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http://www.omaha.com/Omaha/OWH/StoryViewer/1,3153,303158,00.html
Published Wednesday February 16, 2000
Urban Schools Direct Little Help to Indians
BY PAUL GOODSELL, LISA PRUE AND HENRY J. CORDES
©2000 OMAHA WORLD-HERALD
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It was an evening for celebrating success, but it betrayed the failure
of
Indian education in America's cities.
When the Omaha School District hosted a banquet last May to honor American
Indian graduates in the Class of 1999, families feasted on roast beef
and
fried chicken, students received gifts and everyone heard an inspirational
talk from an Indian woman who raced in a wheelchair in the Olympics.
Carmen Zendejas, left, is one of eight Indian students to graduate in
the
Omaha district's Class of 1999 - out of 46 Indians who entered high
school
four years earlier. Franklin Rath dropped out. Rachel Lengyel fell
behind
and attends alternative school.
Only two of eight Indian graduates came to the banquet, however, and
they
had little need for the college organizers they received as gifts.
They
weren't going to college. In fact, neither were four of the other six
graduates.
Most telling of all though was how many of the district's American Indian
youths weren't graduating.
The eight Indian graduates were about one-sixth of the 46 Indian students
who could have graduated last year.
Of the other 38 students, some fell behind and remain in school. But
most
simply dropped out - some of them bored, others overwhelmed by academic
or
personal challenges.
The Class of '99 was no exception for Indian students, in Omaha and
elsewhere.
A World-Herald examination of state statistics over the past six years
found
that Indians leave school in Omaha, Lincoln and Scottsbluff - the state's
three nonreservation cities with the most Indian students - at more
than
twice the rate of other students in those cities.
Experts say the Indian dropout problem is acute in cities and towns
across
the nation. More than half of America's 600,000 Indian children attend
school off the reservation, many of them in big, urban districts, where
they
are a small minority and draw little attention.
"This is an area of neglect," said Karen Swisher, acting president of
Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kan. Without extra effort
from educators, Indian students "just get lost in these huge systems."
The Omaha district is a case study in how badly Indians fail in urban
schools and how little the education system has done to improve the
situation. Consider:
More than one-third of Indian ninth-graders dropped out last year, 25
out of
71 students. Tenth grade was nearly as bad, nine out of 32 students.
Indian students also do poorly in terms of grades, truancy, standardized
test scores and advancing to college.
The district's only program exclusively for the unique needs of its
703
Indian children spent $32 per student last year on tutoring, mentoring
and
other direct services.
Omaha officials outlined a plan in 1997 to help Indian students but
failed
to act on most of it. Now officials want to create a new plan, based
on a
study they hope to begin in April. Since 1997, 93 Indian youths have
dropped
out.
"The OPS system just kind of ignores the Indian kids," said Andrea
Lovejoy-Brown, the mother of an Omaha student and member of a district
parent advisory committee.
Not true, district officials say. They note that Indian students get
help
from a variety of district programs - not just its Indian education
office.
They also say the schools struggle to help Indian students overcome
a thorny
web of problems caused by generations of poverty and distrust of public
schools.
"This is one of the toughest dilemmas in education," said Mel Clancy,
who
runs the district's elementary curriculum. "We have a large pocket
of kids
who aren't making it. We know that."
No one says educators are solely responsible for Indian students' failures.
But, as Omaha district officials admit, the school system isn't doing
enough.
Teacher Mary Burcham adjusts an eagle costume for Aleisha Pullen, 11,
at
Indian Hill Elementary School. The summer school class, made up of
children
from schools throughout the district, chose the eagle as its icon.
"As an Indian person, I think it's a disaster," said Sandra Mehojah,
coordinator of the district's Indian education office and a member
of the
Kaw Tribe.
The problem nationally has roots in more than a century of Indian migration
from impoverished reservations to cities in search of jobs.
The pace of migration picked up after World War II under a government
relocation program aimed at terminating tribes, ending U.S. treaty
obligations and breaking up reservations by assimilating Indians into
the
broader culture.
Thousands of Indians were given one-way bus tickets to Chicago, Seattle,
Los
Angeles, Omaha and other cities in the West and Midwest.
Before the war, fewer than 10 percent of all Indians lived in urban
areas.
By 1970, almost half did.
In their new environs, many urban Indians never escaped the poverty
and lack
of opportunity that plagued them on reservations. Many were unprepared
for
the culture shock of life off the reservation. Many lacked job skills
and
felt abandoned and isolated.
Some returned to reservations, defeated. Thousands remained in cities,
living marginally, feeling estranged.
Even today, countless Indians cycle between cities and reservations.
They
leave reservations in search of better lives and, often after struggling,
return to the safety net of families and tribal services.
When in the city, Indian children become part of a tiny, almost invisible
minority in schools.
The 703 Indian students in Omaha - more than any Nebraska district -
are
just 1.6 percent of all 45,191 students.
And those students are spread across nearly every school in the district.
At Spring Lake Elementary, which has more Indians than most schools,
the 15
Indian students make up less than 3 percent of the total. They are
dwarfed
by the school's 282 Hispanic students, nearly 48 percent of total
enrollment.
"At Spring Lake, our focus is the Hispanic population," said fifth-grade
teacher Leslie Halbleib. "It's even one more reason (Indian children)
get
lost in the shuffle."
Since the typical Omaha school has only seven Indian students, it's
easy for
individual students to feel isolated.
Their teachers, rarely Indians themselves, usually don't know how to
make
lessons real through Indian examples. Few are prepared, for example,
to
illustrate math or geometry through Indian beadwork.
Sometimes the teachers see students' noncompetitiveness and avoidance
of eye
contact as lack of interest. In fact, Indian culture downplays individual
achievement, and making eye contact is seen as disrespectful.
As with their relatives on a reservation, urban Indian students must
overcome generations of educational problems. Many of their relatives
are
dropouts with a profound distrust of the white-dominated educational
system.
Small wonder that the absentee rate for Indian students in Omaha is
50
percent higher than the district average, or that the annual dropout
rate is
about 21/2 times as high.
If teachers can't reach Indian students during grade school, said Omaha
teacher Teri Dameron, they may be lost.
"By sixth grade, they're done," said Dameron, an Oglala Sioux who is
one of
two Indian teachers in the district.
If nothing else changes for these students, middle school becomes an
agonizing, fitful march toward high school, when students finally reach
the
age when they can legally quit.
Just look at their grades. From 1993 to 1998, a majority of Indian students
in seventh-grade science, eighth-grade English and ninth-grade algebra
received Ds or Fs.
Then comes high school, where Indian students drop out in droves.
Franklin Rath, an Oglala Sioux, was supposed to be in the Class of '99.
But
he fell behind as a junior and dropped out in what would have been
his
senior year at Benson High.
"I wanted to be with my friends instead of doing homework," he recalled.
Franklin, who is looking for a job and planning to take a high school
equivalency test, regrets his decision. "Now people will judge me like
I
just took the easy way out."
Rachel Lengyel also was supposed to be among the '99 graduates. She
had
spent most of her high school years on the Yankton Sioux Reservation
until
she moved to Omaha in 1998 and enrolled at Central High.
She dropped out after just five days, overwhelmed by a school with more
than
2,000 students.
Determined to get an education, Rachel enrolled at the district's Blackburn
alternative school and tried to earn enough credits to graduate with
her
class last spring. She didn't make it. She's back at Blackburn.
"My goal is to graduate," she said.
If Indian students reach their senior year, they typically do graduate,
but
they're not necessarily planning on college. Fewer than half of Omaha's
Indian seniors over the past five years took the ACT college-entrance
exam.
And the district's own surveys show that little more than one in three
Indian graduates attend college the year after graduation.
District officials say they know something needs to be done to give
Indian
students more attention.
Dameron, the teacher, and Mehojah, the Indian education coordinator,
said
the district should establish several grade schools as Indian magnets.
Bringing Indian children together, they said, would make students feel
less
isolated and make it easier to provide services such as teaching methods
geared for Indian culture and learning styles.
Nationally, the jury is still out on the effectiveness of Indian magnet
schools, which have been started in a number of urban centers. Buffalo,
N.Y., for example, has reported significant improvements since it started
a
magnet school 17 years ago.
But in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., officials acknowledge that Indian
children in their magnets perform no better than Indians in other schools
-
a fact they attribute to past mismanagement rather than failure of
the
approach.
If Omaha moves to magnet schools, it could build on a summer-school
program
it has run for about a dozen Indian fourth- and fifth-graders each
of the
last two summers.
One day last July, the students gathered at Indian Hill Elementary to
learn
geometry by using a stick and a piece of string, mimicking how their
ancestors drew circles. They pounded a drum while reciting multiplication
tables. They read books and told stories about their heritage.
For every act of bravery, such as going to the chalkboard or singing
in
front of the class, students received feathers.
Teacher Mary Burcham, a Cherokee, was aiming to teach more than academics.
She was building her students' pride and self-esteem.
The class had chosen as its icon the eagle. Like the Indian, Burcham
told
them, much of the eagle's land was taken away. Like the Indian, the
eagle
almost disappeared. But the eagle soared above all those challenges,
she
said, and so can the students.
"We want to be like the eagle and fly high no matter how hard things
become," she told them.
Andre Contreraz, 10, a Santee Sioux and Winnebago, took the lessons
to
heart. He wrote a story about Indians building a wooden rocket and
flying
into space, claiming new lands to replace those they lost on earth.
"You get to be in your own culture," Andre said of the five-week program.
Still, top school administrators are cool to creating magnet schools
for
Indians, noting that the Omaha district just ended racial busing and
returned children to neighborhood schools.
"Do we really want to isolate a particular group?" Clancy asked.
Clancy and Sandra Watkins, assistant superintendent for curriculum,
said
they have no alternatives yet.
As district officials see it, one of the biggest issues for Indian children
is motivation.
In the Omaha district, average standardized test scores for Indians
are
neither great nor abysmal. Their scores show that they can and do learn.
So why are so many dropping out?
One factor, Watkins said, is a cultural difference that makes school
less
important to many Indian youths and their families.
Most non-Indian students, she said, readily buy into a vision of their
future that involves a high school diploma if not a college degree,
a good
job, a middle-class lifestyle. It's a vision that encourages them to
succeed
in school.
Indians don't always share the same goals, Watkins and Mehojah said.
They
tend to follow the natural flow of events and worry less about material
goods like Nikes and cell phones. And even when they do, they don't
have the
background or parental support to help them see how education can lead
to
those things.
Arnold Mallory, a Winnebago and former science teacher in the Omaha
district, said this cultural gap is a significant issue: Many Indian
students are bright but don't succeed because they don't see school
as a
priority.They aren't focused on high grade-point averages and will
accept an
average grade.
"They want to be acceptable to the group," said Mallory, who now teaches
in
Humboldt, Neb. "They don't necessarily want to be top of the heap."
Teachers need to give Indian students reasons to see the relevance of
education and to value it.
"Our kids are far from being buffalo hunters," he said. "They have to
understand that we need an education."
Carmen Zendejas was fortunate to have Mallory as a teacher during eighth
grade at Norris Middle School. Apathetic and lazy about homework, she
might
have been at risk of dropping out when she hit high school. Mallory
helped
change her attitude.
"He always made me do my work," Carmen said, "made sure I didn't get
in
trouble or talk to the boys. He made me think that I could do well."
Mallory also encouraged her to get involved with an engineering and
science
program for minority students, and she attended a summer program at
the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Four years later, Carmen graduated in South High's Class of '99. A single
mother, she now works part time at a fast-food restaurant and plans
to
attend college in the fall.
Carmen's turnaround shows the difference a good teacher, especially
a fellow
Indian, can make.
But her turnaround had little to do with the district's Indian education
office, Omaha's federally-funded program for Indian students.
Most Indian students have no contact with the program except for receiving
free notebooks, crayons and other school supplies or being exempted
from
paying locker and laboratory fees.
About a dozen Indian students attended the summer school last year,
and a
few went to the senior banquet. Some use a tutoring program at a church
for
which the district provides assistance. The district used to organize
cultural events but stopped last year, citing spotty attendance.
Last year, the district received about $77,000 for its Indian education
office. Of that, about $22,000 went directly toward student activities.
About two-thirds of the $77,000 went to Mehojah's salary and benefits.
Mehojah does not regularly tutor students or mentor them, though she
does
serve as a liaison among Indian families, the district and social service
agencies. She also talks to teachers at times about Indian education.
Even if the district spent its entire grant on direct student services
it
would be hard-pressed to set up substantial programs without additional
money. The federal money would be just enough, for example, to hire
two
full-time teachers.
Other than giving Mehojah an office, Omaha spends little on Indian programs.
Some districts - St. Paul, Minn., and Lincoln, for example - cover
many
administrative expenses with other funds to free the federal money
for
services. St. Paul and Minneapolis also use district funds to operate
their
Indian magnet schools.
In Omaha, Mehojah outlined a plan in 1997 to help more students succeed.
Endorsed by then-Superintendent Norbert Schuerman, the "Dreambuilders"
plan
called for boosting student achievement through after-school instruction,
bi-monthly home visits where teachers would suggest activities for
parents
and children, summer school programs and resource centers for Indian
families.
But district officials declined to provide extra funds to hire a teacher
to
run the after-school programs. Nor did the district send teachers to
students' homes or establish other after-school programs for Indian
students.
The district did start the summer school, though it might not return
this
summer due to staffing problems.
And when Indian parents asked for tutoring help at the church, the district
gave them four surplus computers, books and supplies, and a teacher
for two
hours a week.
Clancy said the bulk of the Dreambuilders plan is on hold this school
year.
Administrators now intend to start a new study of Indian education
in April.
Eventually, Clancy said, that study will lead to specific proposals
to help
Indian children.
Jacob Tsotigh, a University of Oklahoma consultant who has advised Omaha
on
Indian education, said the district can turn it around.
"Indian kids can be successful if given the proper amount of nurturing
and
motivation and cultivation," Tsotigh said. "You have to let them see
they
have a place at the table."
---
Former World-Herald staff writer Carol Napolitano contributed to this
report.
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