Bolstering

Native Students'

Success

"I left high school with a whisper, not a bang." So begins the story of a Yakama woman who dropped out of school at 15, full of academic promise but isolated from her white classmates and ignored by culturally insensitive instructors. Sadly, it's an all-too-familiar scenario in a country where 3 out of 10 American Indian and Alaska Native students fail to complete secondary school.

Efforts to stem the number of dropouts and infuse the educational system with culturally relevant material are explored in the latest issue of Northwest Education, "Native Students: Balancing Two Worlds." It highlights programs to recruit and train Native educators; ways to connect tribal communities and schools; and curricula built around indigenous languages and traditional practices.

The publication points out that hundreds of research studies focus on culturally based education (CBE), yet only a handful have yielded scientific evidence that CBE boosts achievement among Native students. However, noted researcher William Demmert, a Western Washington University professor and Tlingit tribal member, believes "when the research is done, whether it's experimental or high-quality quasi-experimental, there will be a connection." Demmert says, "From my observations and experiences as an educator for more than 30 years, I clearly see a tie between academic performance and culturally based education."

That strong belief is fueling Washington state's Canoes on Puget Sound: A Curriculum Model for Culture-Based Academic Studies and thematic units that blend modern state standards with Yup'ik traditions in Southwest Alaska. Northwest Education reports on those programs, as well as efforts in Montana to immerse youngsters in their ancestors' language. As Eva Boyd, a teacher of Salish, says, "If we don't keep the language alive our tribe is going down. Without the language we won't be Indians any more."

"Native Students: Balancing Two Worlds" can be found online at .www.nwrel.org/nwedu/09-03/