American Indian Education: Separation, Amalgamation, or What?

The essay is concerned with what happens to American Indian students after grade 12. What students do once they have completed grade 12 determines what kind of educational system is to be built. However, in the case of minorities, especially Native Americans, professionals have assumed that schools are socialization agencies, that they are terminal institutions, and that skills are secondary to socialization. A school system needs both ends and means, but schools for Indian children lack ends. The discussion of post high school institutions is not so much a criticism of existing or projected programs as a questioning of ends. It appears that decisions have been made about where Indian students are going mainly on the basis of means. Too often institutional functions replace goals or ends as the most important concern of policy makers. The essay emphasizes that means should be subordinated to ends, not the other way around. (FF)