APPENDIX MAJOR GOALS OF THE DIVISION OF EDUCATION BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS (1) To improve the health of students. (2) To improve the curriculum and schools. (3) To expand vocational and technical education programs. (4) To extend education for children at both ends of the spectrum by providing kindergartens as rapidly as possible and, at the same time, making junior college, and full college education freely available to greater number of students. (5) To reduce class size by providing more classrooms, more teachers, and more teacher aids and para-professionals to help teachers. (6) To imbue the entire Bureau school system with an increased respect for American Indian history and culture. (7) To extend Pupil Personnel Services to all students. CHARLES ZELLERS. Assistant Commissioner (Education). ALBUQUERQUE AREA PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION The task of Education is to help provide the opportunity for every child: To develop and to maintain sound health in body and in mind. To maintain pride in his heritage and to have respect for that certain body of tradition his people value enough to preserve from generation to generation. To develop and to practice a code of moral ethics acceptable to himself and to the society in which he lives. To acquire such social skills as will contribute to the prudent use of leisure, to contentment, and to the ability to function effectively with others socially or at work. To learn the art of straight thinking, to recognize a problem when he meets one, and how to attack it in order to arrive at the most satisfactory solution possible. To develop a scientific, inquiring mind which will lead to continuous growth and learning. To develop to the limit his intellectual and creative ability, the end result being a self-supporting, self-respecting, contributing citizen who can participate in the national life equally with his fellowman. In summary, the philosophy is to develop each personality to its full stature and maturity, and to equip each individual with the abilities, skills, and understandings which will permit him to live harmoniously, productively, and happily in a changing democratic society. A MODERN PHILOSOPHY FOR INDIAN EDUCATION BASIC PREMISE 1. Growing acknowledgment of the need for education among the tribes. 2. The apparent willingness on the part of the tribes to integrate their ethnic linguistic, political, economic, and social assets with those of the predominating culture. 3. Increasing realistic awareness of the political, material, and scientific world. 4. The problem of population growth is common to all tribes; its concomitant social, economic, health, and moral questions need resolving. The above basic premise presents a challenge to education. There is an apparent need perhaps for outlining a new philosophy that will facilitate this transitional integration. The Indian and its numerous, diverse, ethnic cultures, find a parallel in the Middle East where 200 million people are endeavoring to establish their position in the world community. PHILOSOPHY The educational base should be broadened to make education the meeting place of all cultures, where the following could be effectively consummated, 1. Understanding and emphasis on similarities rather than differences. 2. To broaden attainable horizons, specifically as well as generally. 3. To give them the skills, technology to equip them for full realization of potentials. 4. To study moral values to integrate ethnic differences in this respect. 5. To understand and evaluate urban and rural living in this modern world, particularly in relation to communication, health, and citizenship. Samuel Rosenberg 1. Number of Indian students enrolled: Bordertown program (Navajos) - Regular program (Navajos) -- Regular program (Other Tribes) - Total Navajos_-_ Total Enrollment_ 323 244 177 567 744 2. A tribal breakdown and reservations from which the students come: Other Tribes-Total Enrollment-(All under the Albuquerque Area) Eligibility for Admission.-Children otherwise eligible who meet one or more of the criteria listed below may be admitted to Federal boarding schools: A. Education criteria (1) Those for whom a public or Federal day school is not available. Walking distance to school or bus transportation is defined as one mile for elementary children and 11⁄2 miles for high school. (2) Those who need special vocational or preparatory courses, not available to them locally, to fit them for gainful employment. Eligibility under this criterion is limited to students of high school grades 9 through 12. (3) Those retarded scholastically three or more years or those having pronounced bilingual difficulties, for whom no provision is made in available schools. B. Social criteria (1) Those who are rejected or neglected for whom no suitable plan can be made. (2) Those who belong to large families with no suitable home and whose separation from each other is undesirable. (3) Those whose behavior problems are too difficult for solution by their families or through existing community facilities and who can benefit from the controlled environment of a boarding school without harming other children. (4) Those whose health or proper care is jeopardized by illness of other members of the household. B. Busby Boarding School, Busby, Montana 1. EVALUATION OF BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS BOARDING SCHOOL, BUSBY, MONT., BY DR. ARTHUR L. MCDONALD AND DR. WILLIAM D. BLISS Senator EDWARD M. KENNEDY, MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY, Chairman, Special Subcommittee on Indian Education, Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: As I am uncertain about a proper format for this report, I will allow myself to be somewhat informal and trust that you will incorporate this material into your report in any way that is most appropriate and helpful. To take up one at a time, the points raised in your letter to me dated December 4, 1968; with regard to the availability of reliable information and/or data on the educational problems and performance of Indian students and the schools they attend in Montana, it appears that there is practically none. I am sure that this is not literally true; I am still firm in the faith that there must have been some M.A., Ph. D., or D. Ed. papers done on this problem in Montana but we have not come upon them in the brief time available to us. Five years from now, the situation will be different; there are master's degree studies being conducted now on the Crow reservation by Montana State University students (about which I shall say more later) and there are several other data collection programs underway in the State but none completed and published that we have found out about. A cynic would be tempted to say that the interest of Montanans in Montana Indian education has exhibited a remarkably high correlation with the availability of Federal money to study the problem, and the availability of Federal funds is of too recent origin for our new found interest in the plight of the red man to have borne fruit. With regard to point 2 of your letter, I have called the Reverend Auer in order to find out whether he is going to provide you with what you need but have so far been unable to reach him. As to the third point, Dr. Arthur L. McDonald of the university and myself visited the Busby School on December 16 last. We spoke at considerable length with the Bureau of Indian Affairs Supervisor of Educational Programs, Mr. Weston; the Busby High School principal, Mr. A. P. Chinn; the Busby Elementary School principal, Mr. Dave Doyle; and with the heads of the boys and girls dormitories respectively, Mr. Sheehan and Mrs. Shurig. Among other things which became apparent during our discussions with the above individuals was the fact that an accurate and complete picture of the situation at the Busby School was not to be developed in 2 days; perhaps in 2 weeks, certainly in 2 months, but not conceivably in 2 days. The key man in the educational situation was pleasant, patient, outwardly cooperative, and totally unhelpful. He denied the existence of information which we later found to be immediately available in the school files; he denied the availability in usable form of any of the factual type of information which we requested; he denied the existence of anything that could be called a critical or significant problem in the operation of the school. His attitude made it apparent that it would be necessary for us to go through the school files drawer by drawer in order to obtain "hard" data; the attached report, therefore, is primarily based on our extensive discussions with the above-named individuals, briefer discussions with teachers, students, and aides, and our own observations. Concerning point 4: We have asked Dr. Elnora Wright of the faculty of College of Education of Montana State University, who is administering a program of developmental testing of Indian and nonIndian pupils on and near the Crow reservation in southern Montana to prepare a statement based on her work and her observations. We also requested statements from two people we knew to be very interested in the problems of Montana Indian education, the superintendent of schools for Big Horn County (which contains the major portion of the Crow and Northern Cheyenne reservations), Mr. E. W. Hubley, and the Big Horn County representative to the State legislature, Mr. E. W. Christensen. Neither felt that he could provide a written statement but we interviewed both of them, Mr. Hubley very extensively and Mr. Christensen somewhat less so, and we include, as attachments, summaries of the points of view, conclusions, and recommendations of each of these men. We received a number of very clear impressions ourselves as a result of our 2 days of interviews and discussions in the Busby-Hardin area, our conversations with people in the State who have been concerned in one way or another with Indian programs and our examination of available documentation of Indian education programs and problems in Montana. These overall impressions of ours are as follows: 1. The Busby School is relatively ordinary in every respect. It is not doing a particularly good job of educating its pupils, but then neither is its public school counterpart at Hardin just off the reservation. It is not doing any kind of a job of rehabilitating the misfit children in its boarding school program; but then it was not designed, funded or staffed as a mental health clinic. The Busby School, both day and boarding, seems to be operating primarily as a custodial institution, designed and functioning to give Indian children something apparently relevant to do until they are 18 years old while creating a minimum of strain and anxiety for all concerned-pupils, parents and staff. In the light of our third comment, below, this does not seem to us to be either unrealistic or unfair under present circumstances. 2. Working to get an education represents at least two very important things to an Indian pupil. First, it represents an investment of faith in the white man-"a white man's education will lead to a better life." Unless the Indian pupil does believe that, there is no point in his making an effort in school; however, not only does an Indian have 400 years of precedence for the considered opinion that faith in the white man is disastrous in general, he has the evidence of each class graduating from his school that faith in the white man would be stupid in |