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  • Chicago Black Student Success Plan Amid Backlash Against Race-Based Initiatives – The 74

    Chicago Black Student Success Plan Amid Backlash Against Race-Based Initiatives – The 74


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    Chicago Public Schools unveiled a five-year plan Thursday to improve the outcomes of the district’s Black students — at a time of unprecedented backlash against efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in education.

    The release of the Black Student Success Plan, during Black History Month, is part of CPS’s broader five-year strategic plan and aims to address long-standing disparities in graduation, discipline, and other metrics faced by its Black students, who make up roughly a third of the student body.

    The district set out to create the Black Student Success Plan in the fall of 2023, but its quiet posting on Thursday comes as both conservative advocacy groups and the Trump administration are taking aim at race-based initiatives in school districts and on college campuses.

    Late last week, the U.S. Department of Education’s top acting civil rights official warned districts and universities that they could lose federal funding if they don’t scrap all diversity initiatives, even those that use criteria other than race to meet their goals. He cited the 2023 Supreme Court Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision that banned the use of race as a college admissions factor.

    CPS — in a progressive city in a Democratic state — has largely been insulated from standoffs over diversity and inclusion in recent years, when districts in other parts of the country have come under intense scrutiny over how they teach race and how they take it into account in hiring, selective program admissions, and other decisions. Increasingly, though, deep blue cities like Chicago are finding themselves in the crosshairs.

    Last year, a Virginia-based advocacy group challenged a Los Angeles Unified School District initiative aimed at boosting outcomes for its Black students, which CPS said inspired its own plan. At the urging of the Biden administration, Los Angeles made changes to downplay the role of race, causing an outcry from some of its initiative’s supporters.

    Chicago’s plan vows to increase the number of Black teachers, slash suspensions and other discipline for Black students, and embrace more culturally responsive curriculums and professional development to “combat anti-Blackness” — goals some of which could run afoul of the Department of Education’s interpretation of the Students for Fair Admissions decision.

    Still, some district and community leaders in Chicago say CPS’s plan might be better-positioned to withstand challenges than Los Angeles’ initiative — and they said the district must forge ahead with the effort even as it braces for pushback.

    “Now is not the time for anticipatory obedience and preemptive acquiescence,” said Elizabeth Todd-Breland, a University of Illinois Chicago professor of African American history and a former Chicago school board member who served on a working group that helped craft the plan. “This is not the time to shrink but to live out our values.”

    The new plan says Illinois law mandates this work and cites a state statute that requires the Chicago Board of Education to have a Black Student Achievement Committee. That committee has not yet been formed.

    CPS declined Chalkbeat’s interview request and did not answer questions before publication. The district is hosting a celebration at Chicago State University at 3 p.m. Friday to mark the plan’s release.

    Chicago set out to create Black Student Success Plan years ago

    CPS convened a working group made up of 60 district employees, parents, students, and community members that started meeting in December of 2023 to begin creating its Black Student Success Plan.

    The following spring, it hosted nine forums to discuss the plan with residents across the city — what the plan’s supporters describe as one of the district’s most extensive and genuine efforts to get community input.

    The working group in May released a list of recommendations that included stepping up efforts to recruit and retain Black educators, promote restorative justice practices, ensure culturally responsive curriculums that teach Black history, and offer more mental health and other support for Black students through partnerships with community-based organizations.

    The district adopted many of these recommendations in its plan. It sets some concrete five-year goals, including doubling the number of male Black teachers, increasing the number of classrooms where Black history is taught, and decreasing how many Black students get out-of-school suspensions by 40%.

    “The Black Student Success Plan is much more than simply a document,” the plan said. “It represents a firm commitment by the district, a roadmap, and a call to action for Chicago’s educational ecosystem to ensure equitable educational experiences and outcomes for Black students across our district.”

    The effort built on equity work to help “students furthest from opportunity” that started five years ago under former CEO Janice Jackson, said Dominique McKoy, the executive director of the University of Chicago’s To & Through Project. In CPS, by a range of metrics, those students have historically been Black children.

    McKoy, whose work focuses on college access, points out that the district has made major strides in increasing the number of students who go to college. But more students than ever drop out before earning a college degree — an issue that has disproportionately affected Black CPS graduates.

    “There’s evidence and data that we haven’t been meeting the needs of Black students,” he said. “This plan is about responding to the data. Being clear about that is one of the best ways to insulate and defend that process.”

    But McKoy acknowledges that now is a challenging time to kick off the district’s plan.

    “Undoubtedly there will be critics who will think it’s racial preference to help students who need help and will attack the district for doing so,” said Pedro Noguera, the dean of the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education.

    Last year’s challenge against a $120 million Los Angeles program aimed at addressing disparities for Black students offers a case study, Noguera notes. Parents Defending Education, which opposes school district diversity and inclusion programs, filed a complaint with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. The group has also challenged programs to recruit more Black male teachers and form affinity student groups based on race in other districts.

    Ultimately, Los Angeles overhauled the program to steer additional staffing and other resources to entire schools serving high-needs students, rather than more narrowly to Black students. The Los Angeles Times reported that to some critics, those changes watered down the program, which was beginning to show some early results. But Noguera says he feels the program is still helping Black students.

    However, it is clear that the Trump administration plans to go much further in interpreting the Students for Fair Admissions decision and seeking to root out DEI initiatives. In a “Dear Colleague” letter to school leaders Friday, Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights in the Education Department, said efforts to diversify the teaching force or the student bodies of selective enrollment programs could trigger investigations and the loss of federal funding. About 20% of CPS’s operating revenue comes from the federal government.

    “The Department will no longer tolerate the overt and covert racial discrimination that has become widespread in this Nation’s educational institutions,” Trainor wrote. “The law is clear: treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent.”

    ‘Get the help to the kids who need it’

    Chicago, like Los Angeles, might consider a focus on schools — chosen based on metrics such as graduation rates, test scores and others — where the plan would help Black students and their peers, Noguera said. Maybe it doesn’t even have to refer to Black students in its name, he said.

    “The main thing is to get the help to the kids who need it,” he said. But, he added, “In this environment, who knows what’s challenge-proof.”

    He said what helped in Los Angeles was deep community engagement that lent that district’s initiative credibility and good will; the changes that the district made in response to the legal challenge did not erode those.

    Darlene O’Banner, a CPS great-grandmother who served on the working group, said CPS got the community engagement piece right. She thinks the plan will offer a detailed roadmap for improving Black students’ achievement and experience.

    “I am not going to think of the unknowns and what’s going on in the world,” O’Banner said. “We’re just going to hope for the best. We can’t put the plan on hold for four years.”

    The working group issued its recommendation in early fall and stopped meeting following the September resignation of all school board members, who stepped down amid pressure from the mayor’s office to fire CPS CEO Pedro Martinez over budget disagreements.

    Valerie Leonard, a longtime community advocate who also served on the working group, said during the community meetings for the Black Student Success Plan last year, there was no discussion of possible legal pushback to the plan.

    “Illinois is a liberal state,” she said. “It never really occurred to us a year ago that this plan would be in danger.”

    But more recently, as she heard Trump assail DEI initiatives, Leonard said she wondered if the plan would survive.

    Leonard pushed Illinois lawmakers last year to mandate the Board of Education appoint a Black Student Achievement Committee as part of the state law that cleared the way for an elected school board in Chicago. The district’s plan invokes that committee though it hasn’t been formed yet. The board formed a more generic student success committee earlier this month.

    “We believe that the problem with Black children in public schools is so dire that it needs to be elevated to its own committee,” she said. “When our children get lumped into something that’s for all, they inevitably fall between the cracks.”

    McKoy at the University of Chicago said he feels “cautious optimism” and hopes the city and state rally around CPS as it pushes to improve outcomes for Black students.

    “The plan itself isn’t going to do the work,” he said.

    This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.


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  • Hendrix College – Edu Alliance Journal

    Hendrix College – Edu Alliance Journal

    February 23, 2025, by Dean Hoke: This profile of Hendrix College is the third in a series presenting small colleges throughout the United States.

    Background

    Hendrix College, founded in 1876, is a private liberal arts institution located in Conway, Arkansas. Its 175-acre campus has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884 and is nationally recognized for its academic excellence, student engagement, and commitment to innovation. Dr. Karen K. Petersen, the 13th President of Hendrix College, began her tenure in June 2023.

    The student-to-faculty ratio is 11:1, fostering close interactions between students and the 91 full-time faculty members, 89% of whom hold a Ph.D. or equivalent degree. For the 2025-2026 academic year, the total cost of attendance, including tuition, fees, room, and board, is $55,080. The average net price, according to the College Board, is $22,626. More than 90% of students live in college-owned housing.

    Curricula

    Hendrix offers 30 majors and 33 minors, encompassing a wide range of disciplines in the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences. Notable programs include Psychology, Health Science, Biology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Computer Science, and Economics & Business. A cornerstone of the Hendrix educational experience is the Odyssey Program, which encourages students to engage in hands-on learning through projects, internships, and global experiences, thereby fostering both personal and academic growth.

    Strengths

    • Engaged Learning: The Odyssey Program exemplifies Hendrix’s dedication to experiential learning, providing students with opportunities to apply classroom knowledge in real-world contexts.
    • High Graduation Rate: The four-year graduation rate stands at 67.3%, with 85% of 2022 graduates completing their degrees within four years.
    • Post-Graduation Success: About one-third of graduates pursue advanced studies immediately, with the majority gaining acceptance into graduate or professional programs before graduation.

    Weaknesses

    • Cost of Attendance: The total direct cost for the 2025-2026 academic year is $55,080, which may pose a financial challenge for some students. However, Hendrix offers merit scholarships ranging from $13,000 to $24,000 and meets a significant portion of demonstrated financial need.
    • International Enrollment Challenges: Hendrix has less than a handful of international students compared to the 5-6% national average.
    • Limited Graduate Programs: While Hendrix provides a Master of Arts in Accounting, its primary focus is on undergraduate education.

    Economic Impact

    Situated in Conway, Arkansas, a city with a population of approximately 66,000 and part of the Little Rock metropolitan area, Hendrix College contributes significantly to the local economy. In a report by the Conway city government, they state: “Over 100 years ago, Conway made the strategic decision to pursue institutions of higher learning as a means of growing the Conway economy. That choice has paid countless dividends ever since. As the colleges have grown, so has their economic impact. Perhaps more importantly, over time, they have laid the foundation for Conway’s modern workforce.”

    The presence of Hendrix College, the University of Central Arkansas, and Central Baptist College is, without a doubt, the reason Conway has such a remarkably young (median age 27.3) and educated (almost 40 percent with at least a bachelor’s degree) population. Those two qualities stand out nationally as the city competes for jobs in today’s economy. The result is a regional economy that has been recognized as one of the most diverse in the nation. Conway is among the nation’s top 20 percent of fastest growing cities with populations over 50,000.

    Enrollment Trends

    As of Fall 2023, Hendrix College has enrolled 1,120 students from 39 states and 17 countries. The student population is evenly split between male and female students, and more than 90% reside in college-owned housing, including residence halls, houses, and apartments. Approximately 44% of students are from Arkansas, while 56% come from out of state.

    Like many private colleges, Hendrix has experienced a slow, steady enrollment decline of 23% over the past decade

    Degrees Awarded by Major

    In the 2023-2024 academic year, Hendrix College awarded 227 Bachelor of Arts degrees in 28 different majors and eight Master of Arts degrees in Accounting.

    Alumni

    LinkedIn data shows that the college has nearly 9,000 alums. 60% live outside of Arkansas, 3,575 reside in Arkansas, 2,600 in the Little Rock Region, and 851 in the Conway area.

    Graduation Rates are 67.3% in four years and 68.5% in six years. Approximately 75% of graduates who apply to medical or dental school are accepted, and the law school acceptance rate is 78%.

    Notable Alumni:

    Dr. Margaret Pittman (Class of 1923): A pioneering bacteriologist, Dr. Pittman was the first woman to lead a National Institutes of Health (NIH) laboratory. Her groundbreaking research on vaccines for diseases such as typhoid, cholera, and whooping cough has had a lasting impact on public health.

    Craig Leipold (Class of 1974): A prominent businessman best known as the owner of the National Hockey League’s (NHL) Minnesota Wild.

    Douglas A. Blackmon (Class of 1986): A journalist and author, Blackmon won the Pulitzer Prize for his book “Slavery by Another Name,” which explores the re-enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II.

    Trenton Lee Stewart (Class of 1992): An author best known for the “Mysterious Benedict Society” series, Stewart’s work has captivated readers worldwide.

    Dr. Arthur Thomason (Class of 1997): Working at NASA’s Johnson Space Center with Barrios Technology, Dr. Thomason is an Extravehicular Activities (a.k.a. space walk) flight controller and instructor for NASA. 

    Ashlie Atkinson (Class of 2001): An actress recognized for her work in film, television, and theater, Atkinson has appeared in productions like BlacKkKlansman, The Gilded Age, and Mr. Robot.”

    Endowment and Financial Standing

    As of June 30, 2024, Hendrix College’s endowment stands at $206 million, bolstered by a successful $150 million fundraising campaign. The campaign, titled A Time to Lead, added $84 million to its endowment. These funds support scholarships, faculty positions, and institutional initiatives.

    Hendrix holds a 2.705 rating and a B- grade in the 2023 Forbes financial report.

    Why Hendrix Remains Relevant

    Hendrix College stands out in the following areas:

    1. Academic Excellence: Known for its strong liberal arts curriculum, Hendrix is frequently ranked among the top liberal arts colleges in the U.S., reflecting its strong academic programs, student satisfaction, and overall institutional quality.
    2. Odyssey Program: Hendrix stands out for its Odyssey Program, which emphasizes hands-on learning through internships, research, service, and global experiences, making education more experiential and practical.
    3. Economic Impact: Located in Conway, Arkansas, Hendrix contributes significantly to the local economy through employment, student spending, and cultural enrichment.
    4. Graduate Success: Hendrix has a strong track record of graduate success, underscoring its role in shaping well-rounded individuals equipped for personal and professional achievements. They have graduates who have excelled in various fields, including writing, film/arts, sciences, and business, adding to the institution’s prestige and influence.
    5. Endowment Growth: The college’s stable and growing endowment supports scholarships, faculty development, and campus improvements, ensuring long-term sustainability and competitiveness.

    With its commitment to liberal arts education, hands-on learning, and student success, Hendrix College remains a vital institution in higher education.


    Dean Hoke is Managing Partner of Edu Alliance Group, a higher education consultancy, and formerly served as President/CEO of the American Association of University Administrators (AAUA). With decades of experience in higher education leadership, consulting, and institutional strategy, he brings a wealth of knowledge on small colleges’ challenges and opportunities. Dean, along with Kent Barnds, are co-hosts for the podcast series Small College America. Season two begins February. 25, 2025

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  • HEI Supports Upcoming Boycotts and Strikes

    HEI Supports Upcoming Boycotts and Strikes

    The Higher Education Inquirer (HEI) is in solidarity with nonviolent protests against the Trump administration.  Two upcoming events include a 24-hour boycott of Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy (February 28th) and a 10-day General Strike. We hope enough people join these and other nonviolent protests to make our messages heard loudly enough. To our readers, if you know of any public protests and other nonviolent acts of civil disobedience that we can highlight, please contact us.  

    Related links:

    Protests Under Trump 207-2021 (Pressman, et al, 2022)

    Timeline of protests against Donald Trump (Wikipedia)

    List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States (Wikipedia)

    Methods of Student Nonviolent Resistance (2024) 

    Democratic Protests on Campus: Modeling the Better World We Seek (Annelise Orleck)

    Elite Universities on Lockdown. Protestors Regroup. (2024)

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  • The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (Gil Scott-Heron)

    The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (Gil Scott-Heron)

    Gil Scott Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” (1971) urges us to critically engage with the world, empower communities, and move beyond passive learning to active, transformative action.  His work was born in the context of the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power movement, and it serves as a reminder of how history and sociology can inform contemporary struggles. Will we heed the message? 

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  • ABA suspends DEI standards for accreditation

    ABA suspends DEI standards for accreditation

    The American Bar Association is suspending diversity, equity, and inclusion standards for the law schools it accredits amid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on DEI efforts, Reuters reported.

    An ABA council reportedly voted on the change Friday, suspending DEI standards through August as the organization—which accredits nearly 200 law schools—considers permanent changes.

    ABA officials did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.

    The change comes as the ABA has clashed with the Trump administration in recent weeks, accusing the president of “wide-scale affronts to the rule of law itself” in issuing rapid-fire executive orders that have targeted DEI and birthright citizenship, and sought to shrink the federal government through mass firings and other actions that some legal scholars have deemed unlawful.

    In the aftermath, the Trump administration barred political appointees to the Federal Trade Commission from holding ABA leadership posts, participating in ABA events, or renewing their memberships. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson accused the ABA of a “long history of leftist advocacy” and said “recent attacks” on the administration made the relationship “untenable.” 

    State officials have also pressured ABA to drop its DEI standards. In January a group of 21 attorneys general, all from red states, sent a letter to the ABA urging it to drop DEI standards.

    The ABA has reportedly been reviewing its standards on DEI since 2023, when the U.S. Supreme Court upended affirmative action with its ruling in favor of Students for Fair Admissions against Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

    Some Republican officials have celebrated the ABA’s move. “This is a victory for common sense! We are bringing meritocracy back to the legal system,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on X.

    ABA’s suspension of DEI standards comes after the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology dropped diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility from its accreditation criteria.

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  • Detroit District Offered Gift Cards For Perfect Attendance. 4,936 Kids Earned It – The 74

    Detroit District Offered Gift Cards For Perfect Attendance. 4,936 Kids Earned It – The 74


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    Nearly 5,000 Detroit high school students have earned at least one $200 incentive for perfect attendance since early January.

    High school students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District can earn $200 gift cards for each two-week period in which they have perfect attendance, from Jan. 6 through March 21.

    There have been two cycles so far for which students have received the gift cards and, in addition to the 4,936 students who had perfect attendance in at least one of two-week periods, 2,028 have had perfect attendance in both cycles, according to data Superintendent Nikolai Vitti shared with Chalkbeat this week.

    The attendance incentive is aimed at improving attendance in the district, where two-thirds of nearly 49,999 students were considered chronically absent during the 2023-24 school year. The incentive is among a number of efforts the district has employed over the years to create an attendance-going culture among students. The district has invested heavily into attendance agents to improve attendance and this school year announced that students with extremely high rates of chronic absenteeism will be held back a grade at the K-8 level and required to repeat classes at the high school level.

    The number of students earning the perfect attendance incentive is a fraction of the nearly 15,000 high school students in the district, leading one school board member to question last week whether the incentive is working. But Vitti said he is encouraged that the program is getting more high school students to class and resulting in a small decrease in the chronic absenteeism rate for high school students. He said the district and board will have to evaluate the program’s success at the end of the school year.

    Chronic absenteeism has been one of the district’s biggest challenges for years. The chronic absenteeism rate has declined, from a high of nearly 80% at the height of the pandemic, when quarantining rules meant many students missed school because of COVID exposure. But last school year’s much lower chronic absenteeism rate of 66% still means it is difficult to have consistency in the classroom and improve academic achievement.

    Students in Michigan are chronically absent when they miss 10%, or 18 days in a 180-day school year. Statewide, 30% of students are considered chronically absent, compared to 23% nationally. A recent education scorecard cited the state’s rate as being a factor in students’ slow academic recovery from the pandemic.

    Here are some of the highlights of the students who’ve received the incentive so far::

    • 3,473 students had perfect attendance during the first cycle.
    • 3,492 students had perfect attendance during the second cycle.
    • About 10% already had perfect attendance.
    • About 4% were considered chronically absent at the time the incentive began.
    • About 16% had missed 10% of the school year at the time the incentive began.
    • About 25% had missed 5-10% of the school year.
    • About 44% had missed 5% or fewer days in the school year.

    At a Detroit school board meeting last week, Vitti said the statistic showing that just 10% of the students who earned the incentive already had perfect attendance is an indication that “this is not just rewarding those that have already been going to school.”

    Board member Monique Bryant questioned what school leaders are doing to promote the incentive to students who haven’t earned it.

    Bryant suggested that data Vitti shared at the meeting showing that chronic absenteeism is down by 5 percentage points for high school students since the incentive began is an illustration that most students aren’t rising to the goal of the incentive.

    Vitti responded that it depends on how you look at the data.

    “Right now, chronic absenteeism at the high school levels improved by five percentage points,” Vitti said. “That means that 700 high school students are not chronically absent where they were last year. I’d also say that at least on the 97th day, our chronic absenteeism at the high school levels is the lowest it’s been since the pandemic.”

    The question for board members to decide at the end of the school year is whether the incentive “is the right investment with other challenges that we have districtwide,” Vitti said. “But I think the data is suggesting it’s working for many students … but not all.”

    Board member Ida Simmons Short urged the district to survey students to learn more about what is preventing them from coming to school.

    The causes of chronic absenteeism are numerous and include physical and mental health reasons, lack of transportation,and lack of affordable housing. Most of them tie back to poverty. Vitti specifically cited transportation, because half of the students in the district don’t attend their neighborhood school and the district doesn’t provide school bus transportation for high school students, who must take city buses to get to school.

    “Sometimes they’re unreliable, they’re late, they’re too far away from where the child lives,” Vitti said.

    Vitti said traditional school bus transportation for high school students “was decimated” under emergency management and it could cost between $50 million and $100 million to bring that level of transportation back.

    Another factor, Vitti said, is that for some students, school isn’t relevant. Middle and high school students, in particular, “struggle to understand, ‘why am I going to school every day? How is this connected to what I’m going to I need to know for life.’”

    Mi’Kah West, a Cass Technical High School student who serves as a student representative on the board, said that when talking to other members of the District Executive Youth Council last week, many said students overall are excited about the incentive.

    One thing that stuck out, she said, was council members saying they heard students in the hallways or on social media saying they were coming to school because they want the money.

    “And, while we don’t want to just say we want to come to school for the money,” West said, “I think it’s important to see that students … may have stayed home because they don’t want to come to school, but they’re willing to come to school now.”

    Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at [email protected].

    Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.


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  • Achieving the Dream Names 23 Colleges as Leaders in Student Success; Bellevue College Among Honorees

    Achieving the Dream Names 23 Colleges as Leaders in Student Success; Bellevue College Among Honorees

    Highlighting excellence in community college education, Achieving the Dream (ATD) has named 23 institutions as either Leader Colleges or Leader Colleges of Distinction for 2025, celebrating their commitment to student success and institutional reform. The announcement was made last week at the organization’s annual meeting in Philadelphia.

    Among the honorees is Bellevue College, which earned its first Leader College designation since joining the ATD Network in 2017.

    The honor recognizes institutions that have demonstrated measurable gains in student outcomes and fostered meaningful institutional change. Eight colleges achieved the prestigious Leader College of Distinction status, including three first-time recipients: College of Lake County (Illinois), Little Priest Tribal College (Nebraska), and Southwestern Oregon Community College.

    Bellevue College’s recognition as one of ten new Leader Colleges reflects its successful efforts to transform the student experience.

    “We are honored Achieving the Dream selected our institution as a Leader College,” said Bellevue College Provost Dr. Jess Clark. “Since joining ATD, Bellevue College has seen increased markers of student success and retention. We look forward to continuing our commitment to transforming the student experience so that all students will find success at Bellevue College.”

    The designation as a Leader College is particularly significant as these institutions play a crucial role in accelerating the adoption of effective practices across higher education. Leader Colleges are recognized for their work in whole-college reform and their innovative approaches to sharing knowledge about evidence-based reform strategies with other institutions.

    Dr. Karen A. Stout, president and CEO of Achieving the Dream, noted the importance of these recognitions.

    “These colleges exemplify excellence within the ATD Network, achieving measurable gains in student outcomes and fostering impactful change within their institutions and communities,” she said. “Their dedication to using data-informed approaches to create meaningful opportunities for students and their communities serves as a powerful example for all institutions of higher education.”

    The 2025 cohort also includes five colleges that have recertified their Leader College status: Community College of Beaver County (Pennsylvania), Highline College (Washington), Lone Star College System (Texas), Passaic County Community College (New Jersey), and Wallace State Community College (Alabama).

    ATD’s Leader College of Distinction award, created in 2018, sets an even higher bar for institutional achievement. Recipients must demonstrate improvement in three or more student outcome metrics, including completion or transfer rates, and show reduced equity gaps for at least two student groups. This year’s five returning Leader Colleges of Distinction include Chattanooga State Community College (Tennessee), Lemoore College (California), North Central State College (Ohio), Odessa College (Texas), and Pierce College (Washington).

    As a partner to more than 300 community colleges nationwide, Achieving the Dream focuses on what it calls “Whole College Transformation,” providing integrated support for everything from leadership and data analysis to equity initiatives and student support strategies. The organization’s vision centers on helping colleges become catalysts for equitable and economically vibrant communities, driving improvements in access, completion rates, and employment outcomes for all students.

    For institutions like Bellevue College, this recognition validates their ongoing commitment to student success and institutional improvement. As part of the ATD Network, these colleges continue to work toward creating meaningful opportunities that transform not just individual students’ lives, but entire communities through the power of education.

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  • Florida Dreamer Tuition Policy Reversal Threatens $25 Million Economic Impact

    Florida Dreamer Tuition Policy Reversal Threatens $25 Million Economic Impact

    Education advocates and immigration policy experts are warning of significant economic, and workforce impacts following Florida’s decision to rescind in-state tuition waivers for undocumented students who graduated from Florida high schools. The policy change, signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis, marks a significant shift in the state’s approach to higher education access for Dreamers.

    The decision is expected to cost Florida institutions approximately $25 million in tuition and fees, according to TheDream.US, a national organization supporting higher education access for Dreamers. The organization’s President and CEO, Gaby Pacheco, a long-time Miami resident, said that the impact extends beyond immediate financial consequences, potentially affecting Florida’s future workforce development and economic growth.

    “Our state is turning its back and hindering the potential of students who have succeeded throughout their K-12 education,” says Pacheco, noting that many affected students arrived in the United States at an average age of six years old. The organization has already helped more than 600 Florida-based Dreamers graduate college, with many now working as nurses, teachers, engineers, and entrepreneurs within the state.

    The Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, through its Director of Policy and Strategy Diego Sánchez, points to concerning workforce implications. With Florida facing shortages in healthcare, teaching, and STEM fields, the policy change could exacerbate existing gaps in critical sectors. Sánchez, himself a former undocumented student in Florida, argues that the state risks losing bilingual, skilled professionals to other regions with more inclusive education policies.

    The impact of this policy shift could be particularly significant given Florida’s traditional role as a hub for educational and economic opportunity. Critics argue that the change contradicts the state’s historical position as a beacon of dynamism and opportunity, potentially deterring talented students from pursuing higher education in Florida.

    Advocates point out that many affected students are deeply integrated into Florida communities, having completed their entire K-12 education in the state’s public schools. The new policy, they argue, creates barriers for these students to continue their education and contribute to the state’s economy, potentially forcing them to either abandon their educational pursuits or seek opportunities in other states with more favorable policies.

    As this policy takes effect, educational institutions and advocacy groups are working to assess the full scope of its impact on Florida’s educational landscape and future workforce development. The change represents a significant shift in Florida’s approach to higher education access and raises questions about the state’s long-term economic and workforce strategy.

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  • Last Email From A Worker at the US Department of Education

    Last Email From A Worker at the US Department of Education

    This graphic is part of an email from a US Department of Education official who was recently fired without good cause.  Our experiences with this dedicated public servant were always excellent, something we cannot say about others in the DC crowd. The graphic displays a number of important measures that have been enacted by ED-FSA (Federal Student Aid) over the last six years–and one giant failure, general debt relief for more than 30 million citizens. We wish the best for those Department of Education workers who remain, and who may see their jobs made more difficult, privatized, or moved to other agencies. The work cannot be easy for anyone–especially those who care about the folks they serve–the consumers and their families who are less likely to receive justice in the coming months and years. 

    Related link:

    Department of Education workers brace for Trump to shut agency down: ‘Everybody is distraught’ (UK Guardian)

    Department of Education contract cuts spur ‘chaos and confusion’ (The Hill)

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  • How a tribe won a legal battle against the federal Bureau of Indian Education — and still lost

    How a tribe won a legal battle against the federal Bureau of Indian Education — and still lost

    SUPAI, Ariz. — Kambria Siyuja always felt like the smartest kid in Supai. 

    Raised by educators in this tribal village at the base of the Grand Canyon, she started kindergarten a little ahead of her peers. Her teachers at Havasupai Elementary School often asked Siyuja to tutor younger students and sometimes even let her run their classrooms. She graduated valedictorian of her class. 

    But once she left the K-8 school at the top of her grade, Siyuja stopped feeling so smart.

    “I didn’t know math or basic formulas,” she said. “Typing and tech? Nonexistent.”

    Siyuja, now 22, wiped tears from her face as she sat alongside her mother and grandmother — the educators of the family — one afternoon last year in the Havasupai Tribal Council chambers. The trio wept as they recalled Siyuja’s move as a teenager to a private boarding school 150 miles away in Sedona, Arizona, which she’d chosen to attend because the federal agency that runs Havasupai Elementary, the only school in her village, provides no options for high school. 

    Kambria Siyuja, right, plans to teach in Supai, like her mother, Jackie Siyuja, middle, who teaches at the tribe’s preschool program. Grandmother and Havasupai Tribal Council chair Bernadine Jones, left, previously taught at the elementary school. Their tribe’s seal is reflected from a window onto a wall in the council chambers. Credit: Matt Stensland for The Hechinger Report

    Once there, however, Siyuja discovered how little she’d learned at the Supai school. She had only superficial familiarity with state and U.S. history, and knew none of the literature her peers had read years earlier. She was the only freshman who’d never taken pre-algebra.

    Last year, eight years after Siyuja graduated, the K-8 school still did not offer pre-algebra, a course that most U.S. public school students take in seventh or eighth grade, if not earlier. It had no textbooks for math, science or social studies. The school’s remoteness — on a 518-acre reservation the government forcibly relocated the Havasupai people to more than 150 years ago — makes it a challenge to staff, and chronic turnover required the few educators who remained to teach multiple grades at once. Only 3 percent of students test proficiently in either English language arts or math.

    “I know they struggle a lot because of how few resources we have down here,” said Siyuja of Supai, which visitors must reach either by an 8-mile hike or helicopter. “But what are they teaching here?”

    In 2017, six Havasupai families sued the federal government, alleging that the Bureau of Indian Education, which operates Havasupai Elementary and is housed within the Interior Department, deprived their children of their federal right to an education. The tribe, in a brief supporting the lawsuit, argued that the bureau had allowed Havasupai Elementary to become “the worst school in a deplorable BIE system” and that court intervention was required to protect students from the agency. 

    The families eventually secured two historic settlements that fueled hopes across Indian Country that true reform might finally improve outcomes both in Supai and perhaps also at BIE schools throughout the U.S.

    Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter featuring the most important stories in education. 

    So far, the settlements have brought new staff to Supai, and the BIE had to reconstitute the school board. Teachers now must use lesson plans, and they finally have a curriculum to use in English, science and math classes. A new principal pledged to stay longer than a school year.

    “We now have some teachers and some repairs to the building that are being done,” said Dinolene Kaska, a mother to three former students and a new school board member. “It has been a long time just to get to this point.”

    Valencia Stinson leads a kindergarten class through a lesson matching lowercase letters with their corresponding uppercase letters. Credit: Matt Stensland for The Hechinger Report

    The legal wins followed an effort to reform the BIE as a whole. In 2014, federal officials unveiled a sweeping plan to overhaul the beleaguered bureau, which had long struggled to deliver better student outcomes with anemic funding. If the BIE were a state, the schools it operates would rank at or very near the bottom of any list for academic achievement. 

    But in the past decade, and after a nearly doubling of its budget, the BIE has finally started to make some progress. Graduation rates have improved, staff vacancies are down and the bureau built its own data system to track and support student achievement across its 183 campuses in 23 different states. Now, those milestones could be at risk.

    President Donald Trump, in his seismic restructuring of the federal government, laid off thousands of workers that will trigger deep cuts to the BIE, among other agencies that work directly on Indian Country. The White House in January also issued an executive order to turn the BIE into a school choice program, draining the bureau of funding and, according to some advocates in Washington, D.C., threatening the government’s long-established trust responsibility to tribal nations. It also remains unclear how the policy would benefit families in isolated communities like Supai where other schooling options are scant or nonexistent.

    “Tribes in rural areas don’t have a lot of school choice,” said Quinton Roman Nose, executive director of the Tribal Education Departments National Assembly, a nonprofit that works with tribal education agencies. “For Native students, that’s not a good model. I don’t think it’s going to work for so many.”

    Brian Schatz, a Hawaii Democrat and vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, said the Trump administration’s actions are devastating. “What Trump is doing to the federal government isn’t just reckless — it’s arson,” he said in a statement to The Hechinger Report. “We will do everything we can to ensure that this manufactured chaos does not have lasting impacts on our trust and treaty responsibilities to Native communities.” 

    Last fall, as conservative critics called for dismantling the BIE and converting its funding into vouchers, longtime director Tony Dearman defended the bureau. He also pitched a new, five-year strategic direction that will emphasize tribal sovereignty and cultural education — both promises the bureau made in its reform agenda more than a decade ago.

    “We have really built the capacity of the BIE,” Dearman said. “It’s just taken a while. Anything in the government does.”

    Still, he insisted that the BIE could fulfill the government’s obligation to deliver a quality education to tribal nations. “I truly believe that we can handle the trust responsibility with the support from Congress through appropriations,” Dearman said.

    For decades, the Department of the Interior, which manages natural resources and wildlife, placed control of schools on tribal reservations within its Bureau of Indian Affairs. The agency oversees law and justice across Indian Country, as well as agriculture, infrastructure, economic development and tribal governance. The agency’s poor management of schools, meanwhile, had been well documented, and in 2006, an internal shakeup resulted in the creation of the BIE.

    Almost from the start, the new bureau faced criticism.

    In 2008, the Government Accountability Office dinged the BIE for stumbling in its early implementation of the No Child Left Behind education law. A year later, the Nation’s Report Card found Native students in traditional public schools performed much better than those in BIE schools. (About 92 percent of Native students attend traditional public schools and 8 percent attend BIE schools.) Senators scolded the bureau after only 1 in 4 of its schools could meet the new federal education standards. A 2011 report, “Broken Promises, Broken Schools,” cataloged the deterioration of BIE schools, estimating it would cost $1.3 billion to bring every educational facility to an “acceptable” condition. 

    In 2013, then-Interior Secretary Sally Jewell assembled a study group to diagnose the root causes of academic failures in BIE schools. A year later, the group released the Blueprint for Reform. At its unveiling, Arne Duncan, then the federal education secretary, had damning words for why the BIE needed to change, calling it “the epitome of broken” and “utterly bankrupt.” 

    The blueprint, issued through a formal secretarial order, called for dramatically restructuring the BIE over two years, starting with its management of tribally controlled schools. In 1988, as part of a renewed focus on tribal sovereignty, Congress had created a grant program to help tribes take control of their respective BIE schools, and as of 2014, a full two-thirds of campuses had already converted.

    The 70-page blueprint proposed transforming the agency from a top-down operator of schools into more of an educational services and support center. It would create a division within the BIE to focus on assisting principals with the day-to-day operation of schools. New regional directors and offices would oversee tribally controlled schools, BIE-operated campuses and schools on the sprawling Navajo Nation.

    The plan also pitched the addition of “school support solutions teams” at each regional office that would assist with teacher and principal recruitment, school facilities, financial management and technology. A new Office of Sovereignty and Indian Education would help tribes convert their schools to local control and encourage them to shape culture and language classes. Other proposed changes included allowing tribes to tie staff pay to student performance and creating incentives to replicate successful tribally controlled schools.

    Related: As coronavirus ravaged Indian Country, the federal government failed its schools

    The study group, however, did not address whether the bureau needed additional funding to pull off the reforms. And without additional funding, the BIE faced deep cuts as budget negotiations pressured then-President Barack Obama to require all federal agencies to reduce their spending by 20 percent. 

    That essentially tasked the BIE with achieving a turnaround of its failing schools with a fifth less funding. By the time of the blueprint, those cuts were already phasing in: Between 2011 and 2014, for example, the number of full-time administrators located on or near Indian reservations to oversee school spending fell from 22 to 13, leaving the remaining staff to still split 64 reservations among them.

    “It was a terrible set up,” said one former top agency official who worked at the BIE during the blueprint’s release. The official, like many of the more than 75 interviewed by The Hechinger Report for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the DOI’s large role in tribal communities and worries that criticizing the agency could cost them jobs or contracts.

    Famous for its turquoise waterfalls — Havasupai means “people of the blue-green water” — Supai village greets visitors at the banks of Havasu Creek.

    The creek and waterfalls feed a hidden canyon oasis here. Trees bursting with blooms of apricot and pomegranate offer much-welcome shade for backpacking tourists and the mules carrying their gear. Tribal elders wind their way through Supai’s unmarked dusty roads as children on the preschool playground shield their eyes from sand swirling around the adjacent helipad. Benches, some made from milk crates, ring the town square at the front gate of Havasupai Elementary.

    Eight years ago, lawyer Alexis DeLaCruz sat on one of those benches in Supai town square. She had recently started working at the Native American Disability Law Center, a firm based in Farmington, New Mexico, that represents Native Americans with disabilities. The firm had recently hosted a training on special education law for parents, and several from Supai, incensed about their kids’ education, traveled out of the canyon to attend. They convinced DeLaCruz and two colleagues to book a helicopter ride into the village to hear directly from parents about their experiences with the BIE. 

    Parents described how their children couldn’t tell the difference between North and South America and, despite BIE regulations requiring Native culture in all curriculum areas, the students never had a class in Havasupai culture, history or language. Because of a teacher shortage, children learned in classes that combined students from three or even four grades. The school had 10 principals in as many years. The BIE closed Havasupai Elementary for nearly a month in 2015 because of insufficient staffing.

    About 100 students each year enroll in Havasupai Elementary School, one of 183 schools that the Bureau of Indian Education manages on 64 tribal reservations across the U.S. Credit: Matt Stensland for The Hechinger Report

    Siyuja, who graduated from the school in 2016, remembered cooks and janitors stepping in as teachers — and then having to leave class midday to check on school lunch or plumbing problems. 

    Until Siyuja reached the fourth grade, Havasupai Elementary, which serves about 80 students, had two tribal members on staff. They led culture and language classes, and Siyuja still owns a copy of the Havasupai dictionary they gifted her as a child. But then they left, and most of the other teachers soon followed, during the 2011-12 school year, she recalled.

    That’s when Obama tasked federal agencies with cutting a fifth of their administrative budgets, hollowing out the BIE’s ability to support its schools. In Supai, the already revolving door of educators suddenly started spinning much faster, Siyuja said.

    “We were just in this constant loop of relearning the same thing over and over,” she said.

    It wasn’t until college, at Fort Lewis College in Colorado, where Siyuja chose to study education, that she learned it was not normal for a school to lump so many grades together in one classroom. “That’s one of the major big no-nos,” she said. (In an email, a BIE spokesperson said, “Many schools implement implement multi-grade instruction as an intentional and effective educational model,” particularly in rural and remote locations, “to enhance individualized learning, maximize resources and promote peer collaboration.”)

    In January 2017, nine students from six families sued the BIE and the Interior Department, naming as defendants Dearman, Jewell — who did not respond to interview requests — her deputy assistant secretary and the Havasupai Elementary School principal. The lawsuit listed all plaintiffs under pseudonyms to protect their identity, and the two families involved in the lawsuit who spoke with The Hechinger Report for this story asked to remain anonymous even after the settlements were signed. Some of the students still attend BIE schools, and parents remain worried about exposing any of their children’s privacy, even as adults.

    The families hinged their case on a well-established federal right to education for Native American children.

    There is no federal right to education in the Constitution, according to a landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision. But for Native Americans, congressional statutes, executive orders, treaties and other Supreme Court opinions dating back virtually to this nation’s founding have cemented education as a major component of the government’s trust responsibility — a set of legal and moral obligations to protect tribal sovereignty and generally look out for the welfare of tribal members. In 1972, lawmakers made it even more clear with the Indian Education Act, which says that the “federal government has the sole responsibility for the operation and financial support” of tribal schools. They also required the BIA — the BIE had not yet been established — to work with tribes to create a system of schools of “the highest quality.” To this day, the BIE pitches itself as a provider of a “world class education.”

    Related: Native Americans turn to charter schools to reclaim their kids’ education

    DeLaCruz, not long after filing the Havasupai case, started imagining what impact it could have beyond that tiny community.

    “Most cases in our legal system end in money,” she said. “This isn’t the same calculus. We’re weighing what we think we can get in place that won’t just make a difference for students now but frankly for generations to come.”

    The lead plaintiff in the case was a sixth grader described in the lawsuit as Stephen C. Diagnosed with ADHD, he had never received counseling as mandated in his Individualized Education Program, or IEP, a legal document detailing the interventions and supports that a student with a disability will get from their school. None of the fifth grade teachers the school hired stayed more than two weeks, the lawsuit said, and Stephen C. was taught in a combined sixth, seventh and eighth grade class.

    His teacher’s attention split among kids across three grades, Stephen C. started to act out. The school sent him home three to four times a week for behavior issues related to his disability, the lawsuit alleged. Even as an eighth grader, he could barely read or write.

    In its friend-of-the-court brief, the Havasupai Tribe said its “people have been isolated at the bottom of one of the world’s most rugged canyons and for more than a century have been forced to depend on the federal government to educate their children.

    “Although the days of forced removal and assimilation are over,” the brief continued, “the BIE is still failing its students.”

    The federal government didn’t entirely dispute the claims of Stephen C. and his co-plaintiffs.

    The BIE and DOI, in June 2017, formally petitioned the U.S. District Court of Arizona to dismiss the case, arguing that the students couldn’t prove the BIE failed or refused to comply with its regulations for what counts as a “basic” education. Also, by that point Stephen C. and four other plaintiffs all had graduated or transferred from Havasupai Elementary, making them ineligible to pursue compensatory educational services, according to the government.

    But Lisa Olson, an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, also acknowledged the BIE’s shortcomings.

    “We are not saying there’s no accountability here. We are just saying that it’s for Congress and the executive to resolve these problems,” Olson said during a November 2019 hearing before U.S. District Judge Steven Logan. “The agency doesn’t dispute that its efforts have been unsatisfactory and they have fallen short.”

    Olson asked Logan to consider the many challenges of providing instruction in Supai: There was no funding for an agency helicopter to transport teachers in and out, for example, and new hires often failed their background checks or took other positions before the FBI checks were completed.

    “There’s nothing we can do to change that,” she said.

    Passengers load into a helicopter at a landing zone next to the preschool’s playground in a central part of Supai village.  Credit: Matt Stensland for The Hechinger Report

    Logan seemed unmoved. “So what you are basically saying, counsel, is it is the problem of the parents, and they need to make better decisions about where they have children so they can be properly educated?” he said. Olson responded, saying, “It is not the parents’ fault, but we need the cooperation of the parents and the community.” She continued, “I’m saying that BIE is doing its best and tries to enlist the support of parents and the tribe.”

    Related: A crisis call line run by Native youth, for Native youth

    The families also presented a secondary argument — that the complex trauma of Native American children qualifies them for services and protections of the sort that are guaranteed for students with disabilities. They argued that exposure to adversity — specifically, the long-lasting trauma from this nation’s official policy to separate Native children from their families in order to eradicate their cultures and seize tribal land — limited their ability to access the benefits of a public education. To this day, Havasupai families must ship their children away to attend high school, often in other states, and the BIE has no plans to open one in the canyon.

    The government warned Logan against following that line of logic, cautioning that it would set a dangerous precedent linking childhood adversity to a student’s ability to learn. The families filed their lawsuit under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prevents discrimination against people with disabilities in federal programs. It does not include adversity or trauma on its list of qualifying conditions, and its applicable regulations expressly note that social disadvantage, such as homelessness or family violence, do not count as impairments, the government noted.

    Expanding that definition would threaten to impose “unwieldy” obligations on high-poverty schools across the U.S., the government’s attorneys argued.

    “The alleged ‘forced relocation, loss of homes, families and culture,’ and poverty within the Havasupai community … do not constitute a physical or mental impairment,” the motion to dismiss reads.

    In August 2020, the federal court issued a mixed decision. Logan allowed the case to continue for students with disabilities. The families also persuaded the court that complex trauma — including interaction with juvenile justice systems, extreme poverty and a denial of access to education — qualifies as a protected disability in the rehabilitation law. But he dismissed the general education claims, deciding that the older students, including Stephen C., had aged out of the school and no potential remedy would be precise enough for a court to enforce.  

    The Havasupai families cheered Logan’s ruling, but only in part. As they continued to pursue the special education claims, the Havasupai families challenged his decision to dismiss the rest of the case. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which includes Arizona, heard their arguments in February 2022.

    “The agency is attempting to comply,” Laura Myron, a Justice Department attorney, told the judges. There are, she added, “numerous, practical obstacles to operating a school at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.”

    Kathryn Eidmann, president and CEO of Public Counsel, a pro bono public interest law firm, represented the Havasupai families and argued that their ancestors never chose to permanently live in such an isolated location. The government restricted the tribe to the reservation to make way for Grand Canyon National Park.

    Hoai-My Winder, new principal at Havasupai Elementary Schools, holds a student’s hand while walking with him during recess. Credit: Matt Stensland for The Hechinger Report

    “The obstacles that the government is pointing to that make compliance hard are entirely problems of the government’s own making,” Eidmann said.

    In a short five-page decision, the 9th Circuit panel allowed the older students to continue their lawsuit against the BIE. They clarified that judges — namely, Logan — could indeed compel an agency to comply with its own regulations. 

    The three judges also ruled that the students could seek monetary compensation for the educational services they never received.

    Related: 3 Native American students try to find a home at college

    Tara Ford, also a pro bono attorney on the Stephen C. case, said at the time that the ruling would reverberate across Indian Country: “Students who have been harmed by the Bureau of Indian Education’s broken promises now have a path to hold the federal government accountable for its failures.”

    By then, the students and government had settled the special education claims. Their deal provided each student with $20,000 for compensatory services and required the BIE to follow anti-discrimination provisions of the Rehabilitation Act while creating its first-ever complaint process for parents to challenge suspected discrimination. After the 9th Circuit ruling, however, negotiations to settle the rest of the Stephen C. case stretched beyond a year.

    The eventual deal, signed in May 2023, established an $850,000 compensatory education fund for any student who attended Havasupai Elementary since 2011. The BIE estimates about 215 kids could qualify to use that money, meaning each child would receive roughly $4,000, less than some families had hoped for. It also agreed to pay stipends to help recruit and retain teachers in Supai, build additional housing for staff and hire a cultural instructor from the community. The BIE also had to form a new school board.

    A year after the case closed, Breanna Bollig, a fellow at the California Tribal Families Coalition, wrote in a legal publication that it could change Native education far beyond Supai.

    “The BIE could be held accountable at every other BIE school through similar lawsuits,” Bollig wrote. “Perhaps the federal right to education for Indian children can even be used to improve inadequate and inequitable state public schools that Indian children attend.”

    Billy Vides stopped counting at 19.

    That’s how many principals he worked with in his first three years as a teacher at Havasupai Elementary. He stayed two more years, submitting his resignation in June.

    A longtime educator in Phoenix public schools, Vides first heard of Supai from a pair of grandmothers at an early learning conference. He had considered retiring, but knew he would miss working with kids. Vides searched online for Havasupai, bookmarked an article calling it “America’s Worst Tribal School” and sent in his application.

    “I wanted to make a difference,” he said.

    The BIE hired Vides in 2019 as a kindergarten and first grade teacher. On his first day, the interim principal assigned him to a combined kindergarten, first, third and fourth grade class. The ages didn’t mix well, he said, and the older kids bullied and sometimes assaulted the younger children.

    Joy Van Est, a special education teacher who quit in June, said many of her students’ IEPs had not been updated for several years. It took her four months, the entirety of her tenure there, to update every child’s support plan.

    Related: Native American students miss school at higher rates. It only got worse during the pandemic

    As part of the settlement, an independent monitor every six months must visit Supai and inspect whether the BIE has complied with its own regulations at the school. The monitor must review 104 specific requirements covering student-to-teacher ratios, curriculum taught in each subject, textbooks, grading rules and more. In its first report following a January 2024 visit, the monitor found the bureau in violation of 72 of those requirements.

    The school had a curriculum for just one subject — English language arts — and no textbooks for math, science and social studies, the compliance report reads. Teachers used no lesson plans, in any subject, and the school had no librarian. Only one tribal member taught at the school, leading culture and language classes once a week for 45 minutes. 

    The compliance officer granted the BIE some credit for hiring a school counselor and physical education teacher. However, once-a-week P.E. classes only happened if the part-time teacher could catch a helicopter flight. The counselor started in November 2023, but staff shortages required her to cover teachers’ classrooms too often for her to do any counseling work, the compliance officer found. 

    The compliance report seemed to have some impact: In the spring, the BIE went on a hiring spree to replenish the beleaguered staff in Supai. A second counselor and special education teacher — Van Est — plus a few additional teachers meant Havasupai Elementary was fully staffed for the first time in years.

    A more recent work plan for the school, updated in December, documented further changes: The bureau hired enough staff to meet class size caps. Teachers now submit weekly lesson plans, and the school selected a curriculum and purchased computers for all grades.

    The recent recruits include Hoai-My Winder, the school’s new principal. Winder had been working for the Department of Defense, as an administrator at an elementary school in Japan. She previously taught and worked as an assistant principal in Las Vegas, where her family settled after fleeing Vietnam during the fall of Saigon.

    Havasupai Elementary School enrolls students from kindergarten through eighth grade. The Bureau of Indian Education directly operates the campus in Supai village, which visitors must reach via an 8-mile hike or helicopter ride. Credit: Matt Stensland for The Hechinger Report

    “Day Six!” Winder hollered one afternoon this past May as she entered the spiked gates that separate Havasupai Elementary from the rest of the village. It was her tally of the number of days she’d been principal — both at Havasupai Elementary and ever.

    While her husband unpacked boxes in their new home, Winder took inventory at her new school. She discovered 40-year-old math textbooks on classroom shelves. Havasupai teachers at some point had created a Supai dictionary and draft curriculum for language instruction; Winder found it collecting dust in a box.

    As she met with parents and tribal members during her first week, ahead of the eighth grade graduation ceremony that afternoon, Winder repeated a pledge to stay at Havasupai Elementary for at least five years, maybe 10.

    Felicia Siyuja, the longtime school secretary, stood next to Winder as families packed into the cafeteria for the ceremony. As the aroma of frybread wafted from the kitchen, Siyuja tapped the mic before addressing the 13 students sitting in the front row.

    “I also want to apologize,” she told the soon-to-be freshmen. “All the teachers and principals rotating for all these years. It was hard for me as a grown-up. I can’t imagine how it was for you.”

    Eighth graders wearing turquoise-and-gold colored gowns prepare for their graduation ceremony at Havasupai Elementary School. The tribal village, at the base of the Grand Canyon, is famous for its turquoise waterfalls. Credit: Matt Stensland for The Hechinger Report

    Aside from Winder and her supervisor, the BIE would not allow The Hechinger Report to interview school staff on the record. But six current or former Havasupai teachers, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity, placed blame on the bureau for Havasupai Elementary’s dysfunction.

    “The BIE is the problem,” said one teacher. “The BIE lacks humility.”

    The educator, who now works at another BIE school, said he never received cultural training to prepare him for working with Native children and families. Several colleagues resigned before winter break his first year in Supai, making him the most veteran teacher on staff. 

    “I had no curriculum. No student names, no mentor, no oversight or guidance,” he said. “You don’t want to be yet another teacher who comes and goes. After three years, it gets old. It’s just exhausting.”

    In a February 10 email, a BIE spokesperson wrote that cultural training, including language preservation, had been scheduled for later that month.

    Van Est, who joined the bureau specifically to support its mission of uplifting tribal communities, said last summer that she no longer believed it was capable of doing that job. “The entity that has most recently oppressed the Havasupai people is making absolutely no effort to use education as a tool for repair, as a gold mine for building their future,” she said.

    Related: Tribal colleges are falling apart. The U.S. hasn’t fulfilled its promise to fund the schools

    The BIE blames Havasupai Elementary School’s isolation and lack of housing for its troubles.

    Even before the Stephen C. lawsuit, the BIE offered lucrative stipends to lure educators to Supai. It also guarantees housing, in theory, but in a pinch has forced teachers to room together. And a recent hiring spree, to satisfy the settlement, has made housing even tighter.

    Dearman said a recent housing needs analysis determined the BIE now needs 30 beds in Supai, but has only 12. One teacher simply didn’t return to their position this fall when the bureau couldn’t secure housing for more than a few weeks.

    “That puts a major strain on us being able to keep staff there,” Dearman said about the housing shortage. “We have housing needs at other locations as well. However, Havasupai is so isolated that if you’re not able to stay in our quarters there, there’s no other options.”

    He said that it’s hard for some educators to uproot their lives to live in Supai. “It’s a difficult place to come in and out of. It really is,” Dearman said.

    Poverty surrounds many BIE schools on tribal reservations, largely as a result of former government policies to eradicate Native peoples. In Supai, nearly 40 percent of the tribe lives in poverty, almost four times the national average. Tourism provides an economic bedrock for the Havasupai economy, though many families rely on government assistance.

    Vides, the teacher, struggled with his decision to quit. His wife had remained 300 miles away in Phoenix, raising their 3-year-old daughter without him. He missed a lot of her firsts, and felt torn between her and the Havasupai children.

    “It was difficult. I was grieving for the future of these students,” Vides said.

    “Either the system is continually broken,” he added, “or the system is working successfully to slowly eradicate this tribe.”

    Long before Trump’s executive order in January, some conservatives had pushed school choice as a solution to the BIE’s troubles. In 2016, the right-wing Heritage Foundation proposed turning the BIE into an education savings account, or ESA, which would grant families a portion of their child’s per-pupil funding to spend on private school tuition, home-school supplies and other educational expenses. That same year, the late Arizona Sen. John McCain introduced legislation offering ESAs equal to 90 percent of what the BIE spends on each student.

    The bill didn’t advance, but Heritage resurrected the idea last year in its Project 2025 transition plan for the next president. Notably, the conservative think tank — despite citing the BIE’s poor track record as justification for converting much of its funding into vouchers — also proposed granting it even more authority over the education of all Native American students, in all U.S. public schools.

    In his January order, Trump required the BIE to identify “any available mechanisms” for families to tap federal funding for private and faith-based schools, as well as to report on the performance of its schools and identify alternatives for families to consider. The agency has until April to submit its plan, for implementation this fall. The White House did not respond to several requests for comment.

    In certain tribal communities across Arizona, some parents have started to consider opting out of the BIE system. The state passed a universal school voucher program in 2022, giving any family who wants roughly $7,400 to spend on private or parochial schools or other options. Christian academies on the Gila River Indian Community, a reservation near Phoenix, have already used the program to recruit students.

    The walls of Havasu Canyon surround the village of Supai, where water from Havasu Creek later connects to the Colorado River at the Grand Canyon.  Credit: Matt Stensland for The Hechinger Report

    But in Supai, some residents worry the ESA option is meaningless. The closest private schools, in Kingman, are more than two hours away. Internet access in the village is virtually nonexistent, a hurdle for any parents trying to teach their kids at home.

    The National Indian Education Association, an advocacy group, has yet to issue a position on Trump’s order but said in a statement that it’s “closely monitoring” potential impact on cultural preservation and access to education for Native students. In the past, the group has said BIE is the best option to fulfill the federal government’s responsibility to educate Native students. It blames its poor results on Congress — the branch of government holding the purse strings.

    “The BIE in general, they just have a difficult time,” said Roman Nose, with the national group for tribal education departments. He noted that Department of Defense schools — the only other K-12 system run by the federal government — receive more funding. And Roman Nose worried how the recent federal layoffs and school choice proposal could further erode BIE’s ability to fulfill the trust responsibility.

    The BIE lost dozens of employees in the recent layoffs, sources told ICT. Among those laid off were approximately 30 from non-school positions in the BIE agency offices, excluding kindergarten through 12th grade schools.

    “There won’t be any progress made during this administration,” Roman Nose said. “It’s a difficult job, but these are treaty obligations.”

    Related: Schools bar Native students from wearing traditional regalia at graduation 

    Dearman, the bureau’s longtime director, insisted that the BIE could fulfill the government’s obligation to deliver a quality education to tribal nations.

    Under his leadership, the BIE has secured some financial wins for its schools. Lawmakers now funnel about $235 million into the bureau for school construction – it has asked for more than $400 million – and $150 million for replacing older campuses, according to the agency. Counselors and teachers now make the same amount as their counterparts in Department of Defense schools. And Dearman, a longtime champion of early childhood education, has expanded the bureau’s popular preschool program into more schools.

    Traditional beadwork decorates an eighth grader’s graduation cap at a Havasupai Elementary School ceremony. The school’s mascot is the eagle. Credit: Matt Stensland for The Hechinger Report

    Graduation rates have also climbed. Last year, according to the bureau, 75 percent of its high schoolers earned a diploma on time — a 31 percentage point jump since 2014 and slightly above the national average for Native American students. As of 2021, the last time the BIE reported achievement data, 17 percent of students tested on grade level in English language arts, and 11 percent in math. For three states where the BIE runs two-thirds of its schools, students have posted 8 percentage point increases on English exams and 13-point increases on math exams since 2016, according to the bureau.

    The U.S. Government Accountability Office, which has tracked the BIE’s “systemic management weaknesses” since 2013, recently reported that it had achieved substantial progress on school construction and safety. The bureau’s oversight of special education, distance learning and school spending remain open problems, the GAO found, while also noting in its report — released just days before Trump’s recent layoffs — that meager staffing “has been a challenge for BIE for over a decade.”

    DeLaCruz left the Native American Disability Law Center in October to work on education litigation for the Tulalip Tribe in northern Washington state. A little more than a year after closing the Havasupai case, she hesitated to call either settlement a win. 

    Still, she noted in an email that the creation of a school board at Havasupai Elementary had been a big step forward: “The fact there is a community-led School Board to ask questions and voice concerns to the BIE is vital to improving education at Havasupai Elementary School.”

    Kambria Siyuja works during her summer break at Supai’s preschool program. Siyuja graduated from Havasupai Elementary School down the road and plans to teach there after graduating from Fort Lewis College next year. Credit: Matt Stensland for The Hechinger Report

    The morning after the eighth grade graduation ceremony, Kambria Siyuja walked past her old elementary school as the sun crawled over the rust-red walls of Supai Canyon.

    She greeted parents dropping off their sleepy toddlers at the federal Head Start preschool. Siyuja has worked there every summer break in college, hoping to decide whether to pursue a job in early learning or teaching down the road, at Havasupai Elementary.

    Her grandmother, Bernadine Jones, attended Havasupai Day School in the 1960s, when it only offered K-2 classes, before attending and graduating from a Phoenix high school. She eventually returned to Supai and taught at her old school and the village preschool for 20 years. Siyuja’s mother teaches at the tribal Head Start program.

    Academically, Siyuja finally feels prepared to be a teacher.

    “It’s really weird taking a class in college and learning stuff they should have taught me at that elementary school,” she said. “Now I’m really able to understand math, and also teach math.”

    This winter, Siyuja returned home for break with big news. Not only had she finally finished remedial math and qualified for a math class this past semester that would earn her full college credit, she’d passed it, receiving a B.

    Siyuja also recently learned she qualified for about $3,500 from the Stephen C. settlement. She said she had planned to use the money to pay for her spring semester of college, but as of February, had not heard back from a BIE representative about the payment.

    She graduates from Fort Lewis College, the former site of a notorious Indian boarding school, in 2026. 

    Despite her misgivings about the BIE, she said she views becoming an educator at the school as the best way possible to help her community. “I just want the younger kids to have a much better education than we got.”

    Contact staff writer Neal Morton at 212-678-8247 or [email protected].

    This story about the Bureau of Indian Education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education, in collaboration with ICT (formerly Indian Country Today). Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter. Sign up for the ICT newsletter.

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