US: Weighing the candidates' Native education platforms

[Harold Schiffman]

Weighing the candidates' Native education platforms
Posted: August 18, 2008
by: Rob Capriccioso


WASHINGTON - Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama, the presumptive
Republican and Democratic presidential candidates, respectively, both
say they care a lot about education. But how do they stack up when it
comes to issues that affect Native students?
At a meeting hosted by the New American Foundation in late July,
officials with the National Indian Education Association got a chance
to ask a campaign adviser from each campaign about their
Native-focused education policies.  Saying that the education of
Indian students often acts as a ''canary in the coal mine'' for the
state of education, NIEA High School Policy Initiative Coordinator
Kerry Venegas asked the advisers to comment on their candidate's
policies on Native education, especially given that the national
graduation rate for Native students is less than 50 percent.

McCain educational adviser Lisa Graham Keegan, a former Arizona
superintendent of public instruction, emphasized the Arizona senator's
history with Native groups in his state as well as his ongoing
commitment to partnering with tribes to meet the needs of Native
students, including support for culture and language. Elaborating on
that response, Hessy Fernandez, a spokeswoman for the McCain campaign,
said the senator ''believes education must be worthy of the promise we
make to our children and ourselves.''

''He has pushed for reforms to BIA schools and an increase in
resources for tribal education programs. He fully understands that
providing educational opportunities to our nation's Native American
children is critical to preparing for productive livelihoods,
including the preservation of Native languages and cultural
identity.'' Fernandez added that McCain ''will continue the BIA
construction initiative, which has provided $1 billion for the
construction of new schools and renovations of others schools on
reservations.''

In more broad terms, Keegan also emphasized McCain's continuing
commitment to the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act. She stated
that his focus is on creating ways for schools to immediately make
changes to help students by ''getting past bureaucratic systems'' that
sometimes prevent schools from sharing information with each other.

Keegan added that McCain doesn't support a one-size-fits-all education
policy approach, instead backing creativity and the use of data for
continuous immediate assessments to respond to students. She
underscored the need to use data on student achievement as a way to
review teacher performance. She said, too, that teacher education
programs should be held accountable for ensuring that the teachers
they prepare are proficient in specific subjects, and face the
consequences, such as replacement, for those who fall short of the
state objectives.

At the New American Foundation event, Obama educational adviser Jon
Schnur, former senior adviser on education to Vice President Al Gore,
highlighted his candidate's commitment to developing, retaining and
rewarding a high-quality teaching force that would serve in
hard-to-staff areas like Indian reservations and rural school
districts. Calling these educators ''the new generation,'' Schnur
mentioned policies that would provide full scholarships at both
undergraduate and graduate levels for teachers willing to make a
four-year commitment to teaching.

Schnur also shared Obama's broader goals. He said the senator from
Illinois wants to focus on high standards of accountability,
maintaining gains, and accelerating the quality of teaching and
leadership by cultivating human capital in our nation's teachers and
school leaders.

On the No Child Left Behind front, Schnur said Obama proposes to
properly fund the law in addition to providing more specific support
for early learning programs and for developing, rewarding and
retaining the highest-quality teaching professionals, and increasing
support for early education.

Saying that ''equity and access issues are intertwined,'' Schnur
detailed a desire to focus on teacher education programs in schools of
education, which he said can lead to more accountability and more
professionalized preparation, including apprenticeships and
opportunities for educators to ''come up the professional ladder.''

For Obama, he said, the development of good educational policy
involves listening carefully to different perspectives, examining the
data and looking at what is working.

Lillian Sparks, executive director of NIEA, said that she's pleased
from conversations she's had with the campaigns that both candidates
are open to the idea of promoting language and culturally based
education for Native children - one of the top legislative goals of
the education association.

''I think they both have policies in place to do positive education
outreach to the Indian population. We're very encouraged that both
campaigns are paying attention to Native students.''

NIEA plans to soon release a transition paper focused on Native
education, noting important priorities for the next administration,
whether it is headed by McCain or Obama.

http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096417977

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