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It’s been months in the making, and today I’m ecstatic/eager to unveil our ‘Native American Student Achievement in Minnesota’ report. I invite you to read the research and narrative, engage with us on the findings, and share the report with your network.
The report:
- Presents the hard truth about Minnesota’s record of nation-lagging performance for Native students, while taking an in-depth look at how some schools are bucking the dismal statistics;
- Employs a new approach for presenting data about education inequities by comparing students to national averages;* and
- Endorses honoring tribal sovereignty, and processes by which Native groups and other entities can collectively identify priorities and set shared goals.
Click here to access the report.
Click here to share the report via Twitter.
In the creation of this report, we interviewed Native leaders, educators, parents and students, and asked, “What’s working well?” We then visited Top 10 Schools, where achievement data shows extraordinary success, which informed these profiles in our report:
- Anishinabe Academy’s Ojibwe language immersion pre-K program (Minneapolis);
- Churchill Elementary School (Cloquet, Minn.); and
- Detroit Lakes Middle School.
The report also recognizes the momentum of recent legislative accomplishments–the creation of a permanent statewide Indian Education Director, mandated consultation with the Tribal Nations Education Committee and the annual statewide listening session on Indian education–and endorses the major themes from the Minnesota Office of Indian Education’s 2013 report, ‘American Indian Education in Minnesota: Analytic Review of Key State and National Documents.’
Lastly, the report highlights what’s working, such as establishing high expectations for Native students and focusing on their assets, making programs that support the education of Native teachers accessible, and responding to the needs of Native parents.
Click here to read the full recommendations.
We’d love to receive your feedback–email me at daniel.sellers@minncan.org and share your thoughts.