Revisiting the Native American Languages Act of 1990

[Andre Cramblit]

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/learning-the-language/2010/07/revisiting_the_native_american.html

At a summit for revitalizing indigenous languages held this week here  
in Washington, a founder of a Native Hawaiian language-immersion  
school asked Charles Rose, the general counsel of the U.S. Department  
of Education, to "please look at" the Native American Languages Act of  
1990. The educator was among several founders of language-immersion  
schools who argued that provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act are  
in conflict with the Native American Languages Act and a hindrance to  
running language-immersion schools. I wrote about the educators'  
petition to Rose for relief from some of those provisions in an  
article published yesterday by Education Week.

The request of Rose by William "Pila" H. Wilson, the head of the  
academic-programs division for the University of Hawaii's College of  
Hawaiian Language, in Hilo, to revisit the Native American Languages  
Act prompted me to read the act for the first time. I had trouble  
finding a copy posted by the federal government so I pulled up a copy  
that had been posted by the National Association for Bilingual  
Education.

The act says that it is the policy of the United States to "encourage  
and support the use of Native American languages as a medium of  
instruction." That means that the federal government is going much  
farther than simply saying students should be able to study the  
language of their indigenous community only an hour or so each day.  
The act is saying the federal government supports students to take  
actual core academic subjects in a Native American language.

And interestingly, the act goes on to say that it's the policy of the  
United States to "recognize the right of Indian tribes and other  
Native American governing bodies to use the Native American languages  
as a medium of instruction in all schools funded by the Secretary of  
the Interior." That statement would refer to the schools run by the  
Bureau of Indian Education, an arm of the U.S. Department of the  
Interior.

While Native American students may have the right to receive core  
instruction in the language of their communities at BIE schools, in  
fact, it appears not to be happening much.

A recent federal study found that at BIE schools, only 23 percent of  
American Indian or Alaska Native 8th graders who participated in a  
survey reported that people in their schools talk to each other in a  
Native American language "every day or almost every day." Forty-one  
percent of the 8th graders at the BIE schools said people at their  
school talk to each other in a Native American language "never or  
hardly ever." (Thirteen percent said "once or twice a month" and 23  
percent said "once or twice a week.") The study didn't report if any  
of these BIE schools use a Native American language as the medium of  
instruction.

At regular public schools, American Indian or Alaska Native students  
reported even less exposure to Native American languages than their  
peers at the BIE schools.

At the summit, Wilson said in a presentation that "the Native American  
Languages Act says we have these rights in the United States, but that  
law hasn't really been used."
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