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and Construction Act, Title III and TRIO programs grant process be changed to require standard deviation of field reader scores.

Title III. The funding distribution formula for the competitive grants for the Title III or Developing Institutions program, in addition to adopting a standard deviation on application scores, needs to be changed to provide for a separate allocation for tribally controlled colleges. There is, as you know, an allocation under the Title III program for historically black colleges. The historically black colleges will receive about half of the Title III funding in FY1990, or $85 million.

Tribally controlled colleges are certainly developing institutions and institutions which serve predominately minority students. Tribal colleges have had difficulty accessing Title III monies. For instance, this year, Sinte Gleska College, which has a student population that is 75% Indian, received a score of 90 on its Title III application. They were not funded, but a school in Puerto Rico, which serves 100% minority people, but scored only 65 on its application, was awarded a Title III grant.

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Initiative. Efforts to prevent fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and fetal alcohol effect (FAE) are gaining more attention and NIEA fully supports expanding these efforts. FAS and FAE are tragic and preventable situations whose victims are all innocent people. We also, however, want to work in the schools with students and adults who have FAS and FAE. Schools have little information on how to diagnose the varying symptoms of FAS and FAE, how to react to these diseases, or how to create or modify school curricula which will serve FAS and FAE victims.

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or hundreds of

There must be untold thousands thousands of Indian and Alaska Native people who are the victims of FAS or FAE, people who have been misdiagnosed, people who have been labeled troublemakers, and, certainly, many of whom are in prison. We do not want to give up on this generation of school children nor on the several generations of adults who may be affected by FAS and FAE.

Some members of this Committee may have read the wrenching book by Michael Dorris, Broken Cord. Dorris adopted a Sioux child who, as it turned out, is severely affected by FAS. His story of years of work with his son and the lack of knowledge by those in the medical and counseling fields shows very clearly what we are up against with FAS. We understand that the movie rights have been bought for this book, and expect the movie will provide a catalyst for public action on this issue. NIEA would like to work with the Department of Education, BIA and IHS on the issue of appropriate education techniques and curricula for young people and adults who suffer from the wide array of FAS and FAE disabilities.

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Witnesses appearing before the
Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs

Daniel F. Bonner

Acting Assistant Secretary for
Elementary and Secondary Education

accompanied by

A. Neal Shedd, Acting Director, Office of Indian Education Programs, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education

Thomas M. Corwin, Director, Division of Elementary, Secondary, and Vocational Analysis, Office of Planning, Budget, and Evaluation

October 27, 1989

Insert 65A1

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Witnesses appearing before the
Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs

Daniel F. Bonner

Acting Assistant Secretary for
Elementary and Secondary Education

accompanied by

A. Neal Shedd, Acting Director, Office of Indian Education Programs, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education

Thomas M. Corwin, Director, Division of Elementary, Secondary, and Vocational Analysis, Office of Planning, Budget, and Evaluation

October 27, 1989

Insert 65A2

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Statement by the Acting Assistant Secretary for

Elementary and Secondary Education

on

Indian Education

October 27, 1989

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:

I am happy to be here today on behalf of Secretary Cavazos to discuss matters pertaining to programs in the Office of Indian Education as well as other programs that benefit Indians and are administered elsewhere in the Department of Education. With me today are Neal Shedd, Acting Director of the Office of Indian Education, and Thomas Corwin, Director of the Division of Elementary, Secondary, and Vocational Analysis in the Department's Office of Planning, Budget, and Evaluation.

In your letters to Secretary Cavazos requesting this hearing, you listed several issues that you wished to discuss. I will address each of those issues in turn.

Indian Education Act Programs

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The Office of Indian Education administers a wide array of programs authorized by the Indian Education Act of 1988. These programs currently receive a combined appropriation of $71.4 million. The bulk of the funds about $52 million is distributed by formula primarily to public school districts, but also to tribally operated and Bureau of Indian Affairs schools. amount of funds going to each district or Indian school is based on the number of Indian children enrolled. These funds are used to supplement the regular school program by providing educational services designed to meet particular needs of the Indian children. Local projects are characterized by an especially high level of parental involvement.

Your letter of October 4th raised a concern about the timing of the 1989 formula grant awards. It is true that awards were made later than usual this year. The delay was caused by a number of factors related to reauthorization of the program, including the newly authorized eligibility of BIA-operated schools. However, notification letters were mailed to all grantees by August 11th. Further, to ensure that there would be no lapse in services from one fiscal year's grant to the next, the Department authorized grantees to expend funds for appropriate pre-award costs. For school districts with special problems, we "faxed" copies of grant award letters confirming this authorization. All fiscal year 1989 funds were obligated by the Department before September 30, 1989. Now that the Department has implemented the provisions of the 1988 reauthorization, this delay should not recur in the future.

Insert 65A3

In addition to the formula grant program, the Indian Education Act authorizes several competitive grant programs. The $18 million for these programs are provided primarily to tribes, Indian educational organizations, and colleges and universities. They support such activities as early childhood programs, dropout prevention, adult education, technical assistance to grantees, training of Indian teachers and school administrators, and fellowships for graduate and undergraduate students.

Your letter of October 4th also questioned the timing of the fellowship awards. The statute governing this program requires the Secretary to provide written notification to fellowship recipients no later than 45 days prior to the beginning of the academic term. The Department complied with this requirement. The actual obligation of funds could not take place until after July 19th, because regulations implementing the newly reauthorized program were not final until that date due, in part, to the delayed effective date provisions of the General Education Provisions Act.

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Other Department of Education Programs

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In addition to the programs authorized by the Indian Education Act, the Department of Education administers many other programs that provide educational services to Indians. Indian students participate in most of these programs on the same basis as the rest of the population that is, to the extent that they meet eligibility criteria related to educational need. The programs are generally targeted to public schools and include, for example, the Chapter 2 block grant, the Drug-Free Schools State Grant program, Education for Homeless Children and Youth, Bilingual Education, Magnet Schools Assistance, Migrant Education, the Chapter 1 LEA Grants program, many of the Special Education programs for the handicapped, and a host of small discretionary programs.

In addition, several of the Department's programs contain set-asides of funds specifically for Indians usually those attending Bureau of Indian Affairs Schools. In accordance with your request, we are providing the Committee with detailed descriptions of these programs, including budgetary and organizational information. These include Vocational Education, Compensatory Education programs authorized by Chapter 1, Mathematics and Science Education, Library Programs, Drug-Free Schools and Communities, Education of the Handicapped Act-Part B, and Programs for Handicapped Infants and Toddlers.

In addition, many public schools enrolling Indian students receive funding from the Impact Aid program.

In March of this year, the Office of Indian Education began a new coordination effort by holding a two-day conference to share information among OIE staff, coordinators or directors of State Indian education programs, managers of "set-aside programs" for Indians, and directors of the Indian Education Regional Resource Centers. Because the Office is newly authorized to coordinate the development of policies and practices for all Department programs serving Indians, we have created a new staff position to aid coordination of policy development among those programs.

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