A National Disgrace, from The Observer

The United Church Observer recently ran an excellent article by Richard Wright on First Nations education issues.

The piece touches on:
Graduation rates:
While almost anyone would agree that closing the residential schools was the right thing to do, many don’t realize that the problems for First Nations youth didn’t end there. Year after year, a staggering 60 percent of students living on reserves in Canada have failed to complete high school, compared to 14 percent of students in the population at large. That disparity has become known as the “high school completion gap,” and since Titian’s school days it has grown worse, not better.

Devolution:
Harvey McCue, a First Nations educator and founder of the Native studies department at Trent University in Peterborough, Ont., says the action was ill considered. “How can any serious observer or bureaucrat reasonably expect all 680 or so bands, the majority of them with fewer than 1,000 residents and situated in rural and remote locations, to manage effectively an education program?” he asked in a 2003 posting on the Turtle Island Native Network.Mendelson concurs. “Everyone who has spent time looking at the issue has concluded that the process of devolution is incomplete. The federal system hasn’t taken any responsibility or leadership for establishing the institutions and organization necessary so that bands can step in and build a proper education system. The present non-system is failing,” he says. “It is difficult to think of another issue that is so clearly a social and economic disaster in the making.”

Standards:
“The standards here aren’t what they are on the mainland,” he says. “Students from the reserve are way behind.” Stephanie is a case in point. She finished Grade 8 at an on-reserve school with the highest achievement award. Then in Grade 9, reality set in; she was just a mediocre student in town. “It was too hard for her, and she wasn’t prepared. Her grades dropped to below 60 percent,” Dan says.

Culture:
Doing well can be a double-edged sword, Herney explains. There’s a lingering suspicion of formal education that goes back to the residential school days. “When I was growing up, some people thought that if you got a good education, you were turning your back on your culture, becoming European,” Herney says. “What our kids are just beginning to appreciate is that Aboriginal culture has evolved. Getting a good education is a part of Aboriginal culture now, not apart from it,” he says.


And most importantly solutions:
Mendelson has become the guru of systemic change for First Nations education. What he and a growing number of other observers, including Harvey McCue, are pointing out is that there simply is no education system for First Nations comparable to the public system’s network of education ministries and boards of education. Mendelson is calling for a First Nations education act to complete the process of devolution begun in 1972. Such an act would allow First Nations to establish properly funded school boards with clear legal empowerment and the necessary regional agencies to support them, he says. Many are listening to this call: the Harper government, the Globe and Mail editorial board and First Nations leaders across the country. “Am I optimistic?” asks Mendelson. “I think there’s very strong agreement on this and lots of interests aligning to see that it gets done.

Other than the fact that funding per pupil is not discussed, this is without a doubt one of the best comprehensive pieces looking at First Nations education issues in Canada that I have read.

http://www.ucobserver.org/justice/2010/01/firstnations_education/