May/August 2002 | NW REPORT

Improving the
Learning Climate for
Native Students

By acknowledging the cultural backgrounds of their American Indian and Alaska Native students, schools can create learning environments in which these students are most likely to succeed. To help schools foster such environments, the Laboratory worked with six Native education leaders to produce the guide, Learn-Ed Nations Inventory: A Tool for Improving Schools with American Indian and Alaska Native Students. These educators—a teacher, counselor, curriculum specialist, principal, superintendent, and tribal education director—urge schools to work with their local communities to define school-improvement plans that are informed by cultural context as well as education research.

To accompany the 1995 reauthorization of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the National Indian School Boards Association and the Effective Schools Team of the Bureau of Indian Affairs(BIA) produced Leadership Beyond the Seventh Generation: A Tool for Everyone Reforming Schools to be More Effective So All Children Will Learn. Title I has again been reauthorized as the Leave No Child Behind Act, with even greater emphasis upon the use of research and practice to improve low-performing schools. In the Northwest, where a large number of public schools serve American Indian and Alaska Native communities, the question was raised: Could there be a set of tools developed for Northwest schools to parallel the BIA material?

Laboratory staff members determined that, indeed, tools for informing such an improvement process could be created. The resulting publication, Learn-Ed Nations Inventory, is grounded in the research base provided by William Demmert's synthesis Improving Academic Performance Among Native American Students (www.ael.org/eric/demmert.htm), as well as the cumulative expertise of master Northwest Native educators. The guide is an open-ended workbook, rather than a set of prescriptive solutions, providing a process by which school staff and community members can inventory a school's assets, needs, and cultural responsiveness in nine key areas: planning and visioning for improvement, leadership, parents/community, school climate/policy, instructional practice, assessment, professional development, facilities, and resources.

The intent is for school staff members to have an open dialogue with American Indian and Alaska Native students, parents, and other community members to determine what is important and why in incorporating expectations for self-determination into a public school improvement plan.

The guide is particularly appropriate for public school board members, administrators, teachers, and community members in or near American Indian and Alaska Native communities. It follows the recent release of the fifth edition of the 2002 Native Education Directory (www.ael.org/eric/ned/), published by the ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools at AEL, Inc., and the National Indian Education Association, providing educators with timely tools and resources for improving education for Native students. To request a free copy of Learn-Ed Nations Inventory, phone 503-275-9720 or e-mail info@nwrel.org.

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Improving the Learning Climate for Native Students

Improving the
Learning Climate for
Native Students