A House subcommittee hearing received testimony on educational programs for Native American children, in the context of proposed reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Title 9, Part A. Congressmen, representatives of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the National Indian Education Association, and American Indian educators and administrators presented oral and written statements. Topics included reforms in BIA schools; the FACE (Family and Child Education) program, which provides family services from the prenatal period through third grade; underfunding of the BIA school system; proposed changes to the Indian School Equalization Formula; the need for tribal departments of education; facility needs on the Navajo Nation and elsewhere; a boarding school that focuses on student needs and on helping every student reach mastery levels; concerns that the reauthorization may eliminate important programs; successful Title IX programs at Rocky Boy Public Schools (Montana); and development of tribal education standards. Appendices include the text of the revised legislation with the Navajo Nation's recommended changes. (SV)

To Live Heroically examines American Indian education during the last century, comparing the tribal, mission, and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) schools and curriculums and the assumptions that each system made about the role that Indians should assume in society. This significant book analyzes the relationship between the rise of institutional racism and the fall of public education in the United States using the history of American Indian education as a model. The author asserts that had the federal government really wanted an educated, self-sufficient Indian population, it would have selected the successful nineteenth-century tribal models of Indian education rather than the mission or BIA schools. And her description of the reservation and bordering white community demonstrates the depth of institutional racism and its impact on local politics, economics, and education. Huff wants the reader to see how policy is made about Indian education and to recognize the complex issues that Indian (and other minority) families and educators deal with in real communities.

Trace the history of education from Indian boarding schools to present-day reservation schools, including the revitalization and teaching of Indian language and culture, policies, and educational goals.