In School Boards

School Board members across Indian Country need to change their hiring practices. They need to start hiring educational professionals who are leaders, not just managers. They need to change the superintendents and principals from staff who tell them what they want to hear to staff members who tell them what they need to hear. School board members who really care about children need to expect results from their staff. No results and no renewals. Period. It’s that simple. School Board members need to make policy and stay out of day-to-day operations.School board members need to look at how the administrators are selected in their school districts. Do you have to be a good company man to be a principal? There is no leadership here. Is the superintendent personally able to inspire the school board, the parents, the staff, and the community? If not, there is no leadership here. A school board should look beyond the superintendent and his/her qualifications to his/her ideas, enthusiasm, sense of mission, ability to motivate, and ability to inspire, nurture, and enthuse all the parties in the district. Ultimately, the final success or failure of our schools is in the hands of our school boards.

In Administrators

The next step towards achieving equal educational opportunity for Native American students is to require those administrators in direct student services to live and participate in the communities they serve. Accountability is the key to improving the educational system. Administrators who daily make critical decisions about the lives of students: the principals, directors of special service programs like special education and Title I, assistant superintendents for curriculum, and the superintendents must live in the local communities. It is only through daily interaction with The People that administrators can grow, can begin to understand the culture, can interact personally with those whose lives they impact. It is no longer acceptable for direct service administrators to live in Rapid City, Farmington, Cortez, Pagosa Springs, Tucson, or any of the numerous towns near the reservations. Equal educational opportunity and our commitment to it does not take place during an eight hour day, but it's something we must work for 24 hours per day, seven days per week. There is a much greater accountability if a parent can talk to administrators at the local stores, see them at community functions, and talk to them over the backyard fence. Administrators are more conscientious about the decisions they make when they live in the local community.Any administrator who makes a decision about a Native American child should live among The People, learn their values, study their culture, break bread with them, become part of their families and clans, have them as friends, and participate fully in their communities. Administrators should act as catalysts for economic and community development, fight injustice and racism, and provide leadership to the community. The Supreme Court has held that school boards have the right to establish residency requirements for their staff.

In Teachers

Teachers need to teach. They need to be supported by their principals. Teachers need to teach the way that each student learns. All over America, excellent teachers strive hard to deliver the best education they can. Teachers need to see dynamic leadership from their principals. They need to be nurtured, motivated, and inspired by the principal. They need to nurture, motivate, and inspire their students. Teachers need to make sure that students spend the full week on task, giving full instructional efforts to enhance student learning.Teachers need to recommit themselves daily to the great cause they have chosen. They need to be held accountable for student learning. Teachers are great, but they need leaders, not managers. Teachers should also assign homework in every subject, every night. Not enough to be a torment, but enough so that students have a chance to review what they learned that day. Homework should always be used to reinforce student learning. In some schools, some teachers show movies on Friday. You can walk down the halls and see movies playing in 50 percent of the rooms. If five days of lessons were done in four days, this might be acceptable. Otherwise, 20 percent of the school year is going down the tubes. There is no justification for this and you can count on low student achievement rates in these schools. This is a failure in leadership.

In Parents

All over Indian Country, parents need to play a pivotal role in school accountability. Parents need to read to their children every day. They need to buy them books, take them to libraries, and assist them in reading. Most of all, parents must turn off that true Marx’s “opium of the masses” - the television sets. It would be a major educational revolution if every family would take their TV to the dump and dumps were piled high with televisions. At the very least, TV should be watched on a very limited basis by our children.

In Students

Students need to be held accountable for their own learning. They need to see their job for the next 12 years or so as being students. They need to work hard at school, work hard at staying in good condition, work hard at shutting off the TV and spending time reading. Students need to make a genuine effort to learn. The school day really goes by much faster for students who pay attention and try to learn something. Students need to ask teachers questions and ask them to explain things in a way they understand. Each student needs to find out how he/she learns and demand that the teacher teaches them the way they learn.