Indian Education Makes Enormous Strides at NIEA Convention

Here, from Indian Country Today. An excerpt:

Consultation, accountability and transparency were the call-to-arms at the National Indian Education Convention held earlier this month in Anchorage, Alaska. This year’s conference, entitled “Building Education Through the Generations,” saw unprecedented attention from the federal government, including visits from Senator Jon Tester, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs; the director of the Bureau of Indian Education, Dr. Charles “Monty” Russell; and Bill Mendoza, Director of the White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Affairs.

Among the highlights of the convention was a speech by Senator Jon Tester of Montana in which he announced the introduction of new, comprehensive Indian education legislation that will improve Native education from early childhood education through post secondary, including bolstering language immersion programs, resources for teacher recruitment and retention in Native school districts, as well as streamlined and simplified funding applications, among other initiatives.

“Senator Tester has been listening and loudly heard the call of our educators,” said NIEA Executive Director Anawake Rose (Cherokee/Muscogee). “He came all the way to Anchorage to announce this new legislation, which is the first time a sitting chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs has acknowledged our membership in recent memory. This legislation is extraordinary for its wide-ranging scope of improvements to our schools.”

TEDNA

Indian Education Makes Enormous Strides at NIEA Convention

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