Open Discussion with NACIE and Task Force Members. INAR/NACIE Joint Issues Sessions. National Indian Education Association (NIEA) Annual Conference (22nd, San Diego, California, October 16, 1990).

This report summarizes an open discussion between members of the Indian Nations At Risk Task Force and the National Advisory Council on Indian Education (NACIE) and conference attenders following 2 days of testimony about issues in Native American education. An administrator outlined the loss of educational opportunity for Native Americans during the 1980s due to decreased federal funding, disregard of treaty rights, and bureaucratic entanglements, and outlined recommendations for tribally controlled teacher education, alternative education programs, increased funding, substance abuse prevention, and bilingual education programs. An attorney urged the Task Force and the NACIE to draft federal policy supporting tribal government control of public schools on the reservation, and outlined educational ramifications of the Supreme Court's recent refusals to support tribal sovereignty in other areas. Other topics of discussion included the need for additional programs for handicapped and gifted students; the need for teacher training in American Indian culture, substance abuse prevention, and suicide prevention; Indian identity and tribal sovereignty as resources to use in negotiations with the federal government; encouraging political involvement of community members at the local level; poverty, welfare, lack of self-esteem, and the need to pursue self-sufficiency on the reservations. The responsibilities of the Task Force were described. (SV)