A Scorecard for Native Leaders

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Native Canadians can learn valuable lessons from the ongoing American dialogue on race issues. One writer specifically worth paying attention to is black American scholar John McWhorter, who takes an inspiring road to addressing what he calls "the crisis in black America" in his book Winning the Race. One of McWhorters lessons is that "therapeutic alienation" has discouraged millions of blacks from doing their best. He defines therapeutic alienation as: "alienation unconnected to, or vastly disproportionate to, real life stimulus, but maintained because it reinforces one's sense of psychological legitimacy, via defining oneself against an oppressor characterized as eternally depraved."

For anyone that lives or works on a reserve, or has set foot in a modern Native Studies department, or had any involvement with Native politics the comparison is undeniable. McWhorter lists a scorecard for black leaders that is worth replicating for native leaders in Canada.

Have at it.

NATIVE LEADER A AND NATIVE LEADER B: A SCORECARD

1.
Native Leader A unabashedly celebrates our victories.

Native leader B celebrates our victories only in parenthesis, under the impression that trumpeting our failures is more important because it lets whites know they are "on the hook."

2.
Native Leader A is committed to eventually getting past race.

Native Leader B is committed to delineating us as a race apart, seemingly hoping that whites and other races will blend together, but Natives will remain a separate group, since colonization has forced us into mainstream society against our will.

3.
Native Leader A is interested in cultural hybridity as evidence of progress.

Native Leader B is interested in cultural hybridity as evidence that whites "appropriate" nativeness "and sell it back to us."

4.
Native Leader A identifies racism and discrimination after careful consideration.

Native Leader B identifies racism and discrimination as the cause of all statistical discrepancies between natives and whites.

5.
Native Leader A is interested in natives succeeding in the system as it is and considers us capable of doing so.

Native Leader B is interested in natives succeeding in a system transformed by a revolution and considers us incapable of doing so otherwise.

6.
Native Leader A considers the equation between alienation and native identity a problem.

Native Leader B considers the equation between alienation and native identity a "wake-up call" to a benighted white establishment by a people "denied love."


Native leaders should be ranked based on this scorecard. Some people will prefer leader B, however leaders of this type will have no influence on the future of Canada. The long term prosperity and future of native people in Canada will depend on us moving towards and supporting leader A.

It is Absolutely Possible for Minority Kids to Achieve at the Highest Level

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An excellent article from Business week on Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) Schools in the US. More support for Charter Schools in Canada? I sure think so. Would KIPP come to Canada?


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Ivy Leaguers’ Class for Poor Becomes ‘Platinum’ Charter Schools
By Molly Peterson

Jan. 20 (Bloomberg) -- In 1993, Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin were recent Ivy League graduates teaching fifth graders in Houston’s inner city. The students were as much as two academic years behind their middle-class peers.
A year later, Feinberg and Levin started a classroom that operated nine hours a day instead of the normal seven, as well as on some Saturdays and during the summer. Within a year, the number of students performing at grade level in reading and math jumped to 90 percent from 50 percent.
Today the 50-pupil experiment has grown into the biggest U.S. charter-school operator, with 82 schools for poor and minority children in 19 states. The Obama administration cites the Knowledge Is Power Program, as the nonprofit system is known, as a model of the kind of education reform it hopes to spawn with $100 billion in stimulus money.
KIPP has gotten “remarkable results from students,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in an interview. “The program helps kids “who didn’t really have a good work ethic, who didn’t have dreams, start to become extraordinarily successful.”
In addition to adopting working-world hours -- KIPP says its students spend 60 percent more time in class than regular public schools require -- the organization’s founders say they have been inspired in part by Gap Inc., FedEx Corp. and Southwest Airlines Co.
Commencement Walk
Adopting Southwest’s emphasis on employee motivation helps principals keep teachers, students and parents focused on preparing every child for college, said Feinberg, 41, a University of Pennsylvania graduate who is head of KIPP’s 15 Houston schools. Yale University alumnus Levin, 39, runs the system’s six New York City schools.
When KIPP students graduate, “it’s not just the high school teachers that walk in the commencement,” Feinberg said. “The middle-school teachers and the elementary teachers that taught those kids walk in the commencement as well.”
A 2005 study by the Educational Policy Institute in Virginia Beach, Virginia, found “large and significant gains” among fifth graders in KIPP schools nationwide on the Stanford Achievement Test, a standardized assessment used by school districts. The students scored an average of 9 to 17 points higher in reading, language and math, on a scale of 99 points, than they had the previous year elsewhere.
KIPP has an 85 percent college matriculation rate, compared with 40 percent for low-income students nationwide, according to a 2008 report card on the organization’s Web site. About 90 percent of KIPP’s 20,000 students are black or Hispanic; 80 percent qualify for subsidized meals.
‘Platinum Brand’
KIPP’s charter schools are a “platinum brand,” said Dan Katzir, managing director of the Los Angeles-based Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, which has donated $18 million to the schools.
For all its success, education scholars such as Jeffrey Henig, a political science and education professor at Columbia University in New York, question whether the KIPP experience can be replicated on a large scale.
The main reason is that KIPP is able to staff its relatively small number of schools by recruiting from a limited pool of top candidates, many of them from programs other than traditional education colleges.
About two-thirds of KIPP’s principals and a third of its teachers are alumni of Teach for America, a New York-based nonprofit that recruits graduates of Ivy League and other top colleges to teach in high-poverty areas for two years. Feinberg and Levin met when both joined Teach for America in 1992.
“KIPP and Teach for America have shown that it is possible to get good, bright, enthusiastic, energetic young people into schools,” Henig said. “But we don’t know whether that’s sustainable.”
Careful Growth
“The KIPP school is not a transformative model,” said Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington research group. “The KIPP school is a school that takes meat-and-potatoes education and does it incredibly well,” Hess said.
KIPP, which plans to have 110 schools by 2011, never envisioned becoming ubiquitous, said John Fisher, chairman of the KIPP Foundation, which supports the schools. “We will not open another school if we don’t believe it’s going to be as good as the last school we opened,” he said.
KIPP’s New York chapter has expanded “in a way that ensures quality control,” said New York Schools Chancellor Joel Klein. “They have consistently opened up very good schools, and we want to support that.”
Chosen by Lottery
The nation’s 4,900 charter schools, including KIPP’s, operate under contracts with school districts or states and receive most of their operating funds from them. KIPP says most of its schools get no tax dollars for capital needs such as school buildings and relies on donations. Students attend for free and are chosen by lottery.
Partly to spur the growth of charter schools, President Barack Obama said yesterday he wants to add $1.35 billion to the $4.35 billion already in the government’s Race to the Top education program, which rewards states whose innovations can serve as models for others.
While KIPP can’t compete directly for that money, it’s “hopeful that there are real opportunities to help us be part of the larger effort” to improve education, KIPP Foundation Chief Executive Officer Richard Barth said in an interview.
Gap Founders
John Fisher’s parents, Gap clothing chain founders Don and Doris Fisher, were among KIPP’s major boosters, giving Feinberg and Levin $15 million to start its foundation in 2000 and $64 million in all over the years.
Philanthropies including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation also have donated, bringing total contributions to $130 million. Don Fisher was chairman of the KIPP Foundation’s board until his death last September at the age of 81. John succeeded him.
The foundation funds a yearlong Fisher Fellowship for prospective KIPP principals, whose coursework includes business school classes that examine companies such as Southwest and FedEx. KIPP’s founders say FedEx offers insights into competing with a government monopoly.
The classes are followed by “residencies” at KIPP schools and six months developing a business plan in the communities where the participants plan to open schools.
Students as Customers
“KIPP school leaders are small business owners in many respects,” said Elliott Witney, who completed the fellowship in 2002 and is chief academic officer of KIPP’s Houston schools. “I’ve got friends in New York starting their own companies, and the issues they deal with are identical to ours.”
Witney, 34, says about half the books in his office are business and management-related, including Jim Collins’ “Good to Great” and Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point.”
KIPP school leaders, who refer to students and parents as “customers,” have more control than traditional public-school principals over budgets, staffing and curriculum, Feinberg said. They also continually assess whether students are likely to succeed in college. Schools that fall short can lose the right to the KIPP brand.
The branding strategy came from Don Fisher as he helped KIPP craft an expansion plan. Feinberg recalled showing Fisher uniforms bearing the names of three KIPP schools opening in 2001. “Don was like, ‘These are great. Where’s KIPP?’” Feinberg said. The KIPP name began appearing on T-shirts and signs, and in the name of every school.
KIPP Academy Middle School is the centerpiece of the group’s Southwest Houston campus, which houses three schools for students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. U.S. News and World Report last month ranked KIPP’s Houston high school 16th best of the U.S.’s 21,000 public secondary schools.
‘No Shortcuts’
At the middle school, motivational slogans such as “No Shortcuts” line the corridor walls. Pre-kindergartners wear shirts emblazoned with “Class of 2024,” the year they plan to start college. Classrooms are named after universities, including Yale and Penn.
Fifth graders recite multiplication tables in unison through rhyming chants, a mnemonic method known as rolling numbers. First-grade spelling lessons make use of body language, with students snapping their fingers for each vowel in a word, and clapping for each consonant.
FedEx Effect
Feinberg wants to expand in Houston from 15 to 42 KIPP schools serving 10 percent of the city’s public-school students by 2020. He says the competition might spur traditional public schools to adopt KIPP methods, the way the U.S. Postal Service began offering overnight mail nationally amid competition from FedEx.
That probably won’t happen, said Gayle Fallon, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers. “Public schools don’t always react that way,” Fallon said. “They’ll whine about losing enrollment” to charter schools, “but whether they do anything about it is another story.”
KIPP provides “healthy competition” that “makes everybody better,” said Houston Independent School District spokesman Norm Uhl. Some other charter schools have followed KIPP’s lead by increasing class time, and many regular public schools have started effective after-school programs, Uhl said.
Michelle Rhee, head of the Washington, D.C., public schools since 2007, said she’s modeled some initiatives after KIPP, including Saturday classes and more rigorous summer school. Rhee has known KIPP-D.C. founder Susan Schaeffler since 1992, when they too were in Teach for America.
KIPP proves that “it is absolutely possible for poor minority kids to achieve at the highest level,” Rhee said.
She cited a KIPP school in Washington where, she said, 90 percent of students are performing on grade level, compared with 10 percent at a regular public school six blocks away.
“Same neighborhood, same challenges, same kids with those wildly different outcomes,” Rhee said.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-01-20/ivy-leaguers-class-for-poor-becomes-platinum-charter-schools.html

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Why is Student A worth $8,000 and Student B $18,000

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Part of the Canadian ideal is to allow all Canadians equal opportunity. It is a non-partisan belief and one of the tangible things Canada does that makes us who we are. It is part of our identity and drives such things as medicare, equalization payments, public education, etc..

First Nations schools in Canada seem to have escaped this reality. Education systems operated on reserves function on significantly less funding per student than their provincial counterparts. And by significant I don’t mean a little bit of money, which translates into a little bit of difference in services and opportunity for First Nations students … I mean a lot.

It is worth doing a comparison to demonstrate what I mean by a lot.

Frontier School Division is a public school division that operates 41 schools with 5,980 students in 5 areas throughout the province of Manitoba. FSD has 512 teachers on staff and a teacher pupil ration of 1:12. The 2008/2009 operating budget for FSD was $107,318,428.

FSD spending per pupil for 2008/2009 was $17,946

Opaskwayak Cree Nation in Manitoba operates one school with 1,023 students. OCN has 52 teachers on staff for a teacher pupil ration of 1:20. The 2008/2009 operating budget for OEA was just over $8,000,000.

OCN spending per pupil for 2008/2009 was $7,820

$17,946 vs. $7,820? It is not hard to figure out which students are getting more opportunity and why there is a demonstrable learning gap between on and off reserve students. Over the normal schooling lifetime there is a staggering $121,512 difference in opportunity.

If you are wondering how this funding gap originated, at first glance it may look like it is due to the fact that First Nations students are a federal responsibility and not a provincial responsibility (like other students in Canada). Funding flows from INAC, which has been locked in a 2% budget freeze since Paul Martin took drastic steps to reduce the federal deficit in the mid 1990’s. After 14 years of population growth doubling funding increases the gap will continue to grow larger and larger. First Nations educators have been pushing for a change in the funding model for years with no success. INAC will only pay First Nations schools what they can from their budget … which for us means $7,820 per student. “A funding cap is a funding cap” we have heard over and over.

However if you look closely at FSD’s budget guess where they receive 52% of their revenue from? You got it … INAC! Because they have been contracted to provide educational services on some First Nations in Manitoba through special agreements, they tell INAC their ‘costs per pupil’ and INAC pays them the money, which for them means $17,946 per student.

Am I missing something here or is this completely absurd?

Some have argued that although everyone agrees on reserve funding is low, the feds will not increase funding until there is increased accountability on reserves (First Nations schools do not fall under the watchful eye of the public schools acts). The common response is that accountability cannot be increased until funding levels improve to help pay for the changes. Meanwhile, our students are caught in the middle.

There are three ways out of this critical mess. First, funding for First Nation’s schools must be indexed on a common realistic standard that gives First Nations students a semblance of equal opportunity (Ottawa Carleton School Board would be a suitable example). Second, make all education funding flowing from the federal government conform to the spirit of the Federal Accountability Act. Education money should be protected envelope funds at both the federal and First Nations levels. Lastly, governments must support a First Nations Education Act that would prevent an inequity as gross as this from happening again.

When Canadian children are given two completely different levels of opportunity based on what school system they are enrolled in, something needs to change.

If post-secondary funding goes the way of the Dodo bird ...

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If the current treaty right to post-secondary education goes the way of the Dodo bird, we can start the post-mortem by blaming ourselves. With post-secondary money being misspent by chiefs on the one hand, and a lack of understanding of the treaty right to education federally on the other, the only viable solution to this endangered right is for both the chiefs and the federal government to change their ways and actually support post-secondary education.

Education is a 'treaty right' for First Nations peoples in Canada granted through agreements with the crown - the same crown that Prime Minister Harper turned to for the authority to prorogue parliament (this should remind us of their legitimacy). They are agreements signed on a 'nation-to-nation' basis which ceded land for rights. They are as significant to Canada and its being as the Canadian Constitution.

I have to add here that if you do not like the fact that First Nations people have rights guaranteed through treaties as supported by the supreme court of Canada ... tough. Get over it and stop whining. In the words of Alan Cairns we are, 'Citizens Plus.'

The rumoured plans to off-load post-secondary funding to either a third party or morph them into loans, has no doubt been instigated by improper spending ... and ignorance.

The treaties generally address education as follows (each treaty has minor changes in the language used), “Her Majesty agrees to maintain schools for instruction in such reserves hereby made as to Her Government of Her Dominion of Canada may seem advisable whenever the Indians of the reserve shall desire it.” (Treaty # 3, 1873).

The Supreme Court of Canada has recognized that it is the spirit of the treaties which needs to be interpreted. The Elders in northern Manitoba tell us that the Aboriginal leaders who negotiated the treaties wanted their people to have access to the same level of education as mainstream Canadians, ‘when they shall desire it’. They understood that education was necessary for the survival of the people. In those days the average education level topped out at perhaps grade 4 or 5. Today things are much different. If we follow the spirit of the treaties, in a strict sense, they support the building of not only primary and secondary schools on reserve, but post-secondary schools on reserve at the request of the reserve … every reserve. However, it is worth recognizing the impracticality of building institutions on every reserve and the reality that funding students to attend other universities is a much more cost effective way of fulfilling this treaty right.

The right follows the student.

There are also reasons beyond guaranteed rights to support the current funding system based on addressing societal inequalities. The current post-secondary education programs administered by First Nations education authorities emulate fellowships found at ivy-league institutions like Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Columbia that give full scholarships to deserving disadvantaged students. These institutions have found that by supporting students and providing them with tuition, books and living expenses it gives equity to groups that are denied a level playing field through a wide variety of societal factors (lower socio-economic status, family education levels, remoteness, etc.). It is a system that has proven successful in bringing forward a new level of leadership from within minority populations in the United States. President elect Barack Obama is an example of one such student. In my experience First Nation's post secondary education programs are no less successful and have enabled large numbers of our people to contribute to Canada in ways exponentially above the financial cost of their education. These post-secondary graduates are challenging the status qou and bringing contemporary solutions based thinking into our communities. In these economically complex times these future employees are direly needed.

Not only does Canada have a legal obligation to support First Nations post-secondary students in the country as defined by the treaties in which this country was founded, it also has a moral obligation to re-balance the fiscal and educational imbalances through policy and practice and borrow best-practices from modern democracies globally.

Not all First Nations post-secondary students receive funding however, as competition for scholarships is fierce and our money often finds itself going to other uses. In many First Nations communities, money is taken away from education to fund other services.

While it is important for mainstream Canada to understand treaty rights, our communities must move beyond crying for "more money" and spend what money we have properly. Politicians pandering to the chiefs helps no one. As an example, while visiting the University of Manitoba last week Michael Ignatieff promised to "lift the 2% cap on post-secondary funding for First Nations students." He was met with a resounding applause. Sorry, but the truth of the matter is that there is a significant fiscal surplus in post-secondary spending in Manitoba. Increasing funding to an area that shows a surplus is not smart (it may get some chiefs on your side but is isn't smart).

INAC transfers money yearly to First Nations to support post-secondary students. Many bands accept a set number of students based on their budget ... IF they were to stay in school all year. The fact is that many post-secondary students drop out and in very few communities do they accept students beyond the start of the year. So some communities end up with significant surpluses due to high drop-out rates. Guess where the money goes? This money is rolled into the overall band operating budget ... but shows up as unspent in INAC's eyes.

Not only must the federal government must recognize that the right to a post-secondary education is a treaty right - and a useful one at that - but our First Nations leadership must realize that they must spend ALL education money on education. If we continue to misspend post-secondary money, we cannot be surprised when it is cut back or changed entirely.

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Would an Aboriginal Minister of Indian Affairs better serve Aboriginal people?

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Nothing replaces a Friday night meat draw at the Legion, but one of the good things about 'social media' is that it allows you to debate and discuss issues that would otherwise be logistically implausable to do with your friends. Canada is a big place and as much as everyone should haul their butts down to meat draw and hang out with us every Friday ... it ain't gonna happen.

At times online dialogue can be enlightening.

Case in point. A friend of mine asked the following question on facebook and elicited a very rigorous response: I will pose the same question. I am very interested to know your thoughts, especially with the latest talk of a cabinet shuffle:

"If Canada were to have a Minister of Indian Affairs who is Aboriginal, do you believe Aboriginal people in Canada would be better served and represented because he/she was Aboriginal? Why or why not?"

Here is who would be eligible:

Minister Leona Aglukkaq - Inuit
MP Rob Clarke - First Nations
MP Shelly Glover - Metis
MP Rod Bruinooge - Metis
Senator Patrick Brazeau - First Nations
Senator Gerry St. Germain - Metis

What do you think?

*According to data provided by the Library of Parliament, the current Conservative government boasts the largest percentage of elected Aboriginal members in history.

Wesakejak meets Wesakejak

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© 1999 Storytellers Productions Inc.

This is a story my daughter told me one evening. Wesakejak is the legendary Cree hero and can either be male or female depending on the story. Most Wesakejak stories are passed down generation to generation, with little to no room for variation. My daughter chooses to create her own stories. Here is one:

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One day Wesakejak was sitting on a rock rubbing his belly.

Rubbing and rubbing ... he was hungry.

All of a sudden there was a deer in front of him. He took out his rifle and was slowly aiming at it through the scope when it magically turned into a woman (shimmer shimmer shimmer).

"Hello Wesakejak" She said.

"Huh, how did you know my name?" He dropped his rifle.

"You were thinking about trains a minute ago weren't you, then about how hungry you are." She said.

Wesakejak was freaked out. "How do you know that?"

"Cuz' I can read your mind Wesakejak", she said.

Wesakejak then said, "What is your name?"

She said, "Wesakejak."

"HUH??!!"

Then she ran away and jumped into the river.

The river went into a waterfall and as she hit the bottom of the water fall she turned into a mermaid. Wesakejak chased after her. When he reached the bottom off the waterfall he turned into a merman. Then she talked to him,

"Wesakejak is my nickname"she said.

Then took off towards the surface. She jumped out of the water and turned into an eagle.

Wesakejak followed her and also turned into an eagle.

She flew and then landed and turned into a moose. Wesakejak followed behind her and turned into a moose. Then she ran through the woods and finally stopped.

She turned into a unicorn (Wesakejak did too) and said, "My real name is Lily. Wesakejak is my nickname"

They went to her house and they were sleeping. Then a group of mean hunters were slowly sneaking upon them .... They circled around the tent and were getting closer and closer.

Wesakejak woke up just in time and woke up Lily. "Lets turn ourselves into Dragons" she said to him in her mind.They turned themselves into big huge dragons with huge wings and ate and burned up all the mean hunters.

They even bit some of their heads off.

Then they got married.

The end

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Some proroguement numbers

The Canadian Parliament will sit for a total of 114 days in the upcoming year (this includes the 22 days missed in the current proroguement).

In 2009 Parliament sat for 130 days.

The average number of sitting days for Canadian Pariliament for the 2000's has been 111.1

Manitoba's NDP government has prorogued the provincial legislature 1o times while in government - sitting for an average of 68 days per year.

If anyone should be mad about proroguement, it should be Manitobans.


http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/Compilations/HouseOfCommons/SittingDays.aspx?Menu=HOC-Procedure&Chamber=03d93c58-f843-49b3-9653-84275c23f3fb

http://www.gov.mb.ca/hansard/info/sessionalinfo.pdf

Edward Redhead's death is all of our responsibility

Edward Redhead, from Shamattawa in northern Manitoba was killed in a fire this week. The Winnipeg Free Press described Edward as as "a bright kid, very intellectual, upbeat and happy." I cannot even begin to try to grasp the sorrow that this family is going through right now. Thinking of Edward makes me think of my own children so I won't go there. It is best left to his family to tell his story.

Since his death there has been a steady stream of media coverage, commentary, finger pointing, blame, scapegoating, and politics discussing such things as funding, accountability, devolution, dependency, you name it. Our response to this tragedy is telling.

The worst part about this whole tragedy is that it gives everyone with a soapbox a chance to climb on and shout away. When it stops being about Edward Redhead, and people start pointing fingers, then we are part of the problem. The media blames the reserve system, the chiefs blame Ottawa, opposition blames Awasis, the provincial government blames past government policies, Native people blame assimilation, Awasis blames the parents, etc. etc. etc., meanwhile as we are so busy blaming each other the number of kids dieing in the north continues to rise ... and nothing changes.

Let's give our heads a shake.

Thankfully MKIO Grand Chief David Harper said this is something we all need to take responsibility for. Kudos to him for showing leadership on this.

If you cannot find a way to figure out how you are partly responsible for this, then you'd better think harder. We are in this together.

Rest in Peace Edward. You will not be forgotten.

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/

Self Government

Today's National Post has an editorial in support of a Canadian Constitution Foundation proposal dealing with Native self government. The CCF's idea is the delegate power to First Nations. I emphasize delegate because there have been two different ways of implementing 'self government' on reserves in Canada in the past, via delegation and devolution.

Fueled by a promise in the Liberal Red Book, in 1994 the federal government and First Nations in Manitoba tried devolution through the Framework Agreement Initiative, which aimed to dismantle INAC and have First Nations take over and be fully responsible for all services.

The objectives of AFI were:

• Dismantle the existing departmental structures of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development as they affect First Nations in Manitoba;
• Develop and recognize First Nations governments in Manitoba legally empowered to exercise the authorities required to meet the needs of the peoples of the First Nations;
• and Restore to First Nations governments the jurisdictions (including those of the other federal departments);
• consistent with the inherent right of self-government, all of which is hereinafter referred to as the "Objectives".

Not one of these objectives were met.

Devolution means responsibility for success, failure, implementation, changes, all pass down to the First Nations. Without dwelling on the history of colonization and its effects on dependency, the people on the ground were simply not up to the challenge or responsibility of devolution. Millions of dollars were wasted. Dependency and devolution do not jive.

Back to the editorial. The current approach to dealing with self government is much more realistic and implementable. Consider this,

The Gitxsan, an ancient West Coast tribe, offered to give up its Indian status — which would mean losing its reserve and its people’s exemption from income tax and the GST, among other perks — in return for a share of resource revenue from its ancestral lands and something approaching municipal government control.
Nearby, the Nisga’a, who already have some of the control the Gitxsan are seeking, have passed a local law permitting members to buy and own their property on Nisga’a land — a first for any aboriginal community in the country.
Since local accountability and control follows property rights and personal taxation, these two moves promise to have profound effects on the future of native self-government.
Now the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) is proposing a way to speed the transition to self-government while also preserving our Constitution: delegation of powers from the higher orders of government to aboriginal councils. This makes sense. It is the same way municipalities derive their powers from their provincial governments and works well in that context.

Delegation of authority would still mean that First Nations could exercise self government. It would mean however that the responsibility for 'governance' still rests in the federal government's hands (unlike a municipality as the editorial implies).

First Nations have never given up the right to self determination. What we have given up is the initiative to exercise those rights. Delegation of authority, which entails us acting on the federal governments behalf, is a realistic step towards self determination and self reliance.

Let's not make their mistakes when measuring success

I was recently part of a delegation from Canada that looked at United States education systems for Native American students. One of our goals was to see if lessons learned from the US could be useful in a Canadian setting. As in Canada, Native American students in the US are considered disadvantaged and many attend ineffective or failing schools.

There are many lessons to be learned from a look at the US government response to ineffective and failing schools. The most valuable lessons may be found in learning from their mistakes.

The first thing Canadian teachers think about when discussing US schooling is the No Child Left Behind Act. NCLB (2002) had noble beginnings, but was fought from the beginning by many educators. 7 years after its inception, the debate rages on, (the rumours of the demise of NCLB have been exaggerated - NCLB is here to stay).

Educators across the U.S. have been debating the merits of NCLB since even before its implementation. The original act, brought in by well-meaning Republicans, and receiving all party support, sought to identify those school divisions, schools, and states that were most successful in educating America’s most disadvantaged students. It also sought to indentify those that were ineffective at meeting the needs of disadvantaged minority students. It forced schools to report if they were failing minority students at different rates than other students. It set minimum benchmarks for achievement state by state. The act was enforced through standardized assessments. Each state developed its own State Assessments, which are approved by the federal department of education.

As in the US, many disadvantaged Canadian students are being failed by the system. Indigenous Canadians are achieving significantly lower outcomes than mainstream Canadians in our school systems. With on-reserve graduation rate of 29% - 32%, First Nations students, who are also members of the fastest growing segment of the population, are Canada’s critical element determining success … or failure in education. While Canada’s educational system on the whole is moving forward, the gap between our successful; and less successful students remains unchanged.

On the ground level in the U.S. there are varied responses to NCLB. Educators on the front lines both love and despise the act. One principal I spoke with in a southern state said that ‘NCLB set a bar for us to aspire to. It forced us to get better.’ Another educator said that the establishment of standards, and repercussions attached to those standards, allow schools to constantly seek improvement.

Yet underlying all of this are structural changes in instruction that would be uncomfortable to most Canadians. Many US elementary schools have discarded ‘non-essential’ instructional time in order to focus on core subjects – math and reading. This means students in many schools get physical education once per week. It also means music, arts, and creative development is relegated to after thoughts in the quest to stay ahead in core academics. Desks have moved from groups, to rows.

A member of the National Indian Educations Association summed up criticism of NCLB succinctly by saying, ‘We need to move from not only measuring academic outcomes but to measuring healthy living outcomes”

While there is a need for assessment and standardization, we cannot forget that education is most effective and successful when there is a spirit of creativity, laughter and growth involved. The US Department of Education seems to be moving in the direction of allowing states to set local assessment templates that could include culture and language outcomes – both critically important to First Nations educators in Canada.

It will be a hard job for us educators to find the balance between demonstrating effectiveness through standardized assessments, and holistic learning. Either way, the current state of education in Canada needs fixing for our disadvantaged students. Whether or not a Canadian First Nations equivalent to NCLB would be beneficial or detrimental needs some serious debate.

* Picture is from a survival class run by some staff from the Canadian Forces School of Survival and Aeromedical Training with a group of our Land Based Education students. How we measure success will determine if programs like this flourish or die.