Alaskana: Education first (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Alaskana: Education first

NETTIE PERATROVICH Since receiving food stamps, welfare and decent
housing, the Native population has blossomed. I think we Natives have
made a difference.

Interviewed by JUDY FERGUSON
Last of two parts

(Published: December 3, 2006)
http://www.adn.com/life/story/8462552p-8356424c.html

Nettie Peratrovich, a Haida-Scot educator, arrived in Anchorage just
before the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act was passed. She was
among those pushing for new education policies.

In the pre-pipeline days, the majority of the state's budget came from
education monies, and little of that went to rural Alaska. When I
discovered after a year in Washington, D.C., that $7.5 million of
federal Johnson O'Malley Act (JOM) monies intended for the education of
Natives was signed over to the Department of Education, I protested.

The summer of 1971, Sen. Bill Ray met with our statewide JOM committee.
He slammed his fist down: "Where were you when we were going through
the education bills?"

I asked, "How do those bills include us when you know where all the
money goes?" I reminded him that we also had no bilingual program even
though we had 5,000 non-English-speaking students in our schools.

While I was finishing my degree in special education and in social
studies, the Indian Education Law, Title IV, passed, providing grants
for improving Indian education. Having heard about my previous
innovative teaching at Fairbanks Native Association and knowing that I
knew people from all over the state, Laura Bernhard of the State
Operated School System came to see me in 1974.

"We have a program," she said, "I'd like you to apply for." I did, and I
was accepted as the district director of Indian Education Act Programs
in charge of Title IV Party for the State Operated School System. We
developed bilingual and bicultural programs. With Dr. Michael Krauss,
Elaine Abraham and several others, I sat on the Native Language Board,
where we studied the languages, our indigenous groups, made
dictionaries and the map Native Peoples and Languages of Alaska.

Because the main speakers of Haida were in Canada, I went to the
governor's assistant and explained, "This is a dying people. We have to
have ALL of our Alaska languages developed or we'll know nothing about
them."

TRAINING NEW TEACHERS

I began traveling throughout the state, setting up parent advisory
committees in 150 state-operated schools as well as forming regional
and statewide boards. (Previously, the principal controlled everything
in the village schools.) We had to educate the people: these books,
these schools, these monies are yours, and only you can tell them how
to use Indian ed monies. I told them, "You have the right to fail as
long as you try again."

We trained Native teacher-aides, bilingual/bicultural aides and, in the
first year, I hired 15 Native teachers. We queried the people and
carefully set up regions along cultural and linguistic borders. These
became the model for today's Alaska Rural Education Attendance Areas.

Indian ed monies were used for many exciting programs, including the
Alaska Native Land Claims textbook published in 1976 by the Alaska
Native Foundation and editor Robert D. Arnold. Another important
document was the Federal Field Committee report, 1968, the basis of
land claims. This report stated that five-eighths of Alaska including
rivers and ocean frontage was used by Alaska Natives. It documented the
lifestyle, ethnology, linguistics, numbers of Native language speakers
and acreage needed for subsistence foods. I tried to get both of these
books in the hands of every school.

In 1975, I was sent to D.C. to sit on the regulations board for Public
Law 93-638, the new Indian Self Determination Act, giving Indian tribes
the authority to contract with the federal government to operate
programs serving their tribal members. I made sure we were referred to
as "Alaska Natives," not as "Alaska Indians," so all would be included.
Alaska Federation of Natives then contracted Johnson O'Malley monies
from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. AFN funded the fledgling regional
nonprofit corporations like the Aleut League and Tanana Chiefs
Conference. This gave those in the Alaska Bush a viable organization,
the means to come in and be trained and, thereby, gain a voice.

FOOD STAMPS FOR THE BUSH

AFN president Don Wright asked me to go to Washington, D.C., to
investigate the National Food and Nutrition Committee's new food stamp
program. I tried to educate the NFNC on the widespread poverty, lack of
food and inadequate stores in rural Alaska. I suggested that food stamps
might sufficiently boost the economy so that village stores might be
able to install refrigeration. Not only had the state not referred the
Bush as candidates for the food stamp program, but when I tried to get
hot lunches for rural Alaska, lunches were improved only in the urban
schools. There really were two Alaskas.

The Molly Hootch consent decree in the late 1970s was a godsend; the
state committed to provide local high schools for Native communities as
it had in predominantly white communities. Using oil tax dollars, rural
schools began to be built.

Employed by BIA in charge of subsistence issues, I began funding
regional studies required by the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands
Conservation Act. In 1983, I became BIA area rights protection officer
in charge of all Native lands in Alaska. I funded the subsistence
salmon, walrus and waterfowl advisory boards and the new Eskimo Whaling
Commission. I sat on the international salmon commission for
subsistence.

Prior to ANCSA and ANILCA, Natives had nothing to say about their
schools, resources or the decisions the state or the bureau made
relevant to them. Since receiving food stamps, welfare and decent
housing, the Native population has blossomed. I think we Natives have
made a difference. My husband, Frank, and I have spent our lives trying
to equalize things.

PROBLEMS REMAIN

I feel one of the state and the corporations' largest failures was in
not educating non-Natives and Natives about Alaska Native Claims
Settlement Act, nor were Natives properly prepared for the effects of
ANCSA. A lot of Alaska Natives still feel today that they have no
individual parcels of land, that they are landless. (The corporations
absorbed the acreage per head count, sold off vast areas, and many
at-large shareholders have received neither land nor compensation from
those sales.)

Today we need to train more Native teachers for urban and rural schools.
In the village, we must compensate the Native teacher the same as the
imported teachers who get housing and compensation for living in the
village. In the city, if we can't get Native teachers, we should get
Native counselors or trained individuals to bridge the gap between the
school and the home.

The dropout rate today is horrific. When we had BIA or the State
Operated School System, there was no significant dropout rate and the
standardized test scores were higher. At the college level today,
Native students should be allowed to try until they succeed.

Due to lack of finances, the parent advisory boards no longer exist.
There needs to be a closer inspection today of how monies intended for
Native education are used by the larger public schools. Getting
involved is a requirement for change.

Judy Ferguson is a publisher and a freelance columnist for the Fairbanks
Daily News-Miner. She is the author of Alaska histories "Parallel
Destinies" and "Blue Hills" and the children's books "Alaska's Secret
Door" and "Alaska's Little Chief." Her Web site is
www.alaska-highway.org/delta/outpost.