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Tribal Data Collection and Governance: Principles of Practice and Partnerships

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Recorded March 27, 2024

Historically, Indigenous peoples have experienced data inequities and invisibility. As data is foundational to Indigenous sovereignty and governance, Indigenous peoples are actively seeking to transform the power imbalances by centering Indigenous methodologies and values to ensure good data practices.

In this archived webinar, panelists shared ways that tribes, governments, and Native-serving organizations are building data systems for the future that protect sovereignty and governance.

Participants engaged in panel discussions with experts in the field about Indigenous data collection practices, collaborate with fellow participants in breakout sessions, and access information resources about approaches that are advancing educational data equity for American Indian/Alaska Native and Native Hawai‘ian students.

About the Series
This series is presented by the Region 15 and Region 13 Comprehensive Centers, Western Educational Equity Assistance Center (WEEAC), National Indian Education Association, and University of New Mexico Center for Participatory Research.

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Tribal Data Collection and Governance: Leadership, Advocacy, and Building Data Capacity

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Recorded May 22, 2024

Historically, Indigenous peoples have experienced data inequities and invisibility. As data are foundational to Indigenous sovereignty and governance, Indigenous peoples are actively seeking to transform the power imbalances by centering Indigenous methodologies and values to ensure good data practices.

In this archived webinar, panelists share ways that tribes, governments, and Native-serving organizations are building data systems for the future that protect sovereignty and governance. 

Participants engaged in panel discussions with experts in the field about Indigenous data collection practices, collaborated with fellow participants in breakout sessions, and accessed information resources about approaches that are advancing educational data equity for American Indian and Alaska Native students.

About the Series
This series is presented by the Region 15 and Region 13 Comprehensive Centers, Western Educational Equity Assistance Center (WEEAC), National Indian Education Association, and University of New Mexico Center for Participatory Research.

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Indigenous Data Sovereignty for K-14 Education

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Indigenous Data Sovereignty for K-14 Education

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"Power through an Indigenous lens is an expression of sovereignty-define as self-determination, self-government, self-identification, and self-education. In this way, sovereignty is community based. By this I mean that the ideas of self- determination, -government, -identification, and -education are rooted in a community's conceptions of its needs and past, present, and future. Deloria (1970) extends and crystallizes this point when he writes, ''Since power cannot be given and accepted...The responsibility which sovereignty creates is oriented primarily toward the existence and continuance of the group'' (p. 123). Power, as I define it, is the ability to survive rooted in the capacity to adapt and adjust to changing landscapes, times, ideas, circumstances, and situations." (Brayboy, 435)

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Indigenous Data Sovereignty for K-14 Education

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"Power through an Indigenous lens is an expression of sovereignty-define as self-determination, self-government, self-identification, and self-education. In this way, sovereignty is community based. By this I mean that the ideas of self- determination, -government, -identification, and -education are rooted in a community's conceptions of its needs and past, present, and future.

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Indigenous Students Count: A Landscape Analysis of American Indian and  Alaska Native Student Data in U.S. K–12 Public Schools

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Indigenous Students Count: A Landscape Analysis of American Indian and  Alaska Native Student Data in U.S. K–12 Public Schools

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Indigenous Student Counts in Public K–12 Education Map

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Indigenous Student Counts in Public K–12 Education Map

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Indigenous Students Count | American Institutes for Research

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The Indigenous Student Identification (ISI) project, a collaboration of the Indigenous Education State Leaders Network (IESLN) and the AIR Equity Initiative, has released a new report and interactive map exploring K-12 public school Indigenous student identification across the United States.

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This toolkit is intended to help everyone who collects data understand the guiding principles of what it means to achieve data equity and justice.

About the Guide

Indigenous people have collected and interpreted data for millennia. Our Nations and communities have always had scientists. We recognize research, data, and evaluation as Indigenous values.

Structural racism* and ongoing attempts to erase Native people have resulted in decades of racial misclassification and misrepresentation, worsening many of the health disparities we face today.

UIHI and our partners are dedicated to decolonizing data, recognizing the dire need for data equity, sovereignty, and justice. We are reclaiming our Indigenous data practices to ensure that partners, providers, policymakers, and health advocates have access to information that will help, not hurt, our communities.

Decolonizing data is about reclaiming our traditional data practices, this gives the necessary context to tell complete stories. We know that data is not just numbers and statistics. Native data represents Native people.
You can't erase us, even if you try.

* Structural Racism:
The normalization and legitimization of an array of dynamics (historical, cultural, institutional and interpersonal) that routinely advantage White people while producing cumulative and chronic adverse outcomes for people of color.
Source: Call to Action: Structural Racism as a Fundamental Driver of Health Disparities: A Presidential Advisory From the American Heart Association

What you can do

Within this toolkit, you will find sample content and messaging around decolonizing data to use in your communications and outreach efforts.

This messaging is intended to act as a guide, but we encourage you to make it your own. Feel free to copy/paste the content and tailor it to best fit your target audiences.

Share this toolkit with your colleagues who manage your website, social media, and email outreach.

Resources Included

Decolonize Data Guidebook

Drag Queens Decolonize Data Guidebook

Social Media Posts and Graphics

Sample Email Content

Sample Blog Post

Decolonize Data Social Media Posts

Post 1
Harmful colonial practices are embedded in western data systems. For decades, Indigenous people have been misidentified, misclassified, or erased through data genocide.

No longer. We are decolonizing data by reclaiming our traditional practices, dismantling harmful western methodologies and narratives, and uplifting the power and resiliency of Native communities. Join us.

Post 2
Indigenous people are the original data stewards. Despite centuries of settler colonial oppression, violence, and racism, data collection and analysis remains an integral aspect of Native cultures. We know that data is never just numbers: It represents our people. Our stories.

We are dismantling harmful western methodologies and reclaiming our traditional practices. We are decolonizing data. Join the movement!

Post 3
For too long, Indigenous data has been used to promote a deficit narrative while failing to acknowledge the reason for current Native health outcomes: Structural racism.

Indigenous data leaders and our allies are actively reclaiming Native data. We can all contribute to dismantling harmful, racist systems of oppression, which includes ending data genocide against Indigenous communities. Be a true ally. Support data collected by Native people, for Native people.

Post 4
Accurate data tells accurate stories. Indigenous peoples know that data represents more than just numbers. Data represents people. That's why we are working to end Data Genocide, a harmful practice that has impacted Native communities for too long. #DecolonizeData

Email Template

Subject line: Join us in Decolonizing Data today!
Dear NAME,
Accurate data tells accurate stories. For too long, western data practices have misidentified, misclassified, and erased Native people - resulting in data genocide. That's why we're partnering with the Urban Indian Health Institute to decolonize data.

Decolonizing data looks like presenting our data with the necessary context to tell complete stories. We know that data is not just numbers and statistics. Native data represents Native people.

With these harmful practices impacting everything from adequate healthcare funding to ending the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women crisis, we are one of many organizations committed to decolonizing data.

Accurate data is integral to addressing long-running health disparities, and we have the experience and expertise to lead these efforts.

We are decolonizing data by reclaiming Native data collection, analysis, and research. We are disrupting harmful western systems and rejecting deficit-based narratives. We are collecting data for Native people, by Native people. We are recognizing and honoring the inherent strength of Indigenous people.

You can find out more about our work here:

Visit the Urban Indian Health Institute site to learn more about Decolonizing Data.

Blog/Website Post

Decolonizing Data by Native People, for Native People

Indigenous people are the original data stewards.

We have always gathered, analyzed, and shared data to ensure the well-being of our nations. Native scientific methodologies sustained thriving communities for millennia. We recognized that data is never just numbers. It's people. Our people. Our stories.

With the institution of settler colonialism, Indigenous communities have faced high rates of data misclassification. Harmful methodologies often misrepresent and misclassify Native people, making it harder to address significant health inequities. The legacy of colonization and genocide continues in how our data is represented or erased.

Harmful western data practices have routinely misidentified and misclassified Native people, contributing to serious health inequities. Data often fails to accurately reflect our communities in local, state, and national reports, impacting health-related funding, policies, and practices. Our data is often presented through a deficit-based lens, failing to acknowledge that structural racism plays a major role in how we live and how we die.

The systemic rewards of colonization, genocide, and institutional white supremacy are major factors in positive health outcomes of beneficiaries of structural racism, non-Hispanic whites - and that's why that demographic is often used as the comparison group for Native data.

Despite all these obstacles, Indigenous researchers, advocates, and public health leaders are actively reclaiming our data practices. Grounded in cultural values that include respect, reciprocity, and ceremony, we are revolutionizing how Native people are represented.

We are decolonizing data by reclaiming data collection, analysis, and research as Indigenous values. We are disrupting harmful systems and embracing strengths-based narratives. We are collecting data for Native people, by Native people. We are recognizing and honoring the inherent strength of Indigenous people.

Join us.

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Decolonize Data: Accurate data tells accurate stories - Urban Indian Health Institute

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This toolkit is intended to help everyone who collects data understand the guiding principles of what it means to achieve data equity and justice. About the Guide Indigenous people have collected and interpreted data for millennia. ...

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Why the federal government needs to change how it collects data on Native Americans

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Why the federal government needs to change how it collects data on Native Americans

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While these changes are welcome and will go a long way toward helping create a more accurate picture of demographic identity in the U.S., they don't improve data representation for a group that has long been misrepresented: American Indians and Alaska Natives (here collectively referred to as "Native Americans"). In particular, the way the U.S. government currently collects, aggregates, and publishes race and ethnicity data can lead to the exclusion of more than three-quarters of Native Americans from some official data sets. These practices may bias research, contribute to negative policy impacts, and perpetuate long-standing misunderstandings about Native American populations.

The concept of "race" can be a problematic descriptor for Native American identity, which is a political and legal identity in addition to a racial one. By rethinking how the federal government collects and publishes data on Native Americans, we can begin to better assess the challenges they face and ensure the population is accurately represented when that data is used in research and policy.

The complexities of US race data collection for Native Americans

In 1977, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued Directive No. 15, "Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting," which guides government collection and aggregation of race and ethnicity data. In 1997, Directive No. 15 received a major update-the most recent until last year, when the OMB announced it was again reviewing the directive in preparation for the 2030 census and beyond.

Today, under guidance from Directive No. 15, race data is typically aggregated into five major racial categories: white, Black, Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander. The additional major category is ethnicity: Hispanic or Latino, which is currently not considered a race (an at times confusing distinction that contributed to the most recent proposed changes).

This system has historically worked for most Americans, because the vast majority of the three largest racial groups in the United States-white, Black, and Asian-identify as one race alone. However, Native Americans identify as two or more races at significantly higher rates than those larger groups.

Racial data captured in the 2020 census shows that 87% of white Americans, 88% of Black Americans, and 83% of Asian Americans are classified as one race alone. In contrast, just 39% of American Indians and Alaska Natives are classified as one race alone. This is a legacy of the complex effects that hundreds of years of colonization have had on the identities of Native Americans, as well as the modern-day technical processes that the Census Bureau uses to code individual survey responses. The same factors help explain why just 43% of Native Hawaiians or Other Pacific Islanders, who are also Indigenous, are classified as one race alone.

This is problematic because government agencies and non-governmental researchers often choose to aggregate all multiracial individuals into a single "two-or-more-races" category. When that happens, it removes a majority of Native Americans and lumps them into a catch-all category with groups that have significantly different backgrounds and life experiences. While government agencies and non-governmental researchers are allowed to provide more detailed race data than just the minimum categories outlined by Directive No. 15, they frequently don't. Many U.S. government data sets and publications use only single-race categories, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) monthly unemployment report, the Department of Education's higher education data, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) life expectancy data.

The problem is further compounded by Latino or Hispanic identity, which the federal government currently considers an ethnicity, not a race. In recent years, government agencies and non-governmental researchers have moved to treat Latino or Hispanic identity as a de facto racial category (prompting, in part, the move to officially combine Latino or Hispanic identity and racial identity into the same question). Today, government agencies and non-governmental researchers frequently break out Latino or Hispanic people into their own, mutually exclusive category, and show only non-Latino or Hispanic individuals in other racial groups (e.g., non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic Black, etc.). While this process is important for ensuring Latino or Hispanic representation in data, it further erodes the accuracy of data around Native people, because single-race Native Americans are classified as Latino or Hispanic at a higher rate than single-race individuals in the other four major racial categories.

The implications of removing Latino and Hispanic individuals from Native American data are huge. On the 2020 census, just 23% of all Native Americans were classified as single race and non-Latino or Hispanic. In other words, one of the most commonly used racial categorizations of Native Americans- single-race, Non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native-excludes more than three-quarters of the total Native American population. In contrast, nearly 3 million American Indian or Alaska Native people (either alone or in combination with another race), accounting for 31% of the total American Indian and Alaska Native population, were classified as having Latino or Hispanic ethnicity.

Indeed, the OMB defines American Indian or Alaska Native as "a person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America) and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment." So, according to the federal government's own definition, Indigenous people from Central and South America should be considered Native American. This definition further underscores the challenges of balancing Latino or Hispanic and Native American identity.

Additionally, Native Americans are the only census-defined "racial" group that is also a political and legal classification. While modern-day Latin American countries were colonized in ways similar to the United States, Indigenous Peoples from those countries often lack federal recognition in the U.S., and they don't typically maintain a "nation-to-nation" relationship with the U.S. government. Conversely, many Latino or Hispanic Native Americans born in the United States may be enrolled tribal citizens, but may not be counted as "Native American" by many government data sets and researchers.

Given that Latino or Hispanic individuals represent nearly one-third of the Native American population, improving our understanding of how mixed-race individuals who are Latino or Hispanic and Native American are faring is vital. However, the most commonly used racial categorizations aren't well suited to account for these complexities. And while individual researchers can choose to detail these complexities in their work, the way federal government agencies aggregate and publish race and ethnicity data often doesn't facilitate them doing so.

While these challenges affect Native Americans most acutely, they may soon become a challenge for other groups as well. Between 2010 and 2020, the number of Americans classified as two or more races more than tripled, driven in large part by a more than 560% increase in the number of Latino or Hispanic individuals coded as two or more races under the Census Bureau's revised coding process. As a result, today, more than one in 10 Americans are classified as multiracial-meaning over 10% of Americans may be getting kicked into the catch-all "two-or-more-races" bucket. Likewise, these trends may continue to accelerate if Latino or Hispanic identity is treated as a racial category in the 2030 census. In this regard, the current practice of aggregating data into mutually exclusive, single-race categories may become less and less descriptive of the realities of the U.S. population in the coming years.

Native American misrepresentation in data can have serious implications in research and politics

Two recent publications illustrate how researchers' handling of Native American identity can affect research outcomes-either by suppressing Native American inequities or highlighting actionable realities.

The first example is a study published in January by the academic journal The Lancet, which showed that Native Americans are the group most likely to be affected by "deaths of despair" such as suicides, drug overdoses, and deaths from alcoholic liver disease. These findings cut directly against a 2015 study by Princeton researchers showing that deaths of despair were highest for non-Hispanic white Americans. Both studies appear to rely on standard CDC racial classifications, which are based on OMB's single-race categories and use a complex process called "bridging" to sort multi-racial people into individual racial categories. But the 2015 paper did not include Native Americans in the data at all, effectively erasing them-a common occurrence when data is aggregated in a way that excludes many Native Americans and treats them as a small enough portion of the population to be ignored entirely.

A second study shows how researchers can effectively demonstrate the nuances of Native American identity to produce interesting and actionable findings. Jeffrey Burnette at Rochester Institute of Technology and Matthew Gregg at the Minneapolis Fed's Center for Indian Country Development looked at the effects of COVID-19 on Native American life expectancy. As the authors note, a previous CDC publication found that Native American life expectancy dropped by nearly seven years from 2019 to 2021-a devastating effect on individuals and communities. However, that CDC study only looked at individuals who identified as single-race, non-Latino or Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native. Burnette and Gregg find that when individuals who are classified as American Indian or Alaska Native alone or in combination with another race are included, the drop in life expectancy was closer to four years, and overall life expectancy for Native Americans of all racial backgrounds is nearly eight years longer than single-race, non-Latino or Hispanic Native Americans. As the authors write:

"[T]he size of the decline in life expectancy in the overall American Indian/Alaska Native population seems to be driven by deterioration in health of the non-Hispanic single-race population...It is possible that individuals who identify as single-race Native American are also more likely to share other characteristics that differ from the larger multi-racial Native American population and put them at risk for a disproportionate pandemic impact."

By understanding the nuances of Native American racial data, the authors were able to give a clearer picture of the realities of Native American well-being in the U.S. and discuss specific challenges to well-being that some groups of Native Americans face while others don't.

Aggregating Native Americans into a monolithic racial group can have problematic implications beyond just research. Not only are Native Americans racially diverse, but, as mentioned above, they are also the only census-defined racial identity that is simultaneously a political identity. Today, there are 574 federally recognized Native American tribes in the United States, as well as hundreds of additional state-recognized and unrecognized tribes. Each represents the continued existence of Native nations that have inhabited the North American continent for tens of thousands of years and that often maintain treaties and political agreements with the U.S. government. Indeed, Native American identity is typically defined by citizenship in a tribe or Native nation, regardless of an individual's racial background.

In this regard, the continued treatment of Native Americans as a "race" rather than a diverse group of nations that predate the United States may have significant downstream political implications. One example is the currently pending Supreme Court case Haaland v. Brackeen, which deals with the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). One of the most contested ICWA provisions prioritizes placing Native American children in the adoption and foster care system with family members, fellow tribal citizens, and Native American families before they are placed with non-Native American families. A large part of the case hinges on whether those provisions are constitutionally protected congressional actions reflecting the nation-to-nation relationship between the United States and Native nations, or whether they are instead an unconstitutional racial preference for Native Americans that other racial groups do not get. While federal government data collection has no direct bearing on how the Supreme Court will rule in the case, the broader treatment of Native Americans as a "race"-which is underscored in government data collection and reporting-may influence how non-Native people perceive or misunderstand Native American identity.

Recommendations for changing data collection on Native Americans

The problems outlined above suggest a need for the U.S. government to rethink how it collects and publishes data about Native Americans. As the OMB continues the process of reworking racial classifications for the 2030 decennial census and beyond, policymakers should explore alternative models of how to most accurately collect and aggregate data on Native Americans.

Other countries have taken steps to separate data collection around Indigenous populations from racial identity. For example, both Canada and Australia ask about Indigenous identity in a separate census question, rather than as only one option among several races. Indigenous peoples in the United States share a similar position to Indigenous peoples in Canada and Australia, especially given those countries' shared history of European (in particular, British) settler colonialism, and respective modern perceptions as western, developed nations. Creating a separate question or questions to ask about Native American identity-with a write-in for tribal affiliation-in addition to the current racial question could be one way to begin delinking the concept of indigeneity from "race," as well as get a more accurate picture of the total Native American population.

In the more immediate term, the OMB could take steps to promote the proliferation of more comprehensive data around Native American populations. One way to do so would be by encouraging federal government agencies to publish public data on American Indian and Alaska Native populations alone and in combination with other groups, in addition to just single-race American Indian and Alaska Native data. One example of a federal government-affiliated organization that is already doing so is the Minneapolis Fed's Center for Indian Country Development, which publishes labor market data about individuals classified as American Indian or Alaska Native alone or in combination with another race through its Native American Labor Market Dashboard. This tool contrasts with the BLS's official monthly employment data releases, which report data only on single-race American Indian or Alaska Native individuals.

Finally, the U.S. government can and should do more to empower tribes to collect and manage data about their own populations and territories. The growing data sovereignty movement emphasizes that tribes themselves are sovereign entities that share a nation-to-nation relationship with the United States government, and therefore should be empowered to lead on data collection about their own lands and citizens. Partnerships to support greater data sovereignty could be another avenue for tribes and other Indigenous groups to provide input into how government and non-government data can better meet their own needs and experiences, rather than just the needs of the federal government.

Regardless of how the U.S. government chooses to proceed, it's clear that the current practice of measuring Native Americans using mutually exclusive, single-race data is not working well. Moreover, the growing population of mixed-race Native Americans may foreshadow broader demographic trends in the country as a whole. Given that, it is time for both the federal government and non-governmental researchers to rethink how they measure Native American identity, as well as reconsider the broader use of mutually exclusive single-race categories upon which U.S. data publication has long relied.

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Why the federal government needs to change how it collects data on Native Americans | Brookings

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This January, the White House released proposals for reclassifying racial data collection in the 2030 census. Most notably, the proposals include combining race and ethnicity into a single question, as well as creating a new racial category for Middle Eastern and North African people. [author-bio] While these changes are welcome and will go a long [...]

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The Unapologetic ‘Auntie’ of Indigenous Data

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The Unapologetic ‘Auntie’ of Indigenous Data

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The Unapologetic ‘Auntie’ of Indigenous Data

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The public health researcher Abigail Echo-Hawk is a leading voice in a movement to empower Indigenous people, wielding data as a tool for racial equity.

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Tribal Consultation Toolkit | Comprehensive Center Network

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Indian Country gains momentum in addressing data gaps

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Indian Country gains momentum in addressing data gaps

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Indian Country gains momentum in addressing data gaps | Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis

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Tribes lean into traditional knowledge to advance today’s needs

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New center will protect Indigenous Data Sovereignty

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New center will protect Indigenous Data Sovereignty

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New center will protect Indigenous data sovereignty

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The Indigenous data sovereignty research center will prioritize building relationships and fixing a systemic problem with new approaches.

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Using Data to Strengthen and Diversify the Educator Workforce - Region 12 Comprehensive Center

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by Christina Lemon Since COVID, media headlines continue to claim there is a teacher exodus brewing, and that American education is in crisis. But do the data support these claims? In December 2021, the National Council

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Western Educational Equity Assistance Center

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Western Educational Equity Assistance Center

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The Western Educational Equity Assistance Center (WEEAC) is one of four Equity Assistance Centers (EACs) funded by the U.S. Department of Education to provide technical assistance and training to promote equitable education opportunities and resources. With content expertise and deep knowledge of our expansive region, we are ready to partner with you on equity issues related to desegregation, chronic absence, and more.
Get started

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Western Educational Equity Assistance Center

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The Western Educational Equity Assistance Center (WEEAC) is one of four Equity Assistance Centers (EACs) funded by the U.S. Department of Education to provide technical assistance and training to promote equitable education opportunities and resources. With content expertise and deep knowledge of our expansive region, we are ready to partner with you on equity issues related to desegregation, chronic absence, and more.

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New Professional Learning Courses

A PD series from NIEA and the University of Phoenix building knowledge of Native education, education sovereignty, and best practices for educators and leaders.
Learn More

It Begins With Us

Addressing the US Education Crisis Click Here to Join the Campaign

2023 Community Talk Series Online

2022 NIEA Legislative Review

The National Indian Education Association (NIEA) was formed by Native educators in 1969 to encourage a national discourse on Native education. For 51 years, NIEA has hosted an annual convention to provide a forum for collaboration.

NIEA adheres to the organization's founding principles:

+ to bring Native educators together to explore ways to improve schools and the education of Native children;

+ to promote the maintenance and continued development of Native languages and cultures;

+ and to develop and implement strategies for influencing local, state, and federal policy and policymakers.
Learn More

NIEA works with partner organizations who work to further our mission. From other education organizations, coalition members, or Native organizations, we hope to provide Native students and educators with the information needed to be successful.

Partnerships are foraged through monetary, resource-sharing, and information based relationships. While NIEA may be a partner organization, we do not necessarily support all initiatives a partner supports. If you would like additional information on how we work with our partners, please contact NIEA@NIEA.org.
Learn More

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A PD series from NIEA and the University of Phoenix building knowledge of Native education, education sovereignty, and best practices for educators and leaders. Learn More Addressing the US Education Crisis Click Here to Join the Campaign 2023 Community Talk Series Online 2022 NIEA Legislative Review

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Partnering with Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah to identify, implement, and sustain evidence-based practices to close opportunity gaps and improve outcomes for every learner.

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Overview

The Region 15 Comprehensive Center (R15CC) led by WestEd is part of the national Comprehensive Center Network and provides capacity-building technical assistance, content expertise, and other services in support of state education agencies (SEAs) and their regional and local constituents in Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah. R15CC staff provide individualized state support and facilitate regional collaboration between the Arizona Department of Education, the California Department of Education, the Nevada Department of Education, and the Utah State Board of Education.

A central priority for the R15CC is providing multiple opportunities for regional state partners to collaborate on shared problems of practice and evidence-based solutions through Communities of Practice (CoPs) and Professional Learning Networks (PLNs). These regular convenings bring together educational partners from all four states, spotlighting bright spots and identifying opportunities for professional learning and technical assistance.

R15CC dedicates significant expertise to building the organizational capacity of its SEA partners and providing support for leadership development. R15CC works side by side with its regional partners to expand the implementation of sustainable practices, increasing SEA's systemic effectiveness.

Building Capacity to Improve Education

The Region 15 Comprehensive Center, led by WestEd, supports state education agencies and their constituents in Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah through capacity-building technical assistance grounded in evidence.

Explore Our Work

"These skills that I cultivated with [the R15CC] like building these councils of educators, developing surveys that yield all this data, those are sustainable practices."

Y3 SEA Interview

"By helping to align and organize our implementation of our statewide improvement plan, our organization has been able to build capacity as we share ownership of our goals and strategies."

Y3 Annual SEA Survey

"The growth of the state team has been incredible due to the patience and persistence of the R15CC team. They have also provided additional ideas that would complement the project. We are moving forward with these suggestions."

Y4 Mid-Year SEA Survey

"[R15CC project lead] has been instrumental in assisting the steering committee to establish an organizational structure. We cannot thank her enough for the collaboration and knowledge she has brought to this work."

Y4 Mid-Year Recipient Survey

"They [R15CC] have moved the needle for us in a number of areas including supporting reorganizations and long-awaited work on strategic planning for the Executive Team."

Mid-Year Recipient Survey

"R15 has helped our office to develop resources that can help local educational agencies (LEAs) to understand [state] requirements. Such resources will be very helpful to us as we provide technical assistance and support to LEAs."

Y3 Annual SEA Survey

"The meetings we've held with both [SEA] staff as we brought them into this process and the LEAs, we've connected it to our original vision of the work of aligning - reducing redundancy. And more than that, though, improving the planning process for LEAs so that they can clearly see and develop a process that focuses on continuous improvement rather than just checking the box."

Y3 SEA Interview

The Region 15 Comprehensive Center (R15CC) led by WestEd is part of the national Comprehensive Center Network and provides capacity-building technical assistance, content expertise, and other services in support of state education agencies (SEAs) and their regional and local constituents in Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah. R15CC staff provide individualized state support and facilitate regional collaboration between the Arizona Department of Education, the California Department of Education, the Nevada Department of Education, and the Utah State Board of Education.

A central priority for the R15CC is providing multiple opportunities for regional state partners to collaborate on shared problems of practice and evidence-based solutions through Communities of Practice (CoPs) and Professional Learning Networks (PLNs). These regular convenings bring together educational partners from all four states, spotlighting bright spots and identifying opportunities for professional learning and technical assistance.

R15CC dedicates significant expertise to building the organizational capacity of its SEA partners and providing support for leadership development. R15CC works side by side with its regional partners to expand the implementation of sustainable practices, increasing SEA's systemic effectiveness.

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The Region 15 Comprehensive Center (R15CC) led by WestEd is part of the national Comprehensive Center Network and provides capacity-building technical assistance, content expertise, and other services in support of state education agencies (SEAs) and their regional and local constituents in Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah.

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CPR’s mission is to support a collaborative environment within UNM, aligned with core values of community partnership, social justice and respect for diverse narratives and worldviews in order to co-create new knowledge and translate existing knowledge to improve quality of life and health equity among New Mexico’s diverse populations and beyond.

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CPR’s mission is to support a collaborative environment within UNM, aligned with core values of community partnership, social justice and respect for diverse narratives and worldviews in order to co-create new knowledge and translate existing knowledge to improve quality of life and health equity among New Mexico’s diverse populations and beyond.

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Partnering with Bureau of Indian Education (BIE), New Mexico, and Oklahoma to identify, implement, and sustain evidence-based practices to close opportunity gaps and improve outcomes for every learner.

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Overview

The Region 13 Comprehensive Center (R13CC) led by WestEd is part of the national Comprehensive Center Network (CC Network) and provides capacity-building technical assistance, content expertise, and other services to effectively support state education agencies (SEAs) and their regional and local constituents in the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE), New Mexico, and Oklahoma. Staff at R13CC provide individualized state support to design and implement priority goals informed by research and evidence-based practices and facilitate collaboration among state and local education agencies and with other federally funded technical assistance centers in the national network.

The R13CC, in partnership with SEAs, also offers professional learning opportunities for local education agencies (LEAs), tribal leaders, education agencies, and educators and supports the SEA in community engagement and consultation activities.

A key focus of R13CC work is strengthening SEA organizational capacity through system design, process improvement, and change management to increase and sustain organizational efficiency and effectiveness. Project work has centered on state priorities that address student-centered needs, particularly multilingual and English Learners and Native students; supporting educator growth and development and increasing the educator workforce; and strategic resource planning for the selection and use of evidence-based practices. Regional work in virtual settings and communities of practice has provided SEAs and LEAs with opportunities to communicate, collaborate, and learn from each other in addressing shared issues and challenges.

Building Capacity to Improve Education

The Region 13 Comprehensive Center, led by WestEd, supports state education agencies and their constituents in the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE), New Mexico, and Oklahoma through capacity-building technical assistance grounded in evidence.

Explore Our Work

The presentations were compelling and visually stunning! All presenters effectively captivated the audience. Well done!"

Surveyed Participant

"The time with my team was extremely valuable. Being able to discuss topics in real time helped us prepare for our orientation. Great use of time. Strongly recommend school leaders bring a team."

Surveyed Participant

"Great background information provided by the Region 13 Comp Center team about our indigenous students and their perspective. I think this is valuable especially for those administrators who have never taught on Native lands. The educational experience is very different."

Surveyed Participant

"R13CC did an excellent job of preparing us to work with the LEAs. I haven't had that before in 31 years. The training gives facilitators an opportunity to have a voice and gives LEAs confidence in the coaches they have."

NM Technical Assistance Team member

The content of this webpage was developed under a grant from the Department of Education through the Office of Program and Grantee Support Services (PGSS) within the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE), by the Region 13 Comprehensive Center at WestEd under Award #S283B190057. This contains resources that are provided for the reader's convenience. These materials may contain the views and recommendations of various subject matter experts as well as hypertext links, contact addresses, and websites to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. The U.S. Department of Education does not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of any outside information included in these materials. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the positions or policies of the U.S. Department of Education. No official endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education of any product, commodity, service, enterprise, curriculum, or program of instruction mentioned in this document is intended or should be inferred.

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The Region 13 Comprehensive Center (R13CC) led by WestEd is part of the national Comprehensive Center Network (CC Network) and provides capacity-building technical assistance, content expertise, and other services to effectively support state education agencies (SEAs) and their regional and local constituents in the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE), New Mexico, and Oklahoma.

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Direct Number: (202) 544-7290
E-Mail: DLynn@niea.org

Dezi Lynn is originally from Coppermine, Arizona and a member of the Diné Nation. Dezi started teaching Special Education in an elementary school in her hometown of Page, Arizona after graduating with her B.A. in Spanish/English Literature. This teaching position in a district serving a large population of Diné students motivated Dezi to obtain a Master of Education in Mild/Moderate Special Education focusing on Indigenous Epistemologies. After teaching in Arizona and Alaska, Dezi relocated to Utah and began teaching as an adjunct instructor at Utah Valley University in the English and History departments. She also obtained experience as a Project Manager with statewide educational technology implementations in Idaho and Utah. She is currently working on a doctoral degree at Fielding Graduate University focusing on reconciling the social injustices of the education system and empowering indigenous educators.

Dezi joins NIEA to support the Educator Initiative. In this role she will help lead our efforts to develop innovative strategies to recruit, train, and retain teachers to empower Native students. Dezi believes in the importance of having our epistemologies recognized and implemented for our children by the teachers that serve them. We also need those same epistemologies respected by the institutions that train and license these educators. Her work will encourage this in districts and institutions. She currently resides in Utah with her five children.

Direct Number: (202) 892 6935
E-Mail: NMills@niea.org

Nakina Mills is a proud tribal member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe from Pine Ridge, S.D. Her Lakota name is Tate' Cik'ala Win, which means Little Wind Woman. In her professional career, Nakina has worked in state/tribal child welfare, secondary/post-secondary education, as an elected official for the Oglala Sioux Tribe, and as a patient advocate. She has always been an advocate that supports adequate resources to strengthen the future leaders in our communities no matter the adversities or challenges they have faced, ensuring that the next generations are equipped with tools to face hardships from the past while looking to make an impactful change for the future. She completed her Bachelor's Degree from Creighton University and her Master's Degree in Lakota Leadership & Management from Oglala Lakota College.

Nakina will work closely with the Program and Legislative team to implement culturally and developmentally appropriate standards in partnership with tribes. She will support the activities leading to college, career, and community-ready students at the tribe, national, and federal levels. She will assist with planning tribal education standards as promising practices to support the unique needs of native students. Nakina will collaborate and partner to help with resources to expand tribal education capacities within tribal communities. She will create professional development supports and maintain effective relationships with all those supporting tribal education in native communities.

DR. Casie WISE, Ed.DSenior Program Director

As the Senior Program Director, Dr. Casie Wise brings 20 years of classroom, leadership, and consulting experience to NIEA. Casie specializes in culture-based curriculum and pedagogy, professional development for educators, best practices in assessment, and educational research. Including twelve years of teaching middle and high school ELA in the United States and abroad, Casie has also served as a K-12 school support director, instructional coach, core advocate for Tennessee, literacy advisor, and education consultant. In her role at NIEA, Casie oversees NIEA's programs including the Educator Initiative, Research & Evaluation, Tribal Education Capacity Building, and Culture & Language in our Schools. Casie's scope of work also includes developing curriculum and instructional resources, cultivating partnerships with other education organizations, and providing professional development.

Casie resides in her hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, with her husband, who is a retired Navy veteran, and her son and daughter. Casie has a BSE in Secondary English Education from John Brown University in Arkansas, an MA in Teaching English as a Second Language, and a doctorate in Curriculum and Instructional Leadership both from the University of Memphis.

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Meet the Staff - National Indian Education Association

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Direct Number: (202) 544-7290 E-Mail: DLynn@niea.org Dezi Lynn is originally from Coppermine, Arizona and a member of the Diné Nation. Dezi started teaching Special Education in an elementary school in her hometown of Page, Arizona after graduating with her B.A. in Spanish/English Literature.

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U.S. Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network

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U.S. Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network

The United States Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network (USIDSN) ensures that data for and about Indigenous Peoples in the US are utilized to advance Indigenous aspirations for collective and individual wellbeing. USIDSN's primary function is to provide research information, training opportunities, and policy advocacy to safeguard the rights and promote the interests of Indigenous Peoples in relation to their data.

Join us April 11-12, 2024 for our FIRST NATIONAL CONFERENCE

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U.S. Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network

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U.S. Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network The United States Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network (USIDSN) ensures that data for and about Indigenous Peoples in the US are utilized to advance Indigenous aspirations for collective and individual wellbeing. USIDSN's primary function is to provide research information, training opportunities, and policy advocacy to safeguard the rights and promote the interests of Indigenous Peoples in relation to their data.

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Schools Struggle to Properly Count Native Students. Some States Want Them to Try Harder

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Schools Struggle to Properly Count Native Students. Some States Want Them to Try Harder

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For decades, thousands of Native American students nationwide have been overlooked or miscategorized in enrollment and academic performance data, thanks to data collection design flaws that often leads to Native students being lumped in with other demographic groups or erased altogether.

But a growing handful of states has moved in recent years to require that schools collect enrollment data on Native students' tribal affiliations, rather than simply asking students to check whether or not they identify as "American Indian or Alaska Native." Advocacy from tribal leaders and Native officials in state education departments has prompted policy changes in Arizona, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin.

Most recently, Michigan invested $3 million to help schools purchase technical systems and hire staff to collect data on students' affiliation with the dozen tribes that reside in the state.

With more detailed data collection, schools stand to collect more federal funding geared toward services for Native American students. Tribes will gain access to more granular data about how their students are doing in schools that operate outside their control.

Most tribes are not cloistered from the rest of the American population. More than 90 percent of the tribes' roughly 500,000 children attend U.S. public school districts, rather than schools operated directly by tribal governments or the federal Bureau of Indian Education. Roughly half of those students attend schools where the student body is only 10 percent Native or less, according to the Native Indian Education Association.

But when schools fail to ask for students' tribal affiliations, they flatten public understanding of the nuances of those groups, said Alex Red Corn, assistant professor of educational leadership at Kansas State University.

"The state tends to have control over the education of all the students," said Red Corn, whose family hails from the Osage nation. "If they have control of the education of the students, these tribal governments don't have a mechanism for knowing how their kids are doing in the other government's public school system."

"While American Indians and Alaska Natives are an integral and unique part of U.S. society, we continue to be invisible to most other Americans due to an absence of data, accurate media images, and historical and contemporary awareness about Native peoples in schools, health-care facilities, professions, military service, and daily life," the group writes.

Some states with the largest share of K-12 students who are Native American-namely, Alaska, South Dakota, Montana, and New Mexico-don't yet have policies in place to capture tribal affiliation data from those students. In those states, between 10 percent and 22 percent of K-12 students are Native American, according to federal data.

Why do so many Native students end up being miscategorized?

The federal government began collecting data on racial categories like "Hispanic or Latino" and "American Indian or Alaska Native" in 1980, part of a push for broader racial inclusion begun 12 years earlier by the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

But once they overcome that hurdle, Native students have more complexities to navigate. A large share of Native children also identify as Hispanic or Latino. Or they identify with the demographic option for "two or more races."

If a form doesn't request more information on a student's tribal affiliation, checking one of those options means the student's Native status won't be reflected in the data.

"This question of tribal affiliation or identification, is also trying to register the fact that American Indian students are not a monolithic group," said Claus von Zastrow, senior policy director for the Education Commission of the States. "Every time we lump them together in a big group, you begin to lose that sensitivity about what sorts of more specific help certain student populations need."

How severe is the undercounting?

It's hard to say for sure, of course, because of the lack of comprehensive data. However, some recent reports hint at the scope of the problem.

"You want to say something about how American Indians are faring, what opportunities they have, and you can't," von Zastrow said.

What are some barriers to collecting these data once it's legally required to do so?

A student may not always have a clear-cut answer about their tribal affiliation at the ready. Some may not know all the nuances of the tribe with which they identify. While a person can only be a citizen of one tribe, they can be affiliated with many.

According to Von Zastrow, some families, as well as tribal leaders themselves, may be reluctant to share personal information with the federal government, given its violent and painful history with Native American tribes.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, white Americans operated boarding schools that essentially kidnapped more than tens of thousands of Native children, forced them to assimilate into Western culture, and in some cases killed or permanently traumatized them, according to documents recently unearthed by the federal government and other groups.

Today, the ongoing legacy of colonialism and the forced separation of Native tribes from their land translates to Native students experiencing poverty at higher rates than their white peers. Hundreds of U.S. public schools to this day retain mascots and monikers with Native American names or slurs.

Meanwhile, thanks in part to these data issues, school systems often overlook or underestimate the importance of services and resources Native populations need, Red Corn said.

"You have a lot of people that are experts on Title I. There's people in districts responsible for keeping that going," he said. "Those same districts don't even know what's in Title VI" of the Indian Education Act, which annually affords roughly hundreds of grants to help Native students and educators.

What's the value of having these data requirements in place?

In 2021, Oklahoma passed a law requiring the collection of K-12 tribal affiliation data. Since then, the state has entered into fruitful data-sharing agreements with several local tribes; forged partnerships with local school districts to ensure data collection is going smoothly; and developed plans to amend the state's data-sharing framework to include this new information.

Some tribal leaders may seek out these data for themselves, while others may need guidance from state education leaders or other exports to help them understand how this information could be useful for them, said Red Corn, who's recently been consulting with tribal leaders in Kansas on the possibility of data-sharing agreements that could be of value.

In a presentation last month at a federal education data conference in Maryland, representatives from Michigan's state education department said they hope collecting tribal affiliation data will help schools develop culturally responsive instruction for populations of students that might now be going overlooked. This approach also helps states meet the requirement, passed as part of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, to consult with tribes on education issues.

Vendors of student information systems also have a role to play, according to the Michigan presentation. They can proactively include questions about tribal affiliations in the systems they sell to districts. And they can add drop-down menus to smooth the process for school staff putting in and interpreting these data points.

As with much of this work, that's easier said than done.

"There are three times as many federally recognized tribes in the United States as there are countries in the rest of the world," the presentation said. "That's a heck of a drop-down menu!"

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Schools Struggle to Properly Count Native Students. Some States Want Them to Try Harder

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Michigan recently became the latest state to require the collection of data on Native K-12 students' tribal affiliations.

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State reclassifies students as either ‘American Indian’ or ‘Not American Indian’

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State reclassifies students as either ‘American Indian’ or ‘Not American Indian’

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State reclassifies students as either 'American Indian' or 'Not American Indian'

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The state of Minnesota has reclassified students' race/ethnicity in enrollment data as either "American Indian" or "Not American Indian." Student enrollment data for a school, district, or county is available through the Minnesota Department of Education's Report Card. Data under the federal definition of students is still available, but as of Feb.

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University of Arizona Native Nations Institue

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University of Arizona Native Nations Institue

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Located on Tohono O'odham Nation traditional homelands, the Native Nations Institute (NNI) at the University of Arizona is a self-determination, governance, and development resource for Indigenous nations worldwide. Welcome to NNI's official YouTube channel!

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Collaboratory for Indigenous Data Governance

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Collaboratory for Indigenous Data Governance

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Research, Policy, and Practice for Indigenous Data Sovereignty

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Collaboratory for Indigenous Data Governance

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Learn more about us and our work

Lab News & Updates

The Collaboratory for Indigenous Data Governance is seeking a half time Graduate Research Assistant for Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 to assist with the Stewardship of Indigenous Peoples' Data Group at the University of Arizona (SIPDG at UA) project.
Learn more...

Henry Luce Foundation Award: Implementing Indigenous Data Governance in Repositories

We are pleased to announce that it has been awarded $300,000 in funding from the Henry Luce Foundation in support of research and the implementation of the CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance in data repositories.
Read full announcement

Indigenous Peoples' Data During COVID-19: From External to Internal

Global disease trackers quantifying the size, spread, and distribution of COVID-19 illustrate the power of data during the pandemic. Data are required for decision-making, planning, mitigation, surveillance, and monitoring the equity of responses. There are dual concerns about the availability and suppression of COVID-19 data; due to historic and ongoing racism and exclusion, publicly available data can be both beneficial and harmful. Systemic policies related to genocide and racism, and historic and ongoing marginalization, have led to limitations in quality, quantity, access, and use of Indigenous Peoples' COVID-19 data. Governments, non-profits, researchers, and other institutions must collaborate with Indigenous Peoples on their own terms to improve access to and use of data for effective public health responses to COVID-19. Read the full story

Featuring commentary from Collaboratory member Stephanie Russo Carroll

March 29, 2021

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Transforming institutional governance and ethics for Indigenous control of Indigenous data Learn more Learn more about us and our work Lab News & Updates Graduate Research Assistant Opportunity The Collaboratory for Indigenous Data Governance is seeking a half time Graduate Research Assistant for Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 to assist with the Stewardship of Indigenous...

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Hollie J. Mackey is an enrolled member of the Northern Cheyenne nation presently located in Southeastern Montana and Associate Professor of Education at North Dakota State University. Her scholarship empirically examines the effects of structural inequity in Indigenous and other marginalized populations in educational leadership and public policy using multiple critical frameworks and methodologies. As an experienced policy consultant, public speaker, program evaluator, and community educator, she seeks to bridge

theory and practice as a means of addressing complex social issues from an interdisciplinary perspective. She is the recipient of the D. J. Willower Center for the Study of Leadership and Ethics Award for Excellence and the Jack A. Culbertson Award for outstanding accomplishments as a junior professor of educational leadership. She serves as the Associate Co-Director for the Barbara L. Jackson Scholars Network at the University Council for Educational Administration and Associate Director of the Consortium for the Study of Leadership and Ethics in Education. She earned her Bachelors and Masters of Science in Public Relations at Montana State University-Billings, Masters of Legal Studies in Indigenous People's Law at the University of Oklahoma, and Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the Pennsylvania State University.
Selected Publications:
Murakami, E., & Mackey, H. J. (Eds.) (2018). Beyond marginality: Understanding the Intersection of race, ethnicity, gender, and difference in educational leadership research. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Mackey, H. J. (2018). Towards an Indigenous leadership paradigm for dismantling ableism. Review of Disability Studies, 14(1), 1 - 12. http://bit.ly/RDSJ_803

Mackey, H. J. (2018).Vengeful equity: Gendering the school-to-prison pipeline. Education Law and Policy Brief Journal, 2(1), 15 - 28.

Mackey, H. J. (2018). Contemporary decolonization: Dismantling policy barriers to systemic equity and self-determination. In R. Papa & S. Armfield (Eds.) The Wiley-Blackwell handbook on education policy (pp. 267-287). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

Mackey, H. J. (2017). The ESSA in Indian Country: Problematizing self-determination through the relationships between federal, state, and Tribal governments. Educational Administration Quarterly. 53(5), 782 - 808. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161X17735870

Mackey, H. J. (2017). Exploring Native American students' experiences with injustice: An arts-based approach to improve leadership preparation for equitable schools. National Forum of Educational Administration and Supervision Journal, 35(1/2/3), 49 - 82.

Stamm, M. E., Frick, W. C., & Mackey, H. J. (2016) An analysis of U.S. student drug and alcohol policies through the lens of a professional ethic for school leadership. International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership, 11(1), 1 - 22.

Mackey, H. J. (2015). Going against the grain of accountability: Leadership preparation for using data to promote socially just outcomes. eJournal of Education Policy, Summer, 41 - 56.

Mackey, H. J. (2015). Educational administration in Indian Country: The peculiar position of Indigenous languages, tribal self-determination, and federal policy. In A. Normore, P. Ehrensal, P. First, & M. Torres (Eds.), in Legal frontiers in education: Complex issues for leaders, policymakers and policy implementers. (pp. 167-181). Bingley UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Mackey, H. J.,& Shannon, K. E. (2014). Comparing alternative voices in the academy: Navigating the complexity of mentoring relationships from divergent ethnic backgrounds. Mentoring and Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 22(4), 338 - 353.

Mackey, H. J., & Warner, L. S.(2013). For our children: A study of the influences on American Indian/Alaska Native education policy. Journal of Critical Thought and Praxis, 2(1). 104 - 121.

Mackey, H. J. (2012).Transformational partnerships: Translating research into practice through culturally competent evaluation practices in American Indian communities. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 25(7), 947 - 963.

Mackey, H. J. (2012). Educating American Indian students: Creating a prosocial context. In P. M. Brown,M. W.Corrigan, & A. Higgins-D'Allesandro (Eds.). The handbook of prosocial education, New York, NY: Rowman and Littlefield.
Selected Keynote Addresses and Trainings:
Mackey, H. J. (2019). Montana's Inaugural Missing Indigenous Persons Task Force Facilitation. Conducted for the Montana Department of Justice.

Mackey, H. J. (2019). Surviving Knowledge: An Indigenous Perspective on Stories, Strategies, and Statistics about MMIP Issues. Invited keynote presented at the Montana Department of Justice joint Law Enforcement/Community Missing Indigenous Persons Training.

Mackey, H. J. (2018). Educational leadership and The ESSA in Indian Country: Self determination and schools as sites of resistance. Invited keynote presented at the Montana State University ILEAD Conference, Bozeman, Montana.

Mackey, H. J. (2018). Qualitative program evaluation. Three day officers' curriculum/course improvement training presented to the Ft. Sill FIRES Artillery Defense and Air Defense School of Education, Lawton, OK.

Mackey, H. J. (2017). Self-determination in education: Restorying student outcomes through Indigenous leadership and activism. Invited keynote speaker for the Kansas State Indigenous Alliance Indigenous People's Day Forum, Manhattan, KS. Livestream available at https://www.k-state.edu/indigenous-alliance/indigenous-peoples-day/

Mackey, H. J. (2017). Surviving knowledge: The women of Standing Rock and history rewritten. Invited keynote speaker for the Women's Research on Women Symposium, College Station, TX.

Mackey, H. J., (2016). A critical legal analysis of colonization on contemporary grassroots activism: On the ground at Standing Rock. Invited presentation, University of Oklahoma College of Law, Norman, OK.

Mackey, H. J. (2014). Federal Indian education policy: Developing vision, creativity, and sustainability through the Johnson O'Malley program. Invited keynote presentation, Oklahoma Statewide Johnson O'Malley Conference, Tulsa, OK.

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Hollie J. Mackey is an enrolled member of the Northern Cheyenne nation presently located in Southeastern Montana and Associate Professor of Education at North Dakota State University. Her scholarship empirically examines the effects of structural inequity in Indigenous and other marginalized populations in educational leadership and public policy using multiple critical frameworks and methodologies.

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American Indians and Alaska Natives were once the healthiest people in these lands, but as a direct result of colonization, they now suffer from some of the worst health disparities in the United States.
Learn about urban Indian health

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Urban Indian Health Institute - Decolonizing data, for indigenous people, by indigenous people.

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American Indians and Alaska Natives were once the healthiest people in these lands, but as a direct result of colonization, they now suffer from some of the worst health disparities in the United States. Learn about urban Indian health

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State Tribal Education Partnership (STEP)

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State Tribal Education Partnership (STEP)

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Office of Elementary and Secondary Education

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New Resource! From the Comprehensive Center Network, Circles of Reflection are available for the STEP Grant. Please use these resources and this corresponding video to conduct Circles of Reflection for the STEP Grant and to develop an application for the STEP Grant

Program Overview

The purposes of this program are to: (1) Promote increased collaboration between tribal education agencies (TEAs) and the State educational agencies (SEAs) and local educational agencies (LEAs) that serve students from the affected tribes; and (2) build the capacity of TEAs to conduct certain administrative functions under certain Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) formula grant programs for eligible schools, as determined by the TEA, SEA, and LEA.

Types of Projects

The absolute funding priorities for the program in FY2020 limit projects to building capacity to administer and coordinate education programs that are designed to do one or more of the following:

1. Recruit or retain educators, including by supplementing efforts to recruit or retain educators employed by the TEA or by a partnering LEA.

2. Promote the availability of work-based learning experiences (such as internships, apprenticeships, and fellowships) or career exploration opportunities for elementary and secondary students served by the TEA that align with in-demand industry sectors or occupations (as defined in section 3(23) of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014), without providing direct services.

3. For a TEA located in a State with a State statute specifically authorizing the establishment of charter schools, build TEA capacity necessary to open a new charter school, including a Tribally authorized charter school, such as by developing the charter school concept; writing a mission statement; defining an educational model; establishing a governance structure; developing a budget; establishing curriculum; choosing a location; developing partnerships with key stakeholders; or developing other materials related to applying for a charter from the appropriate authorizing entity.

4. Build TEA capacity necessary to convert a BIE-operated school to a BIE-funded Tribally-operated school, such as by developing structures necessary to ensure smooth transition of instruction; ensuring necessary and appropriate facilities; developing processes and procedures for oversight of funds and compliance with statute and regulations; and preparing to hire teachers and staff.

Projects may be carried out by either established TEAs (Absolute Priority 2) or TEAs with limited prior experience (Absolute Priority 3).

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State Tribal Education Partnership (STEP) - Office of Elementary and Secondary Education

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The program is designed to award competitive grants to Tribal Education Agencies (TEAs)to increase their role in the education of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) students, including education to meet the unique educational and culturally related academic needs of AI/AN students and improve their academic achievement.

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Advancing Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Governance

Asserting Indigenous Peoples rights and interests in data

Advocating for data for the self-determined wellbeing of Indigenous Peoples

Reinforcing the rights to engage in decision-making in accordance with Indigenous values and collective interests

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Advancing Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Governance Asserting Indigenous Peoples rights and interests in data Advocating for data for the self-determined wellbeing of Indigenous Peoples Reinforcing the rights to engage in decision-making in accordance with Indigenous values and collective interests

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NIEA encourages utilizing statistics and education data to make informed decision leading to improved education systems serving Native students.

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The following are demographics and statistics about our American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) populations and students. NIEA encourages utilizing statistics and education data to make informed decision leading to improved education systems serving Native students.

Notes: AI/AN refers to American Indian and Alaska Native. NHOPI refers to Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander. "Alone" means not in combination with any other race. "In combination" means in combination with at least one other race.

Student Demographics

*Indicates that the measure includes multiracial AI/ANs or multiracial Native Hawaiians.

Youth . . .

Compared to the general population, youth comprise a higher percentage of the Native population. The following table gives the percentage of youth in AI/AN and Native Hawaiian communities, as well as the general U.S. population. 1

Public Schools . . .

There are approximately 459,000 AI/AN students and 180,000 NHOPI students in the K-12 public school system nationally, comprising 1% and 0.4% of all public-school students, respectively. 2

93% of AI/AN students and 92% of NHOPI students attend public schools. 3

The five states with the largest proportions of AI/AN public-school students are Alaska (22.0%), Oklahoma (12.0%), Montana (11.0%), South Dakota (10.7%), and New Mexico (10.3%). The five states with the largest proportion of NHOPI public-school students are Hawaii (26.6%), Alaska (3.0%), Utah (1.6%), Nevada (1.5%), and Washington (1.2%). 4

About a quarter (24%) of AI/AN public-school students attend schools where the majority of students are AI/AN. On the other hand, about half (49%) attend schools where less than 10% of the student body is AI/AN. 5

Only 7% of NHOPI public-school students attend schools where the majority of the student body is NHOPI; 70% attend schools where less than 10% of students are NHOPI. 6

The high school graduation rate for AI/AN students in public schools was 74% in 2019, 7 up from 67% in 2012. 8

School choice is limited for many AI/AN students. Traditional public schools are the only options in 84% of school districts with significant (greater than 25%) AI/AN student populations. This means that students in these districts have no charter, magnet, or BIE options available to them. 9

The Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) . . .

The Bureau of Indian education currently funds 187 schools for AI/AN students. Of those 187 schools, 130 are tribally controlled elementary and secondary schools, and 55 are BIE-operated elementary and secondary schools, and two are BIE-operated postsecondary institutions. 10

A little under 7% of AI/AN students attended BIE-funded schools in the 2020-2021 school year. 11

During the 2020-2021 school year, 34,529 students went to BIE-funded schools. 24,240 of those students attended tribally controlled schools, and the other 10,289 attended BIE-operated institutions. 12

The states with the highest number of BIE-funded students are Arizona (9,113 students), New Mexico (7,439 students), South Dakota (5,352 students), North Dakota (3,193), and Mississippi (2,104). 13

Poverty . . .

Poverty disproportionately affects Native youth, as indicated by the following table. 14

Over one-third (37%) of AI/AN students and one-quarter (25%) of NHOPI students attend high-poverty public schools. That is compared to just 8% of white public school students. 15

69% of AI/AN students and 59% of NHOPI students attend schools where more than half of all students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. 16

Teachers . . .

Native students are less likely than their white peers to have a teacher that shares their racial and ethnic background. Nationwide, whereas 1% of students are AI/AN, only 0.5% of teachers are AI/AN. Similarly, NHOPI students comprise 0.4% of all students, but less than 0.2% of all teachers. 17

The vast majority of teachers in majority-AI/AN schools are white (61%). In fact, only 29% of teachers in majority-AI/AN schools are AI/AN. 18

In schools where the majority of students are NHOPI, 19% of teachers are NHOPI, and 26% are white. 19

In Alaska, only 10% of teachersxx are AI/AN compared to 22% of students. 21

Similarly, in Hawaii, only 10% of public-school teachersxxii are Native Hawaiian, compared to 24% of public-school students. 23

Higher Education . . .

84% of AI/AN adults (age 25 and up) and 92% of Native Hawaiian adults have a high school diploma or higher. 21% of AI/AN adults and 24% of Native Hawaiian adults have a bachelor's degree or higher. 24

There are 32 accredited Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) in the United States. Combined, they offer 358 total programs, including 181 associate degrees, 40 bachelor's degrees, and 5 master's degrees. 25

In 2019, TCUs had a total enrollment of 15,323 students, and 80% of those students (12,210) were AI/AN. Combined, they awarded 1,139 associate degrees and 378 bachelor's degrees to AI/AN students. 26

Proficiency . . .

In 2019, Native students scored lower than their white peers on standardized tests. 27

School Environment . . .

24% of AI/AN students attend rural schools, a rate more than 2.5 times that of any other racial or ethnic group. Around 2% of NHOPI students attend rural schools. 28

The Individuals with Disabilities Act covers 15% of AI/AN students in public schools. 29

A little over 3% of Native Hawaiian* children are disabled. 30

Nearly 2,000 schools in the United States have Native mascots, logos, or nicknames. The states with the highest number of secondary schools with such mascots are Ohio (77), California (75), New York (58), Illinois (52), and Texas (51). 31

In 2018, over a quarter of AI/AN students aged 12-18 (27%) reported experiencing bullying within the last year. 32

AI/AN students are significantly more likely than any other racial group to report being afraid of attack or harm while at school- 14% of AI/AN students aged 12-18 reported these concerns. This rate is over twice that of any other racial or ethnic group and about three times the national average. 33

In 2019, a third (33%) of AI/AN high schoolers reported using alcohol with in the last month, 34 and nearly a quarter (24%) reported that illegal drugs were made available to them on school property. 35 Those rates were 42% 36 and 17%, 37 respectively, for NHOPI high schoolers.

AI/AN students have some of the highest rates of suspension of any racial or ethnic group. A little over 21% of AI/AN middle and high schoolers reported having been suspended at least once in their life, compared to 12% of white middle and high schoolers. 38

Home Environment . . .

22% of AI/ANs and 15% of Native Hawaiians speak a language other than English at home. 39

Native households are less likely to be able to adjust to remote or virtual learning. 10% of AI/AN and 6% of Native Hawaiian households were without access to a personal computer. Additionally, 20% of AI/AN households and 13% of Native Hawaiian households are without access to a broadband Internet subscription. 40

15% of AI/ANs and 6% of Native Hawaiians do not have health insurance. 41

Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau, 2019 American Community Survey, Table S0201.

2. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), 2021, Table 203.50, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d21/tables/dt21_203.50.asp?current=yes.

3. NCES, Common Core of Data, "Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey", 2020-21 v.1a.

4. NCES, 2021, Table 203.70, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d21/tables/dt21_203.70.asp?current=yes.

5. NCES, 2021, Table 216.55, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d21/tables/dt21_216.55.asp?current=yes.

6. Ibid.

7. NCES, 2021, Table 219.46, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_219.46.asp.

8. NCES, 2014, Public High School Four-Year OnTime Graduation Rates and Event Dropout Rates: School Years 2010-11 and 2011-12, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5cffbf319973d7000185377f/t/5db308ed40dd9a42bbc056a9/1572014318595/1-2014391.pdf.

9. Government Accountability Office. 2019. "Limited Options Available for Many American Indian and Alaska Native Students," https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-19-226.pdf.

10. BIE 2022, https://www.bie.edu/schools/directory.

11. NCES, CCD, "Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey", 2020-21 v.1a.

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid.

14. U.S. Census Bureau, 2019 American Community Survey, Table S0201.

15. National Center for Education Statistics. (2022). Concentration of Public-School Students Eligible for Free or Reduced-Price Lunch. Condition of Education. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. Retrieved [date], from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/clb.

16. NCES, 2021, Table 216.60, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d21/tables/dt21_216.60.asp?current=yes.

17. NCES, National Teacher and Principal Survey, "Public School Teacher Data File," 2017-18.

18. National Center for Education Statistics, 2020, "Race and Ethnicity of Public School Teachers and Their Students," https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2020/2020103/index.asp.

19. Ibid.

20. NCES, National Teacher and Principal Survey, "Public School Teacher Data File," 2017-18.

21. NCES, CCD, "Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey", 2020-21 v.1a.

22. OHA, 2018 Education Databook, https://files.hawaii.gov/dbedt/economic/databook/db2018/section03.pdf.

23. OHA, 2020 Education Databook, https://files.hawaii.gov/dbedt/economic/databook/db2020/section03.pdf.

24. U.S. Census Bureau, 2019 American Community Survey, Table S0201.

25. US Department of Education, 2022, "Tribal Colleges and Universities," https://sites.ed.gov/whiaiane/tribes-tcus/tribal-colleges-and-universities/.

26. NCES, 2019, Table 312.50, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d21/tables/dt21_312.50.asp?current=yes.

27. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 2019 Reading Assessment and 2019 Mathematics Assessment, https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ndecore/landing.

28. NCES, CCD, "Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey", 2020-21 v.1a.

29. US Census Bureau, 2020 American Community Survey (ACS), Tables B14007C; US Department of Education, EDFacts Data Warehouse: "IDEA Part B Child Count and Educational Environments Collection," 2020-21. From file specifications 002 and 089.

30. US Census Bureau, 2019 ACS, Table S0201

31. National Congress of American Indians, 2022, "National School Mascot Tracking Database," http://bit.ly/schoolmascotdatabase.

32. National Center for Education Statistics, 2020, Table 230.40, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_230.40.asp?current=yes.

33. National Center for Education Statistics, 2020, Table 230.70, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_230.70.asp?current=yes.

34. NCES, 2020, Table 232.10, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_232.10.asp?current=yes.

35. NCES, 2020, Table 232.70, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_232.70.asp?current=yes.

36. NCES, 2020, Table 232.10, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_232.10.asp?current=yes.

37. NCES, 2020, Table 232.70, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_232.70.asp?current=yes.

38. NCES, 2021, Table 233.20, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_233.20.asp?current=yes.

39. US Census Bureau, 2019 ACS, Table S0201.

40. Ibid.

41. Ibid.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Native Education Research - National Indian Education Association

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The following are demographics and statistics about our American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) populations and students. NIEA encourages utilizing statistics and education data to make informed decision leading to improved education systems serving Native students. Notes: AI/AN refers to American Indian and Alaska Native. NHOPI refers to Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander.

# data[].attributes.headline
Native American Studies: Indigenous Data Sovereignty

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Native American Studies: Indigenous Data Sovereignty

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https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/c.php?g=527365&p=8210973

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Library Guides: Native American Studies: Indigenous Data Sovereignty

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Library Guides: Native American Studies: Indigenous Data Sovereignty

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Indigenous Data Governance: Strategies from United States Native Nations

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Indigenous Data Governance: Strategies from United States Native Nations

# data[].attributes.body
https://nnigovernance.arizona.edu/indigenous-data-governance-strategies-united-states-native-nations

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Data have become the new global currency, and a powerful force in making decisions and wielding power. As the world engages with open data, big data reuse, and data linkage, what do data-driven futures look like for communities plagued by data inequities? Indigenous data stakeholders and non-Indigenous allies have explored this question over the last three years in a series of meetings through the Research Data Alliance (RDA). Drawing on RDA and other gatherings, and a systematic scan of literature and practice, we consider possible answers to this question in the context of Indigenous peoples vis-á-vis two emerging concepts: Indigenous data sovereignty and Indigenous data governance. Specifically, we focus on the data challenges facing Native nations and the intersection of data, tribal sovereignty, and power. Indigenous data sovereignty is the right of each Native nation to govern the collection, ownership, and application of the tribe's data. Native nations exercise Indigenous data sovereignty through the interrelated processes of Indigenous data governance and decolonizing data. This paper explores the implications of Indigenous data sovereignty and Indigenous data governance for Native nations and others. We argue for the repositioning of authority over Indigenous data back to Indigenous peoples. At the same time, we recognize that there are significant obstacles to rebuilding effective Indigenous data systems and the process will require resources, time, and partnerships among Native nations, other governments, and data agents.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Indigenous Data Governance: Strategies from United States Native Nations | NNI Database

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Data have become the new global currency, and a powerful force in making decisions and wielding power. As the world engages with open data, big data reuse, and data linkage, what do data-driven futures look like for communities plagued by data inequities? Indigenous data stakeholders and non-Indigenous allies have explored this question over the last three years in a series of meetings through the Research Data Alliance (RDA). Drawing on RDA and other gatherings, and a systematic scan of literature and practice, we consider possible answers to this question in the context of Indigenous peoples vis-á-vis two emerging concepts: Indigenous data sovereignty and Indigenous data governance. Specifically, we focus on the data challenges facing Native nations and the intersection of data, tribal sovereignty, and power. Indigenous data sovereignty is the right of each Native nation to govern the collection, ownership, and application of the tribe’s data. Native nations exercise Indigenous data sovereignty through the interrelated processes of Indigenous data governance and decolonizing data. This paper explores the implications of Indigenous data sovereignty and Indigenous data governance for Native nations and others. We argue for the repositioning of authority over Indigenous data back to Indigenous peoples. At the same time, we recognize that there are significant obstacles to rebuilding effective Indigenous data systems and the process will require resources, time, and partnerships among Native nations, other governments, and data agents.

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URBAN AMERICAN INDIAN AND ALASKA NATIVE DATA 

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URBAN AMERICAN INDIAN AND ALASKA NATIVE DATA 

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Indigenous Data Sovereignty in Higher Education 

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Indigenous Data Sovereignty in Higher Education 

# data[].attributes.headline
Training the Next Generation of Indigenous Data Scientists

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Training the Next Generation of Indigenous Data Scientists

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Training the Next Generation of Indigenous Data Scientists (Published 2021)

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A new workshop explores the right of Indigenous people to govern the collection, ownership and use of their biological and cultural data.

# data[].attributes.headline
Policy Brief: Native Nation Rebuilding for Tribal Research and Data Governance

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Policy Brief: Native Nation Rebuilding for Tribal Research and Data Governance

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Indigenous Peoples conducted research long before their interactions with European settlers. Whether through observation or practice, research in a non-western context was woven into Indigenous ways of knowing and being. It continues to inform Indigenous Knowledges of landscapes and natural resources, governance systems, intra- and inter-governmental relationships, and behavior. The outcomes of this research are reflected in how Indigenous Peoples understand who they are today. Research in Indigenous communities has evolved-and not always in positive ways. For decades, noncommunity-member researchers, including non-Indigenous researchers, have studied Indigenous Peoples and communities.

Research practices range from collaborative to exploitative, with research outcomes and outputs often intended for the benefit of users outside a particular Native nation or cultural group. Some researchers honor tribal sovereignty in their research practices and seek tribal government and community guidance on research approvals and processes (or are attempting to pivot in this direction). Others have collected data from Indigenous communities for their personal or research advancement without concern for community desires, collected data without consent from Native nations, and misrepresented how data would be used. Such actions have led to contentious engagements among public institutions, researchers, and Indigenous Peoples.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Policy Brief: Native Nation Rebuilding for Tribal Research and Data Governance

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Indigenous Peoples conducted research long before their interactions with European settlers. Whether through observation or practice, research in a non-western context was woven into Indigenous ways of knowing and being. It continues to inform Indigenous Knowledges of landscapes and natural resources, governance systems, intra- and inter-governmental relationships, and behavior.

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Culturally responsive education is insufficient. We need to envision an education that is at a minimum, culturally sustaining and ideally culturally revitalizing. Students and educators need spaces where they can grow in their identities, cultural connections, and cultural knowledge. We need an education that can contribute to Indigenous futures and cultural resurgence.

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Culturally responsive education is insufficient. We need to envision an education that is at a minimum, culturally sustaining and ideally culturally revitalizing. Students and educators need spaces where they can grow in their identities, cultural connections, and cultural knowledge. We need an education that can contribute to Indigenous futures and cultural resurgence.

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How do Native Americans view data sharing by tribal governments?

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How do Native Americans view data sharing by tribal governments?

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https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2023/how-do-native-americans-view-data-sharing-by-tribal-governments

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How do Native Americans view data sharing by tribal governments? | Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis

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Survey of Native Americans suggests willingness for their tribes to share data for economic benefit

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Tribal Data Governance and Informational Privacy: Constructing "Indigenous Data Sovereignty"

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Tribal Data Governance and Informational Privacy: Constructing "Indigenous Data Sovereignty"

# data[].attributes.body
Constructing "Indigenous Data Sovereignty

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Urban Institute: Native Data Sovereignty Can Address Data Gaps and Improve Equity

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Urban Institute: Native Data Sovereignty Can Address Data Gaps and Improve Equity

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Data collection is critical to equitably and responsibly supporting people's well-being. But traditional research and data collection methods often extract from, rather than support, Native communities. The resulting poor-quality data harm Native populations on and off reservations through underfunding, less access to supportive services, and widening disparities in public health and poverty.

Insufficient data on Indigenous populations is often cited as a reason behind the inability for evidence-supported decisionmaking. But researchers can break from this circular logic and shift toward a Native-centered approach, one that acknowledges both a wider definition of data and that Indigenous peoples are, and have been, expert data collectors, keepers, and users for thousands of years.

Increasing representation and equity among Native peoples involves supporting their transition from dependence on ill-fitting data systems-those that can't reach them, don't apply to them, and don't reflect their lived experience-to data sovereignty: the right of Indigenous people and nations to govern the collection, ownership, and application of their own data. From a research and policymaking standpoint, supporting this sovereignty requires being a tenacious, resourceful ally.

More than "something else": Making Native people count

Sovereign nations of Indigenous peoples have been denied power and agency over the history of their relationship with the US government, which continues to shape the perception of Native peoples' presence, needs, and representation in the US.

More than 9 million Indigenous people live in the United States, most off reservations. Yet, Indigenous peoples aren't always meaningfully included in survey or poll results because of statistical significance or margin of error concerns. Native peoples are often relegated to an "other" or "something else" category, essentially erasing them.

Lack of broadband and physical mailing addresses and other logistical hurdles make engagement difficult. This was evident during the pandemic, when opacity and strict guidelines around CARES Act funding made it difficult or impossible for tribes to receive assistance. But surveys and censuses are necessary to allocating resources and electing representation, making engagement issues obstacles to overcome, not a reality to concede to.

Practicing and strengthening data sovereignty

Data collection, including tracking climate change and conducting tribal censuses and surveys, is a traditional Native practice that incorporates knowledge and expertise around resources, land, and environments, as well as experience with US systems and tribes' historical and current relationships with American power structures.

Power over and ownership of these data, or data sovereignty, can be restored to Indigenous peoples through material support, technical assistance, and reinforcing Indigenous peoples' presence and voice through ethical, responsible, and empowering partnerships.

"Equity for Indigenous people starts and ends with sovereignty," said Desi Small-Rodriguez, director of the Data Warriors Lab and cofounder of the US Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network, during a recent Urban Institute staff discussion. The right to collect, own, and use data requires activation and exercising by Native nations and acknowledgment and respect from outside actors. In other words, data sovereignty is practiced and strengthened both within and outside tribes.

Being a " good relative," Small-Rodriguez said, means moving away from a paradigm where data are collected by non-Native stakeholders for their own purposes-a "by them, for them" model.

Instead, she encourages stakeholders to move toward understanding and accessing the abundance of Native data, building a " cogovernance" research model, and deferring and creating space for Indigenous researchers and data practitioners. This is how Native data are effectively released- decolonized -from a misaligned data system.

Being a good relative and a determined ally

Collecting data is costly in time and resources, and tribal nations are often obligated to use these resources to meet basic needs. This is where research organizations, universities, and governments can come in.

Working alongside organizations and other stakeholders that support Indigenous data sovereignty is an expeditious way forward. And sustaining these relationships requires acknowledging that the quality and effort with which Native folks have kept and managed data is as rigorous as a Western approach.

Lived experience is core to methodologies like community-engaged methods, and these alternative ways of knowing and doing are becoming more affirmed and valued as tools for authentic data gathering and evidence building.

This also means materially and technically supporting and empowering Native-led data collection through providing training, flexible funding, and people power. Engaging Native expertise in asking the right questions, determining the best methods, and stewarding and interpreting data yields higher-quality results and supports Native data sovereignty.

Embracing Indigenous data sovereignty is different for some, but there's much at stake: environmental conservation, intergenerational poverty and lower life expectancies, and the prevention of human suffering. It's not new or unpracticed, though; after all, Native nations have been collecting, using, and processing data long before the US as we know it existed.

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Native Data Sovereignty Can Address Data Gaps and Improve Equity

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Native nations have been collecting, using, and processing data long before the US as we know it existed.

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Seven Directions: A Center for Indigenous Public Health

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Seven Directions: A Center for Indigenous Public Health

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See the amazing work of Dr. Michele Suina at the Seven Directions Center for Indigenous Public Health

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Michele is a health educator and chose this career path to contribute to the health and vitality of Native American people. She is passionate about making changes to standard western approaches to health education and public health so that tribes realize their own self-defined health goals. Michele received a Bachelor of Science in Health Education from the University of New Mexico and a Master of Science in Justice Studies from Arizona State University. In 2015, she completed her doctoral studies and graduated from Arizona State University School of Social Transformation as part of the first Pueblo PhD cohort in Justice Studies. Michele enjoys spending time with her daughter and two dogs.

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Working Respectfully with Indigenous Communities Around Data and Evidence: A Resource for State Education Agencies

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Working Respectfully with Indigenous Communities Around Data and Evidence: A Resource for State Education Agencies

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Working Respectfully with Indigenous Communities Around Data and Evidence: A Resource for State Education Agencies

Produced by REL West

Description

Tribal governments are sovereign nations that promote self-determination for approximately one-half million American Indian students in the United States, who experience disproportionately high rates of special education identification, suspension, and chronic absenteeism.

This disproportionality is due to structural inequities that persist in educational systems, such as a hostile school climate and policies that do not accommodate absences for ceremonial and cultural observances.

This resource is intended to support state education agency staff members as they build partnerships with tribal leaders to improve educational outcomes for Native students through the use of data, research, and evidence.

Resource Details

Product Information

Copyright: 2021
Format: PDF
Pages: 7
Publisher: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Working Respectfully with Indigenous Communities Around Data and Evidence: A Resource for State Education Agencies

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This resource is intended to support state education agency (SEA) staff members as they build partnerships with tribal leaders to improve educational outcomes for Native students through the use of data, research, and evidence.

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The CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance

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The CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance

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National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition- Ongoing Efforts to gain access to Indian Boarding School Records

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National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition- Ongoing Efforts to gain access to Indian Boarding School Records

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The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS) is the first and only national organization whose purpose is to advocate on behalf of Native peoples impacted by U.S. Indian boarding school policies. We seek truth through education and research, justice through activism and policy advocacy, and healing through programs and traditional gatherings.

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The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition

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Explore the latest research through this interactive map, which was created in partnership with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. You can find information and locations for all 523 known Indian boarding schools in the United States, as well as known Indian residential schools in Canada.

Learn more about NABS's efforts to identify the 523 Indian boarding schools used in this interactive map.

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Interactive Digital Map of Indian Boarding Schools - The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Explore the latest research through this interactive map, which was created in partnership with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. You can find information and locations for all 523 known Indian boarding schools in the United States, as well as known Indian residential schools in Canada. Learn more about NABS's...

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Data as a Strategic Resource: Self-determination, Governance, and the Data Challenge for Indigenous Nations in the United States

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Data as a Strategic Resource: Self-determination, Governance, and the Data Challenge for Indigenous Nations in the United States

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Governance, and the Data Challenge for

Indigenous Nations in the United States

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Higher Education Coordinating Commission : Coordination With Tribes in Oregon : Public Meetings & Engagement : State of Oregon

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This page provides an overview of the HECC’s tribal relations processes and key resources for tribal partners

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Administrators Government-to-Government Relationships Training by Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction

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Administrators Government-to-Government Relationships Training by Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction

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OSPI Certification Office suggests, at the minimum, submitting your paperwork for recertification 10 weeks prior to June 30, 2024. The suggested completion date for the Online Modules: Administrators Government-to-Government Relationships Training course is April 30th or earlier, if possible.

FYI: The modules will close in June to encourage in-person attendance to summer trainings. If you do not need these clock hours this year for recertification, consider attending an in-person training this summer. The average length of time to complete the 5-hour online course is currently 10+ hours.
UPCOMING IN-PERSON SUMMER 2024 TRAININGS:

1. AWSP Pre-conference on June 22, 2024 in Spokane (CONFIRMED; Registration on AWSP Site)

2. July 16, 2024, at Western Washington University, Bellingham (TENTIVE-Site Contracts in Negotiation) *

3. July 23, 2024, at Central Washington University, Ellensburg (TENTIVE-Site Contracts in Negotiation) *

*Registration will open in pdEnroller when site contracts are secured.

4/4/2024 12:00 AM Maxine Alex

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
OSPI Certification Office suggests, at the minimum, submitting your paperwork for recertification 10 weeks prior to June 30, 2024. The suggested completion date for the Online Modules: Administrators Government-to-Government Relationships Training course is April 30th or earlier, if possible. FYI: The modules will close in June to encourage in-person attendance to summer trainings.

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Intergovernmental Agreements (IGAs)

ECECD recognizes the national and educational sovereignty of Pueblos, Tribes, and Nations within New Mexico. In respect for this sovereignty, ECECD formalizes educational partnerships with Pueblos, Tribes, and Nations through Intergovernmental Agreements.

In 2023, New Mexico passed House Bill 148 (HB 148), the Early Childhood Department Tribal Agreements Act, which amends the duties of the Early Childhood Education and Care Department (ECECD) by requiring ECECD to enter into Intergovernmental Agreements (IGAs) with Indian Nations, Tribes, Pueblos, or Tribal organizations to plan, conduct, administer, and reimburse early childhood education and care programs. Although ECECD standardized the practice of entering into IGAs with tribal communities since 2021 under its Tribal Investment Strategy funding stream, HB 148 continues that future executive administrations are required to honor IGAs made with Tribal communities. HB 148 provides a stable foundation for collaboration between the State of New Mexico and Tribal communities so early childhood education and care continue to expand and flourish.

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Intergovernmental Agreements (IGAs) ECECD recognizes the national and educational sovereignty of Pueblos, Tribes, and Nations within New Mexico. In respect for this sovereignty, ECECD formalizes educational partnerships with Pueblos, Tribes, and Nations through Intergovernmental Agreements.

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The more Indigenous nations self govern, the more they succeed

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The more Indigenous nations self govern, the more they succeed

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Joe Kalt (Intro): So they're deciding what the speed limit is through the town center, what's in the school lunch program, what the juvenile justice program looks like for teenagers, all of these things. And while it's not a case of perfection-if anyone can find us the perfect government anywhere in the world, please let the Kennedy School of Government know-it has been an era really of tremendous progress. There's still widespread poverty, but the little-known fact that people don't understand is that Indian nations in the United States, the incomes of Indian citizens on reservations have been growing about three and a half times faster than for the average American for the last 30 years. And poverty rates have been cut in half over the last 30 years.

Megan Minoka Hill (Intro): We have a program from a natural resource management, the Yukon River Intertribal Watershed Commission, which ensures the health of the Yukon River through Canada and the United States. That program has been replicated all around the world, including along the Amazon, to ensure the health of riparian systems using Indigenous knowledge systems and ways to not only maintain the health of these ecosystems, but also using traditional means to monitor the region. And so you see that in terms of natural resource management. We have examples from eldercare. The Tohono Oʼodham Nation in southern Arizona has created a state-of-the-art eldercare facility called the Archie Hendricks Skilled Nursing Facility. They've imbued all aspects of the state-of-the-art care with their own cultural knowledge and values of, they call it, 'Himdag'. And so you see across the board these programs and these tribal nations solving universal problems that really can be replicated anywhere throughout the United States or around the world.

Ralph Ranalli (Intro): Welcome to the Harvard Kennedy School PolicyCast. I'm your host, Ralph Ranalli. When the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development launched in the mid-1980s, the popular perception of economic and civic life in America's Indigenous nations-based largely in reality-was one of poverty and dysfunction. But it was also a time when tribes had started being granted significant autonomy from the federal government and were increasingly starting to govern themselves. Researchers like Harvard Kennedy School Professor Joseph Kalt and Megan Minoka Hill also noticed that unexpected tribal economic success stories were starting to crop up, and they set about trying to determine if those successes were a result of causation or coincidence. Now Kalt and Hill say the evidence is in: When Native nations make their own decisions about what development approaches to take, studies show they consistently out-perform external decision makers-on matters like governance, resource management, economic development, health care, and providing social services. That's why Harvard is going all in, recently changing the name of the program to the Harvard Kennedy School Project on Indigenous Governance and Development-pushing the issue of governance to the forefront-and announcing an infusion of millions in funding that will make supporting tribal self-government a permanent part of the Kennedy School's mission.

Ralph Ranalli: Joe, Megan, welcome to PolicyCast.

Joe Kalt: Thank you. Great to be here.

Megan Minoka Hill: Thank you.

Ralph Ranalli: We're talking today about the Project on Indigenous Governance and Development. Can you just start off by walking us through what the project is and what it aims to achieve?

Joe Kalt: Sure. For more than 35 years, the project has been focused on the challenges of, what it's called in the field, the self-determination of Indigenous communities, particularly in the United States. Since the mid-seventies, we've had formal policies for the US federally-recognized American Indian tribes of self-determination through self-governance. And our work is focused on, basically trying to understand what works and what doesn't. As tribes now here in the U.S. and Indigenous communities elsewhere in the world set about trying to run their own communities. And these tribal communities around the world are just like other nations in the world. They can have rights of self-determination, self-governance, but fall flat on their faces if they can't do it well. And so tribes are really out there working on everything from their constitutions to their court systems, to their housing programs, to their health programs.

We do research on that, but our mantra is we do research that helps. In other words, we're not trying to just publish in the journal of obscure topics like a bunch of nerdy professors. What we're doing is trying to produce useful tools so tribes can make their own decisions and chart their own courses. We do that through a number of programs and Megan, you might say a word about our flagship program. Megan, why don't you say a word about that?

Megan Minoka Hill: Yeah, absolutely. One of the programs we run is called Honoring Nations, and it was established in 1998 to shine a light on, as Joe said, what's working, what's going right in Indian country in particular in tribal governance, and it's a national awards program that celebrates success in tribal governance. And, since 1998, we've awarded 142 different tribal governmental programs from over a hundred different tribal nations; everything from justice to healthcare to management of natural resources. So anything and everything a tribal government does well, we want to celebrate and shine a light on, for a couple of reasons. One, there are 575 different tribal nations in the United States and some of us are facing similar challenges. And so what's going right in one nation and a solution to a challenge that they've developed might be able to be adapted and applied to another tribal nation. And then we also do it to teach our non-native neighbors that the tribal governments are here and they have lessons for all governments.

Ralph Ranalli: Before we talk about what's gone right, what is working, can the both of you just talk a little bit about what was wrong with the way that tribal governments were first established and the way they worked or didn't work. I think there's probably very few people in the United States who aren't aware of high poverty rates and high rates of societal problems and poor health outcomes in tribal nations. Can you talk a little bit about where things started, before we go down the path to how things started going right and getting to a place where they're better?

Joe Kalt: Sure. It's a great question because in it is the lesson of what's happening now. So, for decades, in some places for more than a century, the primary decision maker over in the United States over Indian reservation affairs was the federal government of the United States. Sometimes very ill-intentioned and sometimes not so ill-intentioned. But having somebody else make the decisions over what was taught in the schools, where the houses were going to be built, what the water system was going to look like, all of these attributes of day-to-day life was really messing things up in two key ways.

One was wrong decisions were made because the federal authorities, often good people, good human beings, but they weren't part of, often, of the community. And so what got funded and so forth might fit a community, but oftentimes it didn't. The second thing that went wrong, is it created an institutional dependence among tribes. So as tribes ran a housing program, it was really federal housing. There was somebody else's government that they were trying to work with. And the change, beginning in the mid 1970s and then really gathering force in the late 1980s with some critical changes in federal law, has put tribes now in the driver's seat. So they're deciding what the speed limit is through the town center, what's in the school lunch program, what the juvenile justice program looks like for teenagers, all of these things.

And while it's not a case of perfection-if anyone can find us the perfect government anywhere in the world, please let the Kennedy School of Government know-it has been an era really of tremendous progress. There's still widespread poverty, but the little-known fact that people don't understand is that Indian nations in the United States, the incomes of Indian citizens on reservations have been growing about three and a half times faster than for the average American for the last 30 years. And poverty rates have been cut in half over the last 30 years.

Ralph Ranalli: Wow.

Joe Kalt: There's still poverty out there. And it's not all casinos. We have tribes who are running big manufacturing, all kinds of entities. So this shift in policy has turned out to be the only policy that has ever worked, because those old policies were basically some other government making the decisions for your community.

Ralph Ranalli: I think there's a lot of scholarship on the importance generally of self-governance and self-determination. Megan, I know you are a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. Is there anything in particular that makes self-governance and self-determination even more important in the context where you have essentially nations living within another nation, which you do with the Indigenous peoples in the Americas?

Megan Minoka Hill: Yeah, I mean, I think it's just what Joe said. It's being able to set your own priorities based on your own challenges and serving your people. And when tribal nations are able to do that, you actually see this really incredible regional rising tide so that when tribal nations do well, everyone does well. And so particularly in rural America, they tend to be the economic engines of the regions.

Ralph Ranalli: So the project used to have a different name. It used to be the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. Joe, there's a lot to unpack there in terms of the semantic difference between those two names. What's the reasoning and the significance behind the name change?

Joe Kalt: Yeah. The name change is more than words. You're right. There is significance behind it. The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development launched in 1986, '87. We started out a couple of nerdy professors. What was happening was in this era of self-determination amidst just uniform, widespread poverty, there was starting to be a couple of cases in Indian country of tribes who-Megan used the word 'rise'-who were rising economically all of a sudden. And so we started out trying to look at that economic rise that was starting to take place in a very limited way in the original time period.

Over time-and here comes this word 'governance' in our new title, the Harvard Kennedy School Project on Indigenous Governance and Development-over time, looking at those economic challenges that tribes were facing and looking at the tribes that were starting to show some sustained economic development, it turned out that if you asked why, it wasn't really about economics, it was about government. That when the tribal government in this era of self-determination had its act together, things were getting done better. The priorities, as Megan just said, the priorities were being called, the changes were being made. And so the focus on governance has been really from its early earliest days, the primary focus of the Harvard Project because economic development turns out to not to be an economic problem. It turns out to be a governance problem. Pause. That's true all around the world. If you look around the world, human beings can be real productive when we have a system that gives us an incentive and a reason to be productive. And we can really be really destructive when the opposite is the case.

So that's the focus on the word 'governance' in the new naming of the project. The second thing, the other word, 'Indigenous governance and development', we're still, of course, focused very much on development, but the word 'Indigenous' has to do with in this context where we work in Indigenous affairs, native affairs, the word 'Indigenous', signals that we're not solely focused on the United States. Each nation has its own terminology and candidates, typically First Nations and United States, American Indians. But the word 'Indigenous' is an encompassing term that signals we do work a great deal, particularly in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, a fair amount in other parts of the world. So the Indigenous portion reflects the fact that we're not solely focused on American Indians.

Megan Minoka Hill: Well, and I just might add to that in the sense that these lessons transcend borders, and in the context of Honoring Nations, it's a national award program focused on tribal governance. We've been replicated in different Indigenous contexts around the world. And so Honoring Nations has been replicated in Aboriginal Australia and most recently in Canada to celebrate the success of Inuit, Metis and First Nations.

Ralph Ranalli: So Megan, in turning to Honoring Nations for a second, can you give me some examples of advances that you've honored that are significant and of ones that can be replicated elsewhere. What specific strategies have worked for Indigenous nations?

Megan Minoka Hill: Yeah, there's so many. As I think I said, there are 142 different honorees, and they're all incredible in their own rights. We have a program from a natural resource management, the Yukon River Intertribal Watershed Commission, which ensures the health of the Yukon River through Canada and the United States. That program has been replicated all around the world, including along the Amazon, to ensure the health of riparian systems using Indigenous knowledge systems and ways to not only maintain the health of these ecosystems, but also using traditional means to monitor the region. And so you see that in terms of natural resource management.

We have examples from eldercare. The Tohono Oʼodham Nation in southern Arizona has created a state-of-the-art eldercare facility called the Archie Hendricks Skilled Nursing Facility. They've imbued all aspects of the state-of-the-art care with their own cultural knowledge and values of, they call it, 'Himdag'. And so you see across the board these programs and these tribal nations solving universal problems that really can be replicated anywhere throughout the United States or around the world.

Joe Kalt: I can give you one more too, really quickly, Ralph. I'm thinking of the Muscogee Creek Prisoner Reintegration Program. Muscogee Creek Nation in Oklahoma, like Indian Nation, has some felons in jail. They set up a program that allows for successful transition coming out of prisons back into the community. The community said, "We're not giving up on these people," and it's fabulously successful. I think the two indicators of that are the rates of recidivism, repeat criminals within this program have been cut dramatically below the state of Oklahoma's. And then the replication part, the state of Oklahoma has the tribe to come in and help them set up the next program for non-Indian prisoners in the state of Oklahoma. And so, as Megan has stressed, these are lessons not just for tribal governments, Indigenous governments, they're lessons for everybody. How to run a good prison program. We're all human beings. We have these problems, but these tribes are attacking these problems in very, very innovative and successful ways.

Ralph Ranalli: Right. That's interesting that there are lessons not just for other Indigenous tribes, but also ones that are applicable more universally to other situations. You know, I'm wondering whether-because of their unique and strong cultural and national identity-whether tribal nations are a unique kind of governance laboratory set up, where you can test things out and bring different perspectives to ideas on governance that you're not going to find anywhere else?

Joe Kalt: I think there's a little bit of that and a little bit that's not, then I'll say what I mean. We have had an experiment, if you will, being run in the United States since the mid 1970s where tribes operated under a fairly uniform set of federal laws as I described earlier. And then the gun goes off and they're told start of a new race, you can... Ready, set, go. You can now start building your own governments, your own natural resources programs or juvenile justice, whatever it might be. And in that sense, you have 574 American Indian nations who are running experiments in self-government.

What makes it not a perfect laboratory is an important lesson for all of us, which is there are hundreds of unique tribal cultures. And one of the key things that Indian country is demonstrating is we all face very similar problems. We're trying to run ourselves. We want roofs over our heads and the kids to get fed and kids to stay away from drugs and all these problems that we try to deal with as communities. But what you need is culturally legitimate answers, both in the structure of your governmental programs and in the actual activities of those programs. And so, Megan used a good word earlier about one tribe adapting, not copying, but adapting what another tribe might have done or the state of Oklahoma not copying what Muscogee Creek Nation did, but adapting it to fit the Oklahoma dominant society culture. So the key lesson for all of us in this experiment is you've got to find your own answers. It's one of the reasons self-government works. Culture's a complicated thing. Just look at the United States, we fight over it constantly, but the people who are going to have the best chance to find out what's legitimate are probably those people themselves. And so in that sense, it's a fabulous set of lessons, not just for tribal nations, Indigenous communities, but everybody.

Ralph Ranalli: So if you head north on Interstate 95 from where we are in Harvard Square recording this podcast, you eventually get to Maine, where you've apparently learned some other lessons about Indigenous self-governance. You did a recent study on the situation with the Wabanaki tribes in Maine-the Maliseet, the Micmac, the Passamaquoddy and the Penobscot-who are starkly underperforming relative to other tribes in other states. And you were able to tie that to a unique governance situation in Maine. Can you talk a little bit about the unique situation in Maine and how it illustrates some of the points you've made about the importance of self-governance?

Joe Kalt: Yeah. Very, very important case and your question's right on target. It goes back to your previous question. This has been a laboratory, in this case, a very unsavory experiment that has been run in the state of Maine. Unlike the other 570 tribes outside of the state of Maine, the Maine Indian Land Claim Settlement Act of 1980 restricted the ability of federal policy to apply this federal policy of self-determination through self-governance, restricted the ability of that in its application domain, and gave the state of Maine government essentially veto power over the federal policies. And the cons... I won't go into all the facts around that, but basically the consequence of that is all this very encouraging, uplifting, lesson-generating progress that we've seen across the rest of Indian America has been blocked in the state of Maine.

And from a pure research perspective, it drives home this point about how critical these policies at the federal level of several tribal self-determination had been. Because when you looked at the data, and we had never particularly focused on Maine, but it was one of those things where you pull back the covers and you say, "Well, these tribes haven't been self-governing. If we're right about self-governance being so critical, they shouldn't be doing very well." And sure enough, these four tribes are really in trouble, if you will, economically with very high rates of poverty, very low levels of income and very low levels of the institutional development that, Megan used the phrase earlier, much of rural America tribes are becoming the economic engines and also the social programming engines of their regions. Not in Maine. And so we think it's almost like one of these litmus tests where if you're right, that self-determination and self-governance is so critical to the progress we're seeing elsewhere, we're not seeing it in Maine. It's telling you something pretty profound about the impact of those policies and about, as I say, a pretty nasty experiment that the poor citizens of the Maine tribes have had to endure.

Ralph Ranalli: So I was reading a bit about the political situation surrounding this situation, and you could almost palpably feel the tension between the tribes and the rest of the state. One of the tribal leaders said, "The Settlement Act has locked us into a paternalistic relationship with the state of Maine"-and yet there are still people in the Maine state government who were leery of changing anything because I guess change is frightening, right?

Joe Kalt: Yeah.

Ralph Ranalli: Generally speaking, what has been the neighbor-to-neighbor reaction of people who are not Indigenous, but who live in proximity to these tribal nations that are lifting themselves up and starting to succeed economically? America certainly has a history of jealousy and enmity when one group rises and the other group perceives that something is being taken away from them or that they're not doing quite as well.

Joe Kalt: Let me say a word about what's going on inside of Maine. And Megan, you can pick up on what we see; many of the Honoring Nations honorees are around intergovernmental relations with state governments and so forth. Inside the state of Maine, what you see... It's almost a rule of nature, no government ever likes to give up authority. And as you suggest, a change is scary and all of that. So it's a fairly common pattern that we've seen as tribes get their legs underneath them and start running fast and start keeping pace with, in terms of their performance and housing and natural resource management and all kinds of things. It can be threatening too, particularly in the state of Maine where they haven't had experience with it. And you do end up with a very paternalistic relationship where it feels like, I'm going back in history 40 years. Where it's, "Oh, we, the good state of Maine, will invite in some tribal leaders to talk," or something. We're not talking about that in the rest of the United States. It's government to government. And Megan, you ought say a word about what you see is the patterns in intergovernmental relations outside the state of Maine.

Megan Minoka Hill: Yeah, it's really interesting. I think what you're seeing more and more is again, this rising tide. When tribal nations do well, everyone does all. And part of that is because tribal nations are oftentimes providing services to everyone, not just they're Indigenous native citizens, but all citizens, from healthcare to policing. You're seeing cross jurisdictional policing in a lot of areas, and I think Joe said it earlier, everybody wants a safer community. It doesn't stop at a reservation border, everybody wants one. And so when you see tribal nations and these non-native jurisdictions working together, it's for everyone. And so you'll see because of that, some of those racial tensions that you mentioned are not as important or active.

Joe Kalt: I think there's a piece of it too, related to the economic development, where tribes have been demanding their rights, restoration of their inherent rights to govern themselves. In the early stages of that, there was a lot of hostility and a lot of outright racism.

But as tribes have gotten the economic wherewithal to build a better highway department, a better fire department, a better court system, and so forth, now when they show up at the table, they can show up as equals.

And it turns out, that reduces the tension and the fighting because parties can now talk about, "Oh yeah, let's share our police resources, let's share our water and sewer system," these kinds of things. Whereas it used to be tribes having to demand, demand, demand. And of course, that's going to lead to tension. And so I don't want to be too Pollyanna, there's still a lot of tension that happens in lawsuits and everything else, but down on the ground more and more, it's actually the local governments, both tribal and non-tribal, who say to the higher level politicians, "Calm down, we've got this. We can solve these problems." And so, I think it's been that equalization on the tribal side of the table at economic wherewithal, armed with better computers and better employees and more information. And that's led, I think, overall to much healthier relationships that improve both Indian and non-Indian communities.

Ralph Ranalli: Yeah. If you don't mind, I'd like to get personal for a second. I'd would love for you to both talk a little bit about how you first got interested and involved with this particular work. I can tell from both of you that it's very heartfelt. Megan, do you mind if we start with you?

Megan Minoka Hill: Sure!

Ralph Ranalli: How did you get involved in this work: advocacy and research?

Megan Minoka Hill: Yeah. Well, I think of myself as coming from a long line of Indigenous nation builders. My great-grandmother was a doctor. She was Mohawk and she graduated medical school in 1899 and went to the Oneida Nation in Wisconsin and provided health services to the community for decades, creating wellness and again, healthcare. My grandfather was chairman and vice chairman for most of his career of the Oneida Nation and was a leader both for the tribe but also on a national level. My dad was a leader in native education. And so for me, in a way, there is no choice. This is critical work. And what I love about what we now call the Project on Indigenous Governance and Development is the core questions that we look at, what's going right, is central to the health and wellbeing of our tribal nations and where we're going in the future. And so it really is a case of the alignment for what I want to do in my life work. And it's the best job because I get to focus on what's going right in a Indian country through the Honoring Nations program. And it's really powerful to be able to share those stories.

Ralph Ranalli: Now, Joe, I know your family background is not Indigenous. You're also an economist by training. Tell me how you got interested in this work and ended up really making it a focus and good chunk of your career.

Joe Kalt: Sure. Well, it's interesting. I often say I'm not Indigenous. I'm from the white Yuppie tribe. Trying to hang on to the 'Y' in Yuppie, because it means young and I'm not doing a very good job of hanging on to that.

But I got interested in this. I'm trained as an antitrust economist, mergers and acquisitions and regulation and so forth. And as many dominant society people in the United States, I came into this work knowing basically nothing. I was as green as could be. I grew up in two Tucson, Arizona where we have tribes around us, but in high school, you don't get exposed to it. It's part of a flaw in our education system, I think. But I got involved directly, simultaneously with the Crow Tribe of Montana, knocking on my door one day in the Belfer building at the Harvard Kennedy School, looking for someone to help them renegotiate an energy contract or a coal contract that they had struck 20 years earlier. And they were looking for help. And somehow they got ahold of my name because I had done some work in energy economics.

And as part of the attraction of this and the importance of it, I guess, I went out to the Crow Tribe of Montana. On paper, fairly wealthy in terms of natural resources, relatively high rates of education, but extreme poverty. We're going back now into the mid 1980s, and I had some mentors, tribal leaders there who took me under their wings and started to say things like, "Joe, hang out here. You might help us figure out some answers." And I got hooked on this challenge in economics of, where does the wealth and the health of a community or a nation come from? Adam Smith's famous 1776 book called The Wealth of Nations. Where does it come from? And so I got hooked on that.

And in a certain way, you can hear it in the work that we do, even from Megan, it's not solely about Indigenous people, it's about any people in this case, who have a history of oppression, being stripped of the property rights. So their personal human rights, now trying to in this point in world history, trying to reassert themselves. That's certainly gripping personally. But ultimately as a researcher, it comes back to can we find answers of what's working out there and then translate... Our job at the university is not to tell the tribes what to do. We're very aggressive about that. We don't tell the tribes what to do. We just produce information, spit it out there and say to tribal leaders, "Look, you guys know your communities, but what we've just learned over in this other community, you can take and adapt to yourself." And so that's the nature of the work and the reason we do the work. And the way I got into it.

Ralph Ranalli: Now I would be remiss if I didn't say that congratulations are in order. The program recently received $15 million in additional funding through gifts that's going to support a major expansion of this work. Can you tell me a little bit about where that expanded funding is going to go and what is it going to help you achieve, bringing things to that next level?

Joe Kalt: Yeah. The Harvard Project has long been a soft money operation. We've been sustained through the generosity of some donors and hopefully through the quality of the work that we've done. The new effort has been to endow the program, and in particular, where does the money go? Endow as the key piece of it, a new professorship at the Kennedy School of Government, called the Julie Johnson Kidd Professor of Indigenous Governance and Development. And what that allows you to do, and we've done research, these kinds of programs don't survive unless you have senior faculty for whom it is their career, the way it became a part of my career. And so the centerpiece is this new professorship.

But in addition to that, we have support now for student programming. The Kennedy School students, the MPP students all have to do policy analysis exercises. We've done basically almost 500 of those and some junior versions of it over one semester, instead of over a year, for and at the request of tribes. We will now endow that process so that Kennedy School students, both mid-career and MPP students, will have the wherewithal to continue to engage with Indigenous communities. And that holds whether you're an Indigenous student or you're not. And we have a huge number of our student projects are being done by non-Indigenous students or certainly not US-Indigenous students. So the student program is very important because it's a tremendous learning opportunity for the students. But it also is a service really to tribes because these students work on real world projects. They're not writing heavily footnoted papers for a professor. These are real world projects.

In addition to the professor and the student programming, we now have endowed a senior visiting tribal leader position, a fellow. The Kennedy School is famous, of course, for hosting world leaders, often after they've reached retirement from their official positions. Presidents of nations, prime ministers of nations. Well, we now will have a permanent endowed position in that will be filled by a leader from an Indigenous nation, so that when people walk around the Kennedy School and go to these student lunches and so forth, it won't just be the leader from some say, European country or an Asian country. There'll be someone from an Indigenous community also having a voice. And so these things allow us then to have a thick program that sustains this effort over time.

Ralph Ranalli: So we're about at the end of our time, but I wanted to ask, I guess as the last question: When you both are ready to retire from this work, and ...

Joe Kalt: I'm ready, I'm ready!

Ralph Ranalli: ... be done. Right, I guess some sooner than others. What's your hope for what can and will have been achieved? Megan, I want to start with you first because ...

Megan Minoka Hill: Yeah.

Ralph Ranalli: ... you've got a bit longer time horizon till retirement, I think, than Joe.

Megan Minoka Hill: Yeah. I don't know. I think what's really interesting about this moment in time because of these endowments that Joe just shared, it's really an important recognition of the importance of Indigenous voices and perspectives at the Kennedy School and at Harvard University where Indigenous voices are on the same platform as all world leaders. And so I think leaving that as both a goal, but a legacy is really critical.

Ralph Ranalli: Joe, I'll let you have the last word.

Joe Kalt: Yeah, I'd say two things. Externally, and Megan just touched on it, it's no small thing to have this pretty powerful institution called Harvard University put its flag out there and say, "We're going to treat Indigenous nations like we treat the other nations of the world." And that's important because it sends a signal about both the substance of what tribes or Indigenous communities are working on, but also the history of how Indigenous peoples have been treated throughout history. So it's an important external signal that isn't lost on the university. And then internally, what I hope to see is this theme, you can hear from us, it's so easy for educational institutions to think of Indigenous people, American Indians and so forth, only in the past tense. And that's an important thing, culture, history, all of that. It's very important. But these are vibrant going communities now that everybody can learn from, and they're not some little special thing off in the corner.

One of the most gratifying things I've ever had said to me was by an Indigenous student. She said, "Joe, for the first time, I'm not the special student anymore. These are just the problems of nations everywhere." And so in putting that into the university... And we will say with a compliment back to the university, we've had great support from the provost, from the dean of the Harvard Kennedy School and so forth, who get it now. That this isn't just some diversity, equity, inclusion effort. This is core educational stuff in communities that, as I say, that are vibrant, healthy, getting healthier as we speak. So anyway, that's what I hope to see the school and the university accomplish.

Ralph Ranalli: Well, thank you both very much. This has been a very enlightening and encouraging conversation, I have to say. And I really appreciate you being here.

Joe Kalt: Our pleasure.

Ralph Ranalli (Outro): Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode and the rest of our spring season. The PolicyCast team will be going on our summer planning hiatus and breakt , but we'll be back in September with more episodes and some exciting new features designed to bring our audience together and give you even more valuable information about the important policy topics we cover on this show. So have a great summer and from all of us here at the Kennedy School, please remember to speak bravely, and listen generously.

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The more Indigenous nations self govern, the more they succeed

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Professor Joe Kalt and director Megan Minoka Hill discuss how HKS is ramping up support for the Harvard program that helps tribal nations achieve economic success through increased self governance.

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Replanting Cultures: Community-Engaged Scholarship in Indian Country

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Replanting Cultures: Community-Engaged Scholarship in Indian Country

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Community-Engaged Scholarship in Indian Country

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Replanting Cultures provides a theoretical and practical guide to community-engaged scholarship with Indigenous communities in the United States and Canada. Chapters on the work of collaborative, respectful,…

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The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition

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Chief Benjamin Barnes of the Shawnee Tribe was elected to his position in 2019. Prior to that,
he served the Shawnee Tribe as Second Chief for seven years and was a leader in the tribal
gaming industry for 20 years. The roots of Chief Barnes' service go back to his volunteer efforts
to revive the Shawnee language. Upon taking office with only a few fluent Shawnee speakers
remaining, Barnes declared 2021-2030 the Decade of the Shawnee Language.

Barnes previously founded an interdisciplinary research group called the Ancestral Pottery
Traditions of the Shawnee Project, an initiative to reclaim traditional Shawnee ceramic practices.
He has worked closely with tribal scholars, artisans, archaeologists, and historians to learn more
about ancient ceramic technologies. From this knowledge, he and other tribal citizens have
worked toward reviving and recreating their ancestral arts.

Chief Barnes passionately advocates for truth, accountability, reconciliation, justice, education,
and human rights. His work, however, extends beyond service to his nation, bringing together
truths and traditions in framing and crafting tribal policy and law. Most recently, Barnes co-edited
the book Replanting Cultures: Community-Engaged Scholarship in Indian Country.

Being a member of his people's traditional religious community at White Oak, OK, has framed
Chief Barnes' efforts to find redress to the harm traditional communities suffered from Indian
boarding schools and reeducation centers. Looking through this lens has shaped Chief Barnes'
and the Shawnee Tribe's efforts to find legislative activism at local, state and national levels, as
well as a voice for Indigenous peoples at the United Nations.

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Chief Benjamin Barnes - The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition

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(Shawnee) Chief Benjamin Barnes of the Shawnee Tribe was elected to his position in 2019. Prior to that, he served the Shawnee Tribe as Second Chief for seven years and was a leader in the tribal gaming industry for 20 years. The roots of Chief Barnes' service go back to...

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OSDE Office of American Indian Education

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OSDE Office of American Indian Education

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Welcome

The Office of American Indian Education (OAIE) shall serve as an educational protocol office for statewide American Indian Education. The OAIE is designed to provide guidance and leadership to local educational agencies seeking partnership with any of the 39 Sovereign Tribal Nations.

Our Service to Public Schools

Services include technical assistance and quality professional development to bridge connections between the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE), Local Educational Agencies (LEAs), and Tribal Educational Agencies (TEAs). Our mission is to facilitate culturally appropriate partnerships that sustain lifelong educational benefits for tribal citizens to feel represented in the Oklahoma K-12 public education system.

List of Technical Services

Develop culturally appropriate and multi-disciplinary educational resources and information representing the diversity of tribal affiliations in Oklahoma.

Facilitate cross-agency tribal collaboration and consultation frameworks to strengthen local dialogue and restore broken systematic relationships.

Organize federal, tribal, state, and local educational partners to ensure inclusion and positive learning environments for 130,000+ American Indian students.

Services include technical assistance information and appropriate professional development, as well as, collaborative efforts to bridge the gap between the state, tribal nations, and schools. The office will provide educators with continued access to culturally appropriate resources/information and in-service that reflects teaching strategies and learning styles which ensure full inclusion of the Native American child in a positive learning environment and furthers the educational opportunities of the Native American students enrolled in Oklahoma's public schools.

Links to Native American Resources

Native American Scholarships

ED 506 Form

Facts and Figures

There are over 150,000 Native American students attending Oklahoma public schools.

For FY 2023-24, Oklahoma has 407 Title VI Indian Education programs in Oklahoma public schools.

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OSDE Office of American Indian Education 2500 N Lincoln Blvd, Suite 114 Oklahoma City, OK 73105 Jackie White American Indian Education Program Director jackie.white@sde.ok.gov (405) 522-5311 Randal Zotigh American Indian Education Liaison randal.zotigh@sde.ok.gov (405) 522-0241 Kida Upshaw American Indian Education Specialist kida.upshaw@sde.ok.gov (405) 522-8742 Jonny

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Waquin Preson- National Indian Education Association 

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Waquin Preson- National Indian Education Association 

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Direct Number: (202) 544-7290
E-Mail: DLynn@niea.org

Dezi Lynn is originally from Coppermine, Arizona and a member of the Diné Nation. Dezi started teaching Special Education in an elementary school in her hometown of Page, Arizona after graduating with her B.A. in Spanish/English Literature. This teaching position in a district serving a large population of Diné students motivated Dezi to obtain a Master of Education in Mild/Moderate Special Education focusing on Indigenous Epistemologies. After teaching in Arizona and Alaska, Dezi relocated to Utah and began teaching as an adjunct instructor at Utah Valley University in the English and History departments. She also obtained experience as a Project Manager with statewide educational technology implementations in Idaho and Utah. She is currently working on a doctoral degree at Fielding Graduate University focusing on reconciling the social injustices of the education system and empowering indigenous educators.

Dezi joins NIEA to support the Educator Initiative. In this role she will help lead our efforts to develop innovative strategies to recruit, train, and retain teachers to empower Native students. Dezi believes in the importance of having our epistemologies recognized and implemented for our children by the teachers that serve them. We also need those same epistemologies respected by the institutions that train and license these educators. Her work will encourage this in districts and institutions. She currently resides in Utah with her five children.

Direct Number: (202) 892 6935
E-Mail: NMills@niea.org

Nakina Mills is a proud tribal member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe from Pine Ridge, S.D. Her Lakota name is Tate' Cik'ala Win, which means Little Wind Woman. In her professional career, Nakina has worked in state/tribal child welfare, secondary/post-secondary education, as an elected official for the Oglala Sioux Tribe, and as a patient advocate. She has always been an advocate that supports adequate resources to strengthen the future leaders in our communities no matter the adversities or challenges they have faced, ensuring that the next generations are equipped with tools to face hardships from the past while looking to make an impactful change for the future. She completed her Bachelor's Degree from Creighton University and her Master's Degree in Lakota Leadership & Management from Oglala Lakota College.

Nakina will work closely with the Program and Legislative team to implement culturally and developmentally appropriate standards in partnership with tribes. She will support the activities leading to college, career, and community-ready students at the tribe, national, and federal levels. She will assist with planning tribal education standards as promising practices to support the unique needs of native students. Nakina will collaborate and partner to help with resources to expand tribal education capacities within tribal communities. She will create professional development supports and maintain effective relationships with all those supporting tribal education in native communities.

DR. Casie WISE, Ed.DSenior Program Director

As the Senior Program Director, Dr. Casie Wise brings 20 years of classroom, leadership, and consulting experience to NIEA. Casie specializes in culture-based curriculum and pedagogy, professional development for educators, best practices in assessment, and educational research. Including twelve years of teaching middle and high school ELA in the United States and abroad, Casie has also served as a K-12 school support director, instructional coach, core advocate for Tennessee, literacy advisor, and education consultant. In her role at NIEA, Casie oversees NIEA's programs including the Educator Initiative, Research & Evaluation, Tribal Education Capacity Building, and Culture & Language in our Schools. Casie's scope of work also includes developing curriculum and instructional resources, cultivating partnerships with other education organizations, and providing professional development.

Casie resides in her hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, with her husband, who is a retired Navy veteran, and her son and daughter. Casie has a BSE in Secondary English Education from John Brown University in Arkansas, an MA in Teaching English as a Second Language, and a doctorate in Curriculum and Instructional Leadership both from the University of Memphis.

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Meet the Staff - National Indian Education Association

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Direct Number: (202) 544-7290 E-Mail: DLynn@niea.org Dezi Lynn is originally from Coppermine, Arizona and a member of the Diné Nation. Dezi started teaching Special Education in an elementary school in her hometown of Page, Arizona after graduating with her B.A. in Spanish/English Literature.

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U.S. Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network

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U.S. Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network

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U.S. Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network

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U.S. Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network

The United States Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network (USIDSN) ensures that data for and about Indigenous Peoples in the US are utilized to advance Indigenous aspirations for collective and individual wellbeing. USIDSN's primary function is to provide research information, training opportunities, and policy advocacy to safeguard the rights and promote the interests of Indigenous Peoples in relation to their data.

Join us April 11-12, 2024 for our FIRST NATIONAL CONFERENCE

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U.S. Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network

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U.S. Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network The United States Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network (USIDSN) ensures that data for and about Indigenous Peoples in the US are utilized to advance Indigenous aspirations for collective and individual wellbeing. USIDSN's primary function is to provide research information, training opportunities, and policy advocacy to safeguard the rights and promote the interests of Indigenous Peoples in relation to their data.