BISMARCK, N.D. – U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp, a member of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, today brought together students, education leaders, and social workers to speak about how her bill to create a Commission on Native Children aims to help Native kids get the opportunities they need to succeed.
Far too often, Native children face higher hurdles as the national graduation rate for Native high school students hovers around 50 percent compared to more than 75 percent for white students. During a roundtable discussion at United Tribes Technical College, Heitkamp discussed with participants how her bill would work to improve educational opportunities and performance for Native students and help bridge academic achievement gaps between Native and non-Native students.
“Native children are often already behind the eight ball by the time they start kindergarten,” said Heitkamp. “Those aren’t odds any parent wants to hear. Today, we talked about how we can change this course, and how the steps that schools like UTTC are taking to help put students on the right path from early education all the way through college are making great strides. My Commission on Native Children aims to take another step by creating a roadmap for how we can make sure kids stay enthusiastic about learning and give tribal governments a stronger voice in the education of Native children to reduce dropout rates and close the achievement gap. By working together, we can give Native students the futures they deserve – that’s something all North Dakotans should want to invest in.”
Last month, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights issued documents finding that Native students are disproportionately expelled, suspended, and held back. The statistics about the education challenges Native children face are stark:
- Only 13 percent of Native children have obtained undergraduate degrees, compared to 24 percent of the general population.
- Fewer than half of American Indian and Native-Alaskan high school students have access to a full range of math and science courses in their high schools, and just 63 percent of North Dakota Native students graduate high school compared to over 90 percent for their white peers.
- While other groups have been closing educational achievement gaps, these gaps have been widening for Native students, causing them to fall further and further behind their white peers. In North Dakota, there is a 31-point gap in both high school students graduating on time and 8th grade math proficiency between Native and white students.
Heitkamp’s bipartisan bill to create a Commission on Native Children would look at these challenges facing Native students and seek to find ways to address them so Native children have every opportunity to succeed. The U.S. Secretary of Education would be part of the 11-member Commission. Additionally, the Commission would make recommendations to improve school attendance, performance, and graduation rates for Native children across all grade levels.
Earlier this month, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee held a hearing on Heitkamp’s legislation. U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan – a former chair of the Committee and founder and chairman of the Center for Native American Youth at the Aspen Institute – testified at the hearing at the request of Heitkamp, on the importance of her bill.
Heitkamp also backed legislation to preserve and protect Native American languages and culture through education programs in Indian Country. The bill would establish a grant program to support Native language immersion instruction programs, which have been shown to improve academic performance and attendance, and equip Native youth with the tools they need to be successful into the future.
Press release provided by US Senator Heidi Heitkamp
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