Why Don’t More Indians Do Better in - IA de Investigación especializada en el MIT

¿Por qué a más indios no les va mejor en
School? The Battle between U.S. Schooling
& American Indian/Alaska Native Education

Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy
& k. Tsianina Lomawaima

Abstracto: American Indian/Alaska Native education–the training for life of children, adolescents, y
adults–has been locked in battle for centuries with colonial schooling, which continues to the present day.
Settler societies have used schools to “civilize” Indigenous peoples and to train Native peoples in subser-
vience while dispossessing them of land. Schools are the battlegrounds of American Indian education in
which epistemologies, ontologies, axiologies, pedagogies, and curricula clash. In the last century, Native
naciones, communities, padres, and students have fought tenaciously to maintain heritage languages and
cultures–their ways of being in the world–through Indigenous education and have demanded radical
changes in schools. Contemporary models of how educators are braiding together Indigenous education and
Indigenous schooling to better serve Native peoples provide dynamic, productive possibilities for the future.

The history of American Indian education can be sum-
marized in three simple words: battle for power.

–K. Tsianina Lomawaima, 2000

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bryan mckinley jones bray –
boy is President’s Professor and
Senior Advisor to the President on
American Indian Affairs at Arizo-
na State University.

k. tsianina lomawaima is
Professor with Justice & Social In-
quiry and the Center for Indian
Education within the School of
Social Transformation at Arizo-
na State University.

(Complete author biographies appear
at the end of the essay.)

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En 1927, Robert “Bob” Carlisle Carr and Curtis “Curt”
Thorpe Carr entered Chilocco Indian Agricultur-
al School, a federal boarding school in Oklahoma.1
Bob was ten or eleven years old; Curt was nine. Su
madre, Cora Wynema Carr, was a Muskogee (Creek)
woman struggling to raise her children in Wichita,
Kansas. She was Indian, she was a single mother, y,
in those days, that’s all it took for the county social
workers to declare her incompetent and take her chil-
dren away. Bob and Curt were Indians, también, por supuesto,
which meant they were a federal responsibility, y
the local court therefore remanded them to Chilocco.
Bob and Curt rebelled against Chilocco’s harsh total-

itarian regime: Curt joined one of the boys’
gangs that organized lives in the outdoor
spaces where surveillance did not reach;
Bob’s behavior became “incorrigible” and
he was expelled–no small accomplishment
in a system devoted to institutionalizing In-
dian children. Curt did not see his moth-
er again until he ran away from Chilocco
at about age fifteen. By that time, their re-
lationship was irreparably fractured. Él
survived life on the “hobo road” during
the Great Depression, graduating from a
high school in Missouri in which the com-
mander of the Civilian Conservation Corps
camp took him under his wing. Curt sur-
vived World War II and went on to become
a loving husband for sixty-seven years and
loving father of two daughters. Later in life,
he came to appreciate much of Chilocco’s
training–in carpentry, for example–but he
never lost the anger caused by the loss of his
madre, familia, and childhood. Bob passed
away young, at about age twenty-one, mientras
incarcerated in Leavenworth prison.

Many people use the term education inter-
changeably with schooling, as we might ex-
pect when the broad sense of to educate–
passing along discrete knowledges and the
cultural definition of what counts as use-
lleno, important knowledge–coincides with
schools’ content and practices. For Indige-
nous peoples, sin embargo, Indigenous educa-
tion and colonial schooling (que incluye
contemporary U.S. escuelas) do not coin-
cide. Curt Carr never confused education
with schooling. He prized education and
was an astonishing self-taught intellectual.
He detested Chilocco and remained a life-
long skeptic of the schools. Cora Carr, como
many Native parents, wanted both school-
ing and education for her children. She did
not want–nor should she have been expect-
ed, let alone forced–to sacrifice one for the
other in her struggle to raise her family.

When the United States insists on
schooling at the expense of Native educa-
tion through heritage language, cultura,

and specific knowledge systems; cuando
curriculum fits hand in glove with land
dispossession; and when schooling aims
to destroy families and children, podemos
clearly see schools as a battleground of
sovereigns, in which knowledge systems,
knowledge production, cultural values,
and children’s lives are on the line.

What is knowledge and who gets to de-
fine it? Contests over knowledge(s) por-
vade schools. The knowledges that schools
engender are considered academic. El
products of schools–mathematics, ciencia-
ence, writing, and reading–are rooted in
the classics or in so-called logical reasoning.
Schools exist, en parte, to ensure that citizens
across regions and the nation share a com-
mon knowledge. These knowledges are val-
ued as ways to build a career and to become
self-sufficient and contributing citizens.
Schooling certainly enables individuals and
communities to be more firmly embedded
in the larger society. Axiological concerns,
sin embargo, are at play: Indigenous peoples
(and other ethnic, racial, and political com-
munities) value other kinds of knowledges.
These different values have led to epistemo-
logical clashes, clashes that raise key ques-
ciones: Which knowledges count? Which
systems of transferring knowledge are most
effective? What curricular and pedagogical
practices work best?

We tackle the following questions, as we
tack back and forth between past, pres-
ent, and future possibilities in Indigenous
schooling and education: What is the state
of Indigenous education in the United
Estados? What is the state of American In-
dian students in schools? What history pro-
duced these states? How are education and
schooling being braided together to chart
a pathway into the future that sustains the
well-being of Indigenous students, familias,
and nations?

What is the state of Indigenous educa-

tion in the United States? Indigenous ed-

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147 (2) Spring 2018Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy & k. Tsianina Lomawaima

ucation includes the systems designed and
honed over millennia by Native societies
to enculturate their citizens, as well as re-
cent developments of Indigenous curric-
ulum, pedagogies, and policies within
escuelas. We first consider Indigenous ed-
ucation, which has been marginalized,
even criminalized, over the past two cen-
turies. Por ejemplo, colonial schooling has
been privileged as formal education, de-
scribed as organized, systematic, and de-
firmado; while Indigenous education has
been characterized as informal, uncon-
scious, undirected, and even accidental.
Writing in 1902, physician Charles East-
hombre (Dakota) observado: “It is commonly
supposed that there is no systematic edu-
cation of their children among the aborig-
ines of this country. Nothing could be far-
ther from the truth. All the customs of this
primitive people were held to be divinely
instituted, and those in connection with
the training of children were scrupulous-
ly adhered to and transmitted from one
generation to another.”2 Indigenous ed-
ucational systems have always been con-
sciously designed, intentional, sustained,
and thus formal, even as they eschew the
schooling practices we categorize as for-
mal, such as lecturing, classroom disci-
pline, and standardized testing.

Eastman “flipped the script” on Indig-
enous peoples, the role of schooling, y
the transfer of knowledge across genera-
ciones. Almost ninety years later, Inupiat
scholar Leona Okakok defined education as
a powerful Indigenous concept and process:
“To me, educating a child means equipping
him or her with the capability to succeed in
the world he or she will live in.” She made
the forcefully political statement that “edu-
cation is more than book learning, it is also
value-learning.”3 Okakok reminds us that
education for and by Native peoples adapts
and adjusts to a particular time, lugar, y
contexto. How do Native peoples educate
ellos mismos, their children, and grandchil-

dren to succeed in the world in which they
will live?

Children need to know something that
is relevant to their world and that supports
their fundamental ability to thrive. Many
Native education systems stress engaging
el mundo, and Okakok has outlined con-
nections to the ways that some schools
trabajar: “The students, entonces, must demon-
strate mastery of competencies before they
are promoted to the next grade. This ap-
proach is similar to our traditional prac-
tices in which elders expected children to
master certain competencies before they
went on to more difficult tasks.” Compe-
tencies in Barrow, Alaska (where Okakok
lives and teaches), are critical. Competency
can be the difference between life and death
when managing relationships among peo-
ples, the Arctic Ocean, and polar bears and
whales. This view of the world is imbued
with humility, cognizant of the arrogance
that there is only one way of demonstrat-
ing knowledge or only one knowledge that
cuenta. Okakok has concluded that, “we all
know that we can go through life convinced
that our view of the world is the only valid
uno. If we are interested in new perceptions,
sin embargo, we need to catch a glimpse of the
world through other eyes. We need to be
aware of our own thoughts, así como el
way life is viewed by other people.”4 Oka-
kok has encouraged us to learn from and
through others.

What is the state of Indian schooling?

Native peoples and U.S. policy-makers be-
gan asking this question in the late 1800s,
although schools for Indians had been in
place for decades. The federal government
asserted its right to educate Native people
–that is, it asserted its sovereign power to
“civilize” in a totalizing transformative way
–as soon as the republic was established
on Indian lands. En 1802, Congress enacted
legislation to civilize the “aborigines” and,
en 1819, the Civilization Fund Act autho-

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesWhy Don’t More Indians Do Better in School?

rized federal dollars to underwrite Chris-
tian schools and missions. Mission efforts
to civilize Indigenous peoples were con-
strained by Native resistance and lack of
resources, and by the mid-nineteenth cen-
tury, impatient policy-makers and West-
ward-focused settlers demanded more sub-
stantive results.5 The federal government
gradually eliminated financial support to
missions and began to build its own Indi-
an schools, including on-reservation day
schools and boarding schools and off-res-
ervation boarding schools such as Carlisle
Indian Industrial School (in existence from
1879–1918).6

Carlisle’s superintendent Richard Henry
Pratt designed an assimilationist institu-
tion to erase Indigenous cultures and in-
corporate Native individuals into the Unit-
ed States as citizens, hence his infamous
cita: “Kill the Indian in him and save the
man.” Yet Pratt believed in the capacity of
Indian people to excel, given education-
al opportunities. This view fell out of fa-
vor in the early twentieth century as sci-
entific and popular opinion emphasized a
hierarchical ladder of the races that privi-
leged Whites. A NOSOTROS. police powers were mo-
bilized to erase Indian sovereigns and In-
digeneity by criminalizing their culture.
In that moment, federal powers over Indi-
ans crested. Hopi men who refused to en-
roll their children in federal schools were
incarcerated at Alcatraz; Natives who re-
fused to cut their hair were subject to im-
prisonment and hard labor.

As is so often the case in Indigenous
schooling, such pasts connect directly to
the present. En 2017, young Native boys
are still being punished for their long hair.
Four-year-old Jabez Oates was sent home
from his Texas school for violating the
dress code. The school district’s superin-
tendent noted:

Parents have a right to seek an appropriate
educational setting for their child, just as
EM. Oates has the right to place her child

in a district that reflects her personal expec-
tations for standards of appearance. Allá
are procedures in place for addressing con-
cerns over policy if it is Ms. Oates’ desire to
have her son educated in Barbers Hill isd.
But we would and should justifiably be criti-
cized if our district lessened its expectations
or long-standing policies simply to appease.7

Nearly 150 years have passed since Pratt
established Carlisle, and it is still the case
that expecting a school to respect Native
culture and “lessen its expectations for
standards of appearance” is called appease-
mento. The past is the present but we hope
not the future of Indigenous schooling.

Until the 1924 American Indian Citizen-
ship Act, Indians had no recourse in the
tribunales, and the courts refused to inter-
vene in the federal political (police) pow-
ers controlling Indian Country.8 Policy-
makers waffled over whether off-reserva-
tion or on-reservation schools were the best
sites to civilize Indians, but both school-
ing systems grew dramatically from 1890
a 1920. Colonial federal schools devastat-
ed Indigenous children and their commu-
niidades. Long hair was cut, children were
scrubbed with kerosene to kill lice, “home
clothes” were locked away in trunks, y
government-issue uniforms remade Indian
bodies and identities. Future leaders were
stolen from their communities, despite stu-
dents like Bob and Curt Carr resisting such
schooling. The peak of boarding school
enrollment in the 1930s coincided with the
Great Depression, when Native families
were desperate to provide adequate hous-
ing and food for their children. How did re-
lations among Native peoples and federal/
state governments come to such a pass?

U.S.-Indian relations are shaped by princi-
ples of sovereignty and trust.9 Inherent sov-
ereignty entails self-government, self-de-
termination, self-education, and autonomy
relative to other sovereigns. The trust rela-

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147 (2) Spring 2018Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy & k. Tsianina Lomawaima

tionship refers to obligations to Native na-
tions assumed by the federal government
con el tiempo. Colonial schooling of Indigenous
peoples has been embedded in far-ranging
contests among sovereigns and shifting
concepts of trust. Chief Justice Marshall
escalated the contest over educating Indi-
an children in the 1831 case Cherokee Nation v.
Georgia. When Marshall proposed that In-
dians resembled wards, he implied that Na-
tive parents/guardians were like children as
Bueno, with the federal government acting as
the guardian and assuming a trust responsi-
bility to care for them. Marshall’s legal fic-
tion–which soon became reality–implic-
itly stripped Native parents of their right to
raise their own children, setting the stage
decades later for the removal of children to
remote boarding schools absent parental
consentir. The government claimed that trust
responsibilities justified seizing children.
Interpretations of federal trust responsibili-
ties can run amok, and implementations of
trust have shifted over time.

Many treaties stipulated federal commit-
ments to schooling; el 1868 Navajo Treaty,
Por ejemplo, promised a schoolhouse and
teacher for every thirty students. Congreso
cast those responsibilities aside, sin embargo,
con 1871 legislation that unilaterally end-
ed treaty-making with Native nations. El
federal-Indian trust relationship has been
subject to fluctuations that reflect political
agendas as well as legalistic interpretations.
Federal agents had used trust to justify in-
intervención, even police powers, while co-
lonial schools have explicitly trained Indi-
ans in subservience to authority for gener-
ations. Native peoples, por otro lado,
leverage trust to motivate fulfillment of
federal treaties, laws, and commitments,
which are constitutionally mandated as the
supreme law of the land.

Federal trust responsibilities for school-
ing American Indians have been further
complicated in the twentieth and twenty-
first centuries as Native students have in-

creasingly enrolled in public schools.10
Estados Unidos. public schooling infrastructure
is a complex system of overlapping, alguno-
times conflicting, jurisdictions and fund-
ing sources: local funding through proper-
ty taxes; administration by locally elected
school boards; state funding and direction
of standards; and federal funding and reg-
ulation of standards, evaluación, and re-
cord-keeping. Add to that mix the juris-
dictions and interests of Native nations,
endeavoring to maintain distinctive lan-
calibres, religions, land stewardship, econ-
omies, and laws–in short, dynamic ways
of life–and we begin to see the challenges.

Reverberations of the U.S.-Native bat-

tle for power in schools echoed in the early
siglo veinte, but there was little data
to understand what was happening. Sys-
tematic data collection and analysis about
Indian schooling began in the early twen-
tieth century, capped by the 1928 publica-
tion of The Problem of Indian Administration
(known as the Meriam Report), an assess-
ment of the work of the Office of Indian
Affairs (later the Bureau of Indian Affairs).
The report scathingly critiqued many as-
pects of mission and federal schooling,
particularly boarding schools. The conclu-
sions of the Meriam survey team remain
telling: schools underserved children, em-
phasizing repetitive, menial labor over ac-
ademics; and children suffered harsh dis-
cipline, malnutrition, physical abuse, y
emotional impoverishment. The Meriam
Report advocated for a curriculum includ-
ing culture and tribal histories; locally em-
bedded schools; enhanced financial sup-
puerto; more expansive adult education; y
more humane early childhood education.
Nearly ninety years later, similar calls for
action remain.11

In the aftermath of the Meriam Report,
policy shifts opened some windows of op-
portunity for Native self-government and
self-determination, even as Indian schools

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesWhy Don’t More Indians Do Better in School?

frequently reinforced paternalism and
treated Natives as wards. Por un lado,
Bureau of Indian Affairs (bia) schools de-
veloped bilingual readers and transition-
al bilingual programs in the 1940s; sobre el
other hand, non-Native linguists, enseñar-
ers, and administrators directed those ef-
forts. Policy-makers advocated for local
relevance of schooling, but then decreed
that relevant meant vocational, not ac-
ademic, training. Como consecuencia, Na-
tive students and parents mobilized walk-
outs and vigorous protests when off-reser-
vation boarding high schools were stripped
of accreditation. The shift of student en-
rollment from federal to public schools
swelled in the 1940s and continued over
tiempo, motivated by federal actions to di-
vest trust responsibility and delegate juris-
diction to the states, increasing urbaniza-
tion and Native dissatisfaction with federal
escuelas. En 2017, 90 percent of school-age
Indian children attended public schools.

Scholarship outlines the current state of
American Indian schooling in the United
Estados, and achievement data provide one
perspective on that state.12 The data have
been called into question by important
advocacy groups, including the Nation-
al Congress of American Indians (ncai)
and the National Indian Education Asso-
ciation (niea). The ncai and niea do not
believe that the data are incorrect; bastante,
the problem is that there are so few data,
with few baseline data sets to inform re-
searchers and policy-makers. If the data
are so sparse as to be suspect, how can we
measure progress or identify places for im-
provement? How can we establish policies
to address or understand concerns if we
are unsure of the validity of the concerns?
Data uncertainty has been called the
problem of the asterisk.13 When data are
sparse, or when few Indigenous students
are reported in sample sizes, Indígena
peoples are placed under an asterisk with a
note that data are insufficient to make rea-

sonable claims. This structural implication
of how data are collected can be addressed.
Some policy-makers might argue that over-
sampling is prohibitive in terms of people
power or expenses, or they may argue it is
unnecessary. We argue that U.S. dismiss-
al of citizens grouped under the asterisk is
unacceptable. Through the trust relation-
barco, the federal government has asserted
responsibility for schooling American In-
dians, believing that schools were the ap-
propriate institution to Americanize Amer-
ican Indians. En décadas recientes, the impera-
tive to civilize Indians has been somewhat
blunted by Native nations exercising sov-
ereign rights to educate their own children,
and by demands that schools better serve
Native children, familias, and communi-
corbatas. Honoring the responsibilities of the
trust relationship, it is unacceptable to dis-
miss peoples as asterisks or data and data
analyses as statistically insignificant. Nosotros
must call for more systematic, defensible
data collection and analyses. In the mean-
tiempo, and with this caveat, we offer a brief
overview of data that we believe are tech-
nically sound, if quantitatively insufficient.
Tables 1 y 2 highlight a disturbing
trend. American Indians’ grade 4 lectura
scores rose by one point over fifteen years
under two presidents, multiple secretar-
ies of education, and educational policies
aimed at “leaving no child behind.” For all
racialized groups, this is the lowest score,
reminiscent of the achievement of Native
children one hundred years earlier. un sim-
ilar phenomenon is evident in grade 8, con
only a two-point gain over the same period.
We question why the scores have stagnat-
ed, and are deeply concerned that the stag-
nation continues. It is clear to us that calls
for assimilation for Native students have
failed; Native children fight assimilation
in schools every day. There is overwhelm-
ing evidence that Native students who ex-
cel in school are often also well-educated as
tribal peoples.14

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147 (2) Spring 2018Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy & k. Tsianina Lomawaima

Mesa 1
National Assessment of Education Progress Reading Scores, Calificación 4, 2000–2015

Americano
Indian/
Alaska
Native

Asian/
Pacific
Islander

Negro

Hispano

Blanco

2000

2002

2003

2005

2007

2009

2011

2013

2015

204

207

202

204

203

204

202

205

229

191

197

225

224

199

201

229

226

229

198

200

229

200

203

229

232

203

205

231

235

205

230

235

239

205

206

231

206

207

232

206

208

232

Fuente: National Assessment of Educational Progress, “The Nation’s Report Card: Reading Assessments, 2015,"
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading_math_2015/#reading/scores?grade=4.

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Mesa 2
National Assessment of Education Progress Reading Scores, Calificación 8, 1998–2015*

Americano
Indian/
Alaska
Native

Asian/
Pacific
Islander

Negro

Hispano

Blanco

1998

2002

2003

2005

2007

2009

2011

2013

2015

‡

250

246

249

247

251

252

251

252

264

244

243

270

267

245

247

272

270

244

245

272

271

243

246

271

245

247

272

274

246

249

273

275

280

249

252

274

250

256

276

248

253

274

‡ Reporting standards not met. *naep data for grade 8 reading were not available for all students in 2000. Fuente:
National Assessment of Educational Progress, “The Nation’s Report Card: Reading Assessments, 2015,” https://www
.nationsreportcard.gov/reading_math_2015/#reading/scores?grade=8.

We are optimistic and encouraged by the
rise in test scores in mathematics (see Ta-
bles 3 y 4). Over the same fifteen-year pe-
riod, Los grados 4 y 8 saw significant chang-
es in scores. A closer examination, sin embargo,
raises some concerns. Major changes oc-
curred between 2000 y 2003, and after
2003, the gains were minimal, con solo

a four-point rise between 2003 y 2015.
What happened in that initial three-year
period and what failed to happen in the fol-
lowing twelve? It appears that achievement
gains, as measured by these tests, are not
hopeful; but the challenges confronting In-
digenous academic achievement are not fif-
teen years old. Limited achievement gains

Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesWhy Don’t More Indians Do Better in School?

Mesa 3
National Assessment of Education Progress Scores in Mathematics, Calificación 4, 2000–2015

2000

2003

2005

2007

2009

2011

2013

2015

American Indian/
Alaska Native

Asian/Pacific
Islander

Negro

Hispano

Blanco

208

223

‡

203

208

234

246

216

222

243

226

251

220

226

246

228

253

222

227

248

225

255

222

227

248

225

256

224

229

249

227

258

224

231

250

227

257

224

230

248

‡ Reporting standards not met. Fuente: National Assessment of Educational Progress, “The Nation’s Report Card:
Reading Assessments, 2015,” https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading_math_2015/#mathematics?grade=4.

Mesa 4
National Assessment of Education Progress Scores in Mathematics, Calificación 8, 2000–2015

2000

2003

2005

2007

2009

2011

2013

2015

American Indian/
Alaska Native

Asian/Pacific
Islander

Negro

Hispano

Blanco

259

288

244

253

284

263

291

252

259

288

264

295

255

262

289

264

266

297

260

265

291

301

261

266

293

265

303

262

270

293

269

267

306

263

272

294

306

260

270

292

Fuente: National Assessment of Educational Progress, “The Nation’s Report Card: Reading Assessment, 2015,"
https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading_math_2015/#mathematics?grade=8.

over the short term point not to incapaci-
ty, but to long-term, structural damages to
capacity, which have been centuries in the
haciendo. Given this history, some may ask:
Is there any hope? Are there any answers?
Are there places of success? We believe the
future for Indigenous children and commu-
nities can–and should–be filled with hope
and promise.

How are education and schooling being

braided together to help build and sustain
the well-being of Indigenous students, fam-
ilies, and nations? We present three sites

emblematic of a hopeful, meaningful fu-
ture in Indigenous education and schooling.
Calcedeaver Elementary School sits al-
most thirty-seven miles north of Mobile,
Alabama. Del 250 students at the school,
87 percent are members of the mowa Band
of Choctaw Indians.15 Ninety percent of
Calcedeaver’s students qualify for free or
reduced lunch, and yet the school received a
Dispelling the Myth award from the Educa-
tion Trust.16 As we noted earlier, academic
achievement for American Indian children
is among the lowest of all students, but at
Calcedeaver, 100 percent of students met

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147 (2) Spring 2018Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy & k. Tsianina Lomawaima

the math standards for Alabama and 91 por-
cent met standards for reading (79 por ciento
at an advanced level). The school building
reflects the heritage of its students: “We
wanted people to know that when they pull
up at Calcedeaver and walk in the building,
that this is a school that has a high popula-
tion of Native American students.”17 The
school embraces the local culture, holds its
students to high expectations, makes con-
nections to their local lives, and envisions
a great future for their children. At Calce-
deaver, leaders and teachers are products
of the school and community, demonstrat-
ing positive outcomes when local capaci-
ty is maximized and staff and community
work together to braid the local culture with
high academic standards.18 Calcedeaver
thrives on its locality, without being pro-
vincial. The students understand that it is
their school and see themselves as academ-
ic achievers. Ninety-one percent of the stu-
dents graduate from high school.

In Flagstaff, Arizona, the trilingual Pu-
ente de Hózhó Elementary School (pdh)
offers English, Español, and English-Navajo
immersion programs. The school is adorned
with a mural painted by the famed artist
Shonto Begaye.19 Puente de Hózhó trans-
lates loosely to “Bridge of Beauty” (Español
puente meaning bridge, Navajo hózhó mean-
ing beauty) and signals the school’s com-
mitment to braid education and schooling.
Students are first immersed in either Navajo
or Spanish, with a gradual move to English
con el tiempo. One of the remarkable stories of
pdh is that its students, representing all
walks of life, have outperformed many state
schools in Arizona on third-grade tests.
That achievement is remarkable when we
consider that the tests are administered in
Inglés, while the curriculum at pdh is of-
fered in either Navajo or Spanish. Sobre el
Navajo side, teachers work closely with the
school district to develop and administer
assessments in English and Navajo. The in-
novative Navajo assessments do not simply

translate English assessments; bastante, ellos
demonstrate that students are thinking in
Navajo. The students can speak with their
Navajo-speaking grandparents and excel on
English standardized tests.20

Principal Dawn Trubakoff tells a pro-
found story of pdh’s success. One winter,
a Navajo woman came into the school ask-
ing to put her child on the school’s waiting
lista. The secretary asked her the sex of her
niño, and she replied, “I don’t know.” Per-
plexed, the secretary asked, “Is it a boy or a
girl?” The woman opened her winter coat
and replied, “My baby hasn’t been born
yet.”21 When education and schooling hon-
or language and culture and assist children
to perform at high academic levels, padres
will want to send their children to school.
Braiding education and schooling is possi-
ble; it is local, contextual, and addresses the
needs of the community and its children.

The final example is located 158 miles
south of Flagstaff in Tempe, Arizona. El
Arizona State University (asu) Pueblo
Doctoral Cohort illustrates how educa-
tion and schooling can also be braided at
the graduate level.22 In the spring of 2011,
two asu faculty members linked efforts
with colleagues at the Leadership Institute
(li) at Santa Fe Indian School in New Mex-
ico. By the fall of 2012, ten students began
a doctoral program that was customized
around ten critical areas. The critical areas
were identified through ten years of work
by the li, the nineteen Pueblos of New
México, thirty-five Indigenous think tank
sessions, and mixed-methods research
projects. asu built a program, rooted in
tribal nation-building, that sought to re-
spond to the needs of the Pueblos as de-
fined by the Pueblos.23 Coursework in-
cluded fifty-four hours of classes: encom-
passing both traditional doctoral studies
courses (such as quantitative methods)
as well as courses focused on the needs of
Pueblo communities (such as Indigenous
Knowledge Systems). In addition to dis-

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesWhy Don’t More Indians Do Better in School?

Image 1
Puede 2015 Graduation of First Pueblo Doctoral Cohort at Arizona State University: (left to right)
Professor Elizabeth Sumida Huaman, June Lorenzo, Richard Luarkie, Anthony Dorame, Carnell
Chosa, Michele Suina, Shawn Abeita, Kenneth Lucero, Corrine Sanchez, Vince Lujan, Mark Ericson,
Professor Bryan Brayboy

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Fuente: Center for Indian Education, Arizona State University.

sertations, students wrote policy briefs ad-
dressing a challenge in their communities;
all the briefs–written in 2015–have been
enacted in some way by 2017. The students’
doctoral research addressed community
necesidades. En 2015, ten students in the program
graduated with the Ph.D. (see Image 1). A
second cohort began in fall 2015, con ex-
pected graduation dates of 2018 a 2019.

These successful models do not offer sil-
ver-bullet answers to all the challenges of
Indigenous education and schooling, pero
they help us stretch our thinking beyond
best practices to principles of promising
practicas. The models are guided by com-
mon principles that are local and rooted in
contexto; honor language and culture with-
in the schooling practice; explicitly state

the possibility and necessity of achieving
successful schooling practices without sac-
rificing ties to language and culture; colocar
high expectations in both schooling and
education; believe in possibilities for the
alumno; and remain committed to justice.
Narratives of schooling often privilege
individual achievement. Achievement is
important, but this single measure eras-
es the role of history and the impacts of
systems and structures on American In-
dian students. We must look beyond the
metric of achievement to question taken-
for-granted notions and ideologies about
what schooling should be. The long-term
battle for power has been rooted, en parte,
in the goal of the assimilation of individu-
al Native students, while the structures es-

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147 (2) Spring 2018Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy & k. Tsianina Lomawaima

tablished to assimilate have created a sys-
temic effect. Assimilation, a focus on spe-
cific kinds of knowledges (devoid of the
culture of tribal communities), and indi-
vidualism have become embedded into
the fabric of schooling. Engagement with
communities and their cultures, escuchando
to communities and their children, hon-
oring the place on which the school sits,
and recognizing different ways of knowing
(and being and valuing as well as teaching
Y aprendiendo) are keys to a successful con-
nection between schooling and education
in the future.

Lomawaima’s epigraphic reference to
American Indian education as a “battle
for power” contextualizes what it takes to
achieve justice in Indigenous education
and schooling: the sovereign rights to de-
fine knowledge and to educate citizens. Como-
similationist agendas are still with us, y
so battles lie ahead, yet to be fought. Native
naciones, communities, and citizens must be
able to engage in futures of their own mak-
En g. We do battle now to create possibilities
so that generations from now, scholars are
no longer rehashing the findings of the Me-
riam Report or lamenting the failures of the
early twenty-first century.

author biographies

bryan mckinley jones brayboy is President’s Professor and Senior Advisor to the
President on American Indian Affairs at Arizona State University. He is the author of Post-
secondary Education for American Indian and Alaska Natives: Higher Education for Nation Building and
Self-Determination (with Amy J. Fann, Angelina E. Castagno, and Jessica A. Solyom, 2012) y
editor of Indigenous Innovations in Higher Education: Local Knowledge and Critical Research (with Eliz-
abeth S. Huaman, 2017).
k. tsianina lomawaima is Professor with Justice & Social Inquiry and the Center for
Indian Education within the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University. Ella
is the author of To Remain an Indian: Lessons in Democracy from a Century of Native American Education
(with Teresa L. McCarty, 2006) and Uneven Ground: American Indian Sovereignty and Federal Law
(with David E. Wilkins, 2002) and editor of Away from Home: American Indian Boarding School Ex-
periences, 1879–2000 (with Brenda J. Child and Margaret L. Archuleta, 2000).

notas finales
1 Curtis Thorpe Carr (1918–2012) was K. Tsianina Lomawaima’s father.
2 Charles Eastman, Indian Boyhood (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991), 49.
3 Leona Okakok, “Serving the Purpose of Education,” Harvard Educational Review 59 (4) (1989):

253–254, 405–422.

4 Ibídem., 262, 248, 405–422.
5 The Bureau of Indian Affairs was established in 1824 under the Department of War. Part of the

bia’s mission was to administer the annuity from the Fund.

6 In a few locales, Native children were enrolled in public schools in the 1800s. Regions of the
South with Native populations after Removal developed tripartite systems of segregated White,
Negro, and Indian schools. In most parts of the country, public school enrollment was not an
option until after World War II.

7 Cristina Silva, “War on Boys with Long Hair? Texas Child Sent Home from School over Hair-
style,” Newsweek, Agosto 22, 2017, http://www.newsweek.com/texas-boy-sent-home-school
-over-long-hair-653581.

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Dédalo, la Revista de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes & SciencesWhy Don’t More Indians Do Better in School?

8 Two Supreme Court cases in the 1910s clearly stated that for Indians, wardship and citizenship
are not incompatible. A NOSOTROS. birthright citizenship conveyed access to the courts, but did little
to curtail federal powers.

9 See Vine Deloria Jr. and Clifford Lytle, The Nations Within: The Past and Future of American Indi-
an Sovereignty (Nueva York: Pantheon Books, 1984); and David E. Wilkins and K. Tsianina Lo-
mawaima, Uneven Ground: American Indian Sovereignty and Federal Indian Law (Norman: universidad-
sity of Oklahoma Press, 2001).

10 In Jill Feury DeVoe, Kristen E. Darling-Churchill, and Thomas D. Snyder, Status and Trends in
the Education of American Indians and Alaska Natives: 2008 (Washington, CORRIENTE CONTINUA.: A NOSOTROS. Departamento
of Education and National Center for Education Statistics, 2008). The National Center for
Education Statistics notes that 7 percent of American Indian children attend Bureau of Indian
Education schools, 90 percent attend public schools, y 3 percent attend parochial or inde-
pendent private schools.

11 See Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy, Susan C. Faircloth, Tiffany S. Sotavento, et al., “Sovereignty and
Educación: An Overview of the Unique Nature of Indigenous Education,” Journal of American
Indian Education 54 (1) (2015); The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, “Executive Or-
der 13592–Improving American Indian and Alaska Native Educational Opportunities and
Strengthening Tribal Colleges and Universities,” December 2, 2011, https://obamawhitehouse
.archives.gov/the-press-office/2011/12/02/executive-order-13592-improving-american
-indian-and-alaska-native-educat; and National Congress of American Indians, “Education,"
http://www.ncai.org/policy-issues/education-health-human-services/education#FTN_2.
12 Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy and Margaret J. Maaka, “K–12 Achievement for Indigenous Stu-
abolladuras,” Journal of American Indian Education 54 (1) (2015): 63–98; ncai Policy Research Center,
Higher Education Workforce Development: Leveraging Tribal Investments to Advance Community Goals (Lavar-
ington, CORRIENTE CONTINUA.: National Congress of American Indians, 2012); National Indian Education Associ-
ación, “Information on Native Students,” http://www.niea.org/our-story/history/information
-on-native-students/ (accessed August 12, 2017); A. METRO. Ninneman, James Deaton, and Kar-
en Francis-Begay, National Indian Education Study 2015 (Washington, CORRIENTE CONTINUA.: A NOSOTROS. Department of
Education and National Center for Education Statistics, 2017); The Education Trust, The State
of Education for Native Students (Washington, CORRIENTE CONTINUA.: The Education Trust, 2013), http://edtrust
.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/NativeStudentBrief_0.pdf; and Elise Trumbull, Ursula Sex-
tonelada, Sharon Nelson-Barber, and Zannette Johnson, “Assessment Practices in Schools Serving
American Indian and Alaska Native Students,” Journal of American Indian Education 54 (3) (2015):
5–30. Note that the naep data contain inconsistencies across groups. Achievement and test
scores should not be conflated with the future potential of Native or other minority children.
13 Heather Shotton, Shelly Lowe, and Stephanie Waterman, Beyond the Asterisk: Understanding Native

Students in Higher Education (Sterling, Va.: Stylus, 2013).

14 See Angelina E. Castagno and Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy, “Culturally Responsive School-
ing for Indigenous Youth: A Review of the Literature,” Review of Educational Research 78 (4)
(2008): 941–993; and Mark J. Van Ryzin and Claudia G. Vincent, “Use of Native Language
y cultura (nlc) in Elementary and Middle School Instruction as a Predictor of Mathematics
Achievement,” Journal of American Indian Education 56 (2) (2017): 3–33.

15 The mowa band of Choctaw Indians takes their name from the first two letters of Mobile and
Washington counties in Alabama. The state formally recognized the group in 1979, pero el
federal government has not. See Jacqueline Anderson Matt, “mowa Band of Choctaw Indi-
ans,” Encyclopedia of Alabama, Octubre 10, 2007, http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/
article/h-1368.

16 The Education Trust, “dtm: Calcedeaver Elementary School,” June 5, 2015, https://edtrust.org/

resource/dtm-calcedeaver-elementary-school/.

17 Nicole Williams quoted in Alyson Stokes, “‘One of a Kind’ Calcedeaver Elementary School
Opens,” Lagniappe Weekly, Enero 7, 2015, http://lagniappemobile.com/one-kind-calcedeaver
-elementary-school-opens/.

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147 (2) Spring 2018Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy & k. Tsianina Lomawaima

18 Corey Mitchell, “Lessons from a ‘Hidden Gem’ in Alabama,” Education Week, Septiembre 27, 2016,
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/09/28/lessons-from-a-hidden-gem-in-alabama.html.
19 Shonto Begay, whose paintings sell for as much as $10,000, painted the mural with the school’s

niños.

20 Teresa McCarty, “The Role of Native Languages and Cultures in American Indian/Alaska
Native Student Achievement: The Puente de Hózhó Case Study,” policy brief (Washington,
CORRIENTE CONTINUA.: A NOSOTROS. Departamento de Educación, Office of Indian Education, 2010).
21 Authors’ conversation with Teresa L. McCarty and Kristen Silver, 2010.
22 The cohort’s work is published in two anthologies, coedited by the principal investigators. Ver
Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy and Elizabeth Sumida Huaman, “A Journey to Higher Edu-
catión: Origins of an Indigenous Doctoral Program,” Journal of American Indian Education 55 (3)
(2016); and Elizabeth Sumida Huaman and Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy, editores., Indigenous In-
novations in Higher Education: Local Knowledge and Critical Research (Rotterdam, Los países bajos:
Sense Publishers, 2017).

23 For tribal nation-building in higher education, see Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy, Amy J. Fann,
Angelina E. Castagno, and Jessica A. Solyom, Postsecondary Education for American Indian and Alaska
Natives: Higher Education for Nation Building and Self-Determination (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2012).

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