PREPARED STATEMENT OF KAREN J. FUNK, LEGISLATIVE The National Indian Education Association is pleased to present testimony before this Committee on Department of Education programs as they apply to Indian and Alaska Native people. The Department of Education has a much greater effect on Indian schools than on public schools generally. By the term "Indian schools", we refer to tribal contract and grant, BIA and public schools with large numbers of Indian students. Only 7% of funding spent on education in this country is federal money, but for Indian schools federal monies are the primary source of funding. Federal budget cuts and sequestrations have an immediate and negative impact on Indian schools. Indian Education Act, Chapter 1 and Impact Aid monies are the funding foundation for Indian schools. For Bureau-funded elementary and secondary schools, the funding from the BIA also plays a significant role in those schools' budgets. The National Department of Education Initiatives. Indian Education Association held its annual conference in Anchorage earlier this month, and Secretary of Education Cavazos participated in that conference. In his keynote address to the NIEA members, the Secretary announced two very welcome initiatives: (1) the creation of an Indian/Alaska Native education database, and (2) a study of Indian/Alaska Native education. NIEA and others in the Indian education field have been advocating for some time for the creation and upkeep of an Indian education database. While we have statistical information specific to certain schools or areas, often our data is out of date, not national in scope and/or is not broken down in such a way as to be as useful as it might be, i.e., divisions of information by tribal, BIA, public, private, on-reservation and off-reservation categories. Education statistics frequently include no Indian/Alaska Native information or, as in the case of a recent National Center for Education Statistics Report, classified everyone as either Black, White, or Hispanic, with "Hispanic" being everyone who is not black or white. In our communications with the Department of Education concerning the database, we will ask that care be taken to -2 coordinate the Department's efforts with others who may be engaged in research and survey work so that unnecessary duplication does not occur. The Secretary specifically mentioned that one focus of the research would be the Indian/Alaska Native dropout rate. This is information we are particularly eager to have. However, the National Education Association and Arizona State University have been planning to jointly undertake such an effort, and we would want the Department of Education's and the NEA/ASU efforts to be complimentary. NIEA is also eager that there be Native input into the design of the Department of Education's data gathering efforts so that the products are of the greatest possible benefit to schools and to tribal, state and federal governments. Secretary Cavazos said he intends the study on Indian/ Alaska Native education be comparable to the landmark "A Nation at Risk" report and, indeed, will entitle the study "Indian Nations at Risk." The report, which is scheduled to be completed in one year, is intended to look at the status of education for Indian and Alaska Native people and to identify and analyze programs that succeed and those that fail. Secretary Cavazos told the NIEA conferees that his hope is that the study will help develop an action plan for Indian education and feed into the deliberations of the White House Conference on Indian Education. Bureau-funded Schools' Access to DOE Programs. NIEA is disturbed by the inconsistent treatment Bureau-funded schools receive under the law and under Department of Education legal interpretations regarding eligibility for DOE grant programs. Often the laws authorizing DOE grant programs are silent or vague or narrowly interpreted with regard to Bureau-funded schools' eligibility for funding. Efforts by the Association of Navajo Community Controlled Schools Boards (ANCCSB) and NIEA to bring this issue to the attention of the Department of Education may bring some good results. The Department ruled this year that Bureau-funded schools are not eligible for the Even Start Program. While the law is not explicit on this point, we felt that there was a legal case that the schools are eligible for the program. That experience, however, resulted in a request by ANCCSB and NIEA that the Department survey all of its grant programs in the Division of Elementary and Secondary Education and let us know for which grant programs they feel Bureau-funded schools are eligible, for which they are not eligible and those for which we need legal clarification. The Department agreed to this request and we expect the survey to be available in the near future. We expect to then prepare a legislative package of amendments which will clarify the eligibility of Bureau-funded schools for a number of grant programs currently denied them. -3 The support of the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs will be critical to this legislative effort, and we look forward to working with you on this matter. Vocational Education. NIEA testified before this Committee, September 15th, on vocational education legislation. We will not repeat that testimony here, but want to reemphasize the fact that under current law Bureau-funded schools have to compete annually for a limited pot of vocational education monies. Under the House-passed vocational education bill, H.R. 7, public secondary schools will receive vocational education monies based primarily on their number of Chapter 1 and Handicapped-eligible students, while Bureau-funded secondary schools will have to compete with other Indian organizations for monies. Certainly all the Bureau-funded secondary schools, if they were defined as LEAS, would automatically qualify under H.R. 7 for funding. We have been working with your Committee on getting language in the Senate's version of the vocational education legislation which would provide Bureau-funded schools a stable funding base of vocational education monies. NIEA supports the formula in HR. 7 for distribution of vocational education monies to public schools, and feels that it will benefit public schools with Native students. Indian Education Act Programs. NIEA urges the Department to fill the position of Director for the Office of Indian Education as soon as possible, and to fill the vacancies in that office utilizing Indian preference. NIEA adopted a resolution at its recent conference supporting the choice for Director pursuant to the priorities of the National Advisory Council on Indian Education. We seem to be in a perpetual state of limbo at the Office of Indian Education (and at the BIA's Office of Indian Education Programs) because of people working in acting capacities and because of unfilled positions. Funding for the Indian Education Act (Title V), the major Indian-specific program in the Department of Education, has not kept up with inflation. If funding for the Indian Education Act had increased commensurate with an average rate of education inflation of 7.5% since FY1981 when the appropriation was $81.6 million, the program would now be receiving $155 million instead of the $74 million FY1990 appropriation. An example of increased costs which the Title V programs have had to absorb is fringe benefits. A Title V program in Washington reports to us that mandatory costs increases for fringe benefits for personnel have doubled in the past five years, but no funds have been made available to cover this specific cost. The result has been people laid off and positions not filled even though the number of students being served by the program has increased. -4 NIEA supports the efforts of Alaska Natives to have a regional Resource and Evaluation Center established in Alaska. Currently, there are five regional Resource and Evaluation Centers which provide technical assistance to Indian Education grantees, LEAS, SEAS, Tribes and Indian Organizations. The DOE contracts for these Centers under the authority of the Indian Education Act. The regional Center which serves Alaska is in Spokane, Washington. That Center also serves the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Alaska has 48 Indian Education program grantees with 21,501 eligible students plus there are other potential grantees within the State. However, only 25% of the 48 current Alaska grantees have ever received services from their regional Resource and Evaluation center. We believe that geographic considerations make it imperative that a regional Resource and Evaluation Center be located in Alaska. We understand that the travel costs last year associated with travel from the regional Center in Spokane was $40,000. This is not an efficient use of money and it would be better spent in providing direct services in Alaska. The Department of Education is currently accepting comments on a pre-soliciation notice to establish a Resource and Evaluation Center in Alaska, and we urge your support for the establishment of this Center. NIEA would like the Department to work with Indian tribes and organizations to develop a requirement that students receiving Indian Education Act fellowships be required to work for a certain period of time in programs which serve Indian or Alaska Native people. The IHS scholarship and loan repayment programs carry this type of requirement, and we believe it is appropriate to ask recipients of Indian Education Act fellowships to do likewise. Our final comment on the Indian Education Act programs is a word of appreciation to the Office of Indian Education for changing the Adult Education Grants back to a three-year cycle. The program used to be funded on a 3-year staggered basis, but in recent years was changed to a 2-year cycle. Two-year programs do not provide an adequate amount of time for Native people who are learning to read and write to complete their GEDS. Termination of the programs at the end of two years has caused many people to not complete their courses of study. NIEA testified on this matter in our FY1990 appropriations testimony, and we appreciate the quick response of the Department of Education. Adult Education. NIEA supports amending the Adult Education Act to provide a 2% allocation of monies to tribes and tribal organizations. Currently, funding goes to states who do not generally provide monies to tribes. The FY1990 appropriation for adult education grants to states under the Adult Educa -5 tion Act is $160 million, up from a FY1989 funding level of $136 million. Many laws contain tribal allocations of monies. Direct allocation of federal monies to tribal governments is consistent with their legal status. In addition, education, social and other programs can better serve Indian and Alaska Native people if they are tribally designed and administered. NIEA advocates for a study of the number of Native adults and the level of education services being provided by the DOE and the BIA to Native adults. We need better statistical information and evaluation of projects in order to prepare for the next reauthorization of the Indian Education Act in 1993. We also suggest that a National Technical Assistance Center for Indian Adults be established. Adult education grantees are scattered throughout the country, and there is no way that each grantee or the Resource Centers can each hire a person with expertise in Indian/Alaska Native adult education. A National Technical Assistance Center for Indian Adults would fill this need in a cost-efficient manner. Gifted and Talented. P.L. 100-297 authorized the establishment at the tribal colleges of two Gifted and Talented Centers dedicated to provide research and assistance for gifted and talented programs for Native people. The establishment of these Centers is critical to any serious effort to provide services to Native gifted and talented students. We need to programmatically test the gifted and talented identification procedures, apply recently-developed concepts in the gifted and talented area, develop in-school and alternate school programs, follow the progress of gifted and talented students and initiate research in teaching methodologies for Native gifted and talented students. The Office of Indian Education had $500,000 in FY1989 monies to begin working on a Gifted and Talented program. This money was not obligated in FY1989 and has been carried over to FY1990. Standardization of Grant Application Scores. We believe that the awarding of competitive grants under the Library Services and Construction Act, the Title III program and the TRIO programs are often dependent upon the luck of the draw with regard to the review panel. These particular programs have, as with other grant programs, numerous panels of field readers who review the application. Because the raw scores are not standardized, the applicant who is successful is likely the applicant who got a panel which tended to give higher scores. The Indian Education Act and Indian vocational education competitive grant applications are awarded using standardized scores, and we believe this is a fair method. We urge that the Library Services |