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Alaska Natives. As indicated in the first paragraphs of this document, the Council is charged with providing advice to the Secretary and recommendations

The Council staff has

to the Congress regarding education programs in which Indian children and adults participate or from which they can benefit. identified a number of Department of Education programs in which our constituent population is participating, and we have included a chart of such programs in our fiscal year 1988 annual report. We have provided this chart to your staff and have mailed it to our entire mailing list. We have also begun a bigger project to review federal education programs in which Indians are not participating, determine impediments to such participation, and develop recommendations to ensure Indian and Alaska Native access to such programs, as appropriate. Additionally, the Council held in early October five two-hour issues sessions at the National Indian Education Association Conference to hear from Indian and Alaska Native people the problems and issues facing them in education. Issues sessions were held on public school concerns, BIA/ tribal school concerns, tribal college concerns, adult and

Vocational-technical

education concerns,

and higher education and scholarships. We will shortly be compiling a summary of these sessions, which we will distribute to the Administration, the Select Committee, and other appropriate Congressional committees. Consequently, we have recent input from Indian and Alaska Native people regarding these programs and some current Indian/Alaska Native participation or lack thereof.

sense of

The participants in our public school issues session were concerned with the use by school districts of Indian Education Act formula grant-funded staff

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to provide guidance and counseling services and often as truant officers or attendance officers. This is a basic supplanting issue with school districts apparently using this staff which is to provide supplemental education services to perform duties for which the school district should pay. Consequently, this again goes back to the need for monitoring of the grants by OIE staff. We also received a telephone call just this week from a Houma Indian from Louisiana who indicated that the school district in Theriot has told its Indian parent committee members that they are only advisory and do not have to sign off on the grant application and that the school district can spend the Indian Education Act funds as it sees fit.

Other concerns from the issues session indicate that Indian and Alaska Native people are, for the most part, unaware of the special impact aid provisions for school districts that claim entitlements based on the number of children residing on Indian lands. Consequently, the Impact Aid Office should provide additional technical assistance to tribes on how to assert their rights under the regulations for tribal officials and parents of Indian children to actively consult with the school district and regularly be involved in the planning and development of education programs assisted with impact aid funds. The Council will devote part of its next newsletter to this subject.

The BIA/tribal schools session reflected the need for a working and ongoing task force between the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Department of Education to work out problems which may develop with eligibility of BIA and

tribal schools for Department of Education programs.

One of the programs already identified which exclude Indian children in tribal and BIA schools is the Even Start Program. The impediment to participation is that the eligible entity is a local educational agency (LEA), and the Department of Education has determined that tribal and BIA schools are not LEA's. The tribal school representatives in this session also pointed to the overall problem of their exclusion from the definition of "LEA" for most state-administered federal grant-in-aid programs. While the Council has not yet taken an official position on this issue, it appears that the inclusion of tribes in the definition of "LEA" would put them and their tribally chartered schools in a position to deal, if they so desired, more effectively with the states to get into the state plans and compete for state-administered federal funds for vocational education, adult education, and so forth. Now, for the most part, states can and do exclude tribes and tribal schools from such funds and are able to do so because of the definition in the federal statutes. One caveat raised was that any inclusion in the state program should not put tribes at odds with sovereignty issues with the states. The Council has encouraged the Even Start Program staff and the Office of General Counsel to interpret statutory language to be as inclusive as possible to serve Indian and Alaska Native children. We would appreciate the help of the Committee in this "attitude change" effort with the Administration and other Committees of Congress since we realize that the Select Committee on Indian Affairs will not be able to unilaterally deal with changing this definition to include tribes in general education legislation.

They were

Mr. Chairman, a number of tribal college presidents and representatives attended the Council's issues session on tribal college concerns. particularly concerned about the dwindling funding sources with Title III Developing Institutions apparently pulling back from tribal colleges, obstructions in research programs and other general grant programs because many such programs are linked to four-year institutions, the futility of counting on funding from the OIE discretionary grant program, the need for teacher training with no such funding available this year from the educational personnel development component of OIE, and the need for operational and construction funds for their college libraries. Mr. Chairman, the Council has heard the colleges' concern regarding teacher training echoed in all of the issues sessions. There is a critical need for Indian and Alaska Native teachers to fill classrooms. The tribal colleges, particularly Sinte Gleska and Oglala with their baccalaureate degree programs and now with Sinte Gleska's masters program, have worked to bring teacher aides already working in schools forward to receive degrees and take their places as certified teachers of Indian youngsters. The Council recommends that the Office of Indian Education and the Department of Education place a special emphasis in all programs, together with the necessary funds, to address this critical teacher training need.

The adult education and vocational-technical issues session included funding concerns with a call for a two percent set-aside for Indian and Alaska Native programs in the federal Adult Education Act. There was also a recommendation that an assessment be conducted of Indian and Alaska Native

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adult and vocational education needs. There was a definite preference expressed to keep Indian vocational education grant programs at Department of Education rather than moving any component part to Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Although a number of the concerns in the higher education and scholarships issues session were directed at BIA, there was a concern that universities which receive Indian fellowship funds are sometimes delinquent in passing on the cash to recipients after tuition has been paid and that OIE should look at the possibility of establishing uniform guidelines for universities to disperse Indian fellowships funds. In addition, there was discussion of the great wisdom of conducting an assessment of the professional needs of Indian tribes and Alaska Native villages and corporations for determining eligible fields of study and matching graduates back to available jobs.

Mr. Chairman, there is one last related issue which I want to address. Part E of title V of Public Law 100-297 authorized the President to call the White House Conference on Indian Education. Since this conference has the broad purpose to develop recommendations for the improvement of educational programs to make the programs more relevant to the needs of Indians, I want to reiterate a portion of our previous testimony before this Committee. Part E needs some technical amendments, and while we do not currently have any recommendation of a vehicle for these amendments, such a vehicle should be found. The needed technical amendments include correction of section 5508 to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 1991 to correspond to the authorization to call the conference to be held as late as September 30,