and progress." Cadiente says community involvement and cultural inclusion are also important in serving Native students.
Evidence of the program's success lies in the numbers: The school awards an average of 35 diplomas per year. "Kids are graduating," says Cadiente, "and these are kids who otherwise would not have."
In Washington, a dropout prevention program goes a step further to help students not only complete high school, but get a jump on a college education. The Early College High School Initiative for Native Youth is part of a broader national effort for minority students, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others. It helps secondary students obtain both a diploma and an Associate of Arts degree in their own high school—with an added 13th year—thus removing financial and other barriers to advancing their education. Antioch University Seattle coordinates the Washington effort.
Linda Campbell, an Antioch professor and project director, says she had initial concerns the program might be perceived by the Native community as "the white man trying to do more in less time" for their children, so she approached tribal leaders at the outset for their opinion of the early college concept. There was "unanimous excitement" about the potential, and tribal leaders have been instrumental in helping design what the program looks like in practice.
Last year, Medicine Wheel Academy in Spokane, Ferndale High School in Ferndale, and Tulalip Heritage School in Marysville were selected as the first participants. This year, two more organizations joined the program: the Wellpinit School District on the Spokane reservation and the Suquamish tribe, which plans to start an early college high school. Additional sites will be added next year.
Though each school and its college partner have a unique program, all must include local, culturally relevant curriculum; family and community engagement; and academic advising and support. "Often, there's a strong remedial/special education focus" to programs targeting minority students, says Campbell. "(Instead), we're setting high expectations."
Students are rising to the challenge. At Ferndale, math teachers were surprised by unusually high grades, says Campbell. "In talking, they realized kids were working so hard because of the motivation of early college."
Campbell cites statistics from the Manhattan Institute showing the high school dropout rate for Native students in Washington is 52 percent. She believes that number is an underestimate "because there's no tracking of kids from fifth to sixth grade or in middle school." Native students also have the lowest college completion rates of any ethnic group in the country.
"There appear to be 9,000 to 10,000 Native students in middle and high school in Washington. Our initiative will reach more than 1,000," Campbell observes. She adds hopefully, "We think this initiative may serve to transform college achievement in a single generation."
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