Nanuqsaurus, the North’s new “pygmy” dinosaur, was announced to much hoopla this spring, when fragments from a 2006 excavation in Alaska were identified in a recent report as a separate, smaller Tyrannosaurus species. But not much smaller. Despite the fact that Nanuqsaurus was a) half the size of his regal relatives, and b) likely covered in a coat of downy feathers, the 70-million-year-old reptile was still six metres from head to toe, able to comfortably snack on even the largest modern polar bear.
But a more menacing—and much tinier—discovery comes from across the Bering Strait, where scientists have recently revived a virus long preserved in Siberian permafrost. It was harmless. But their results prove there are unknown viruses buried in the permafrost, and some might not be quite so benign. “Mining and drilling means bringing human settlements and digging through these ancient layers for the first time since millions of years [ago],” the researchers wrote in their report. “This is a good recipe for disaster.”
Despite the fact that every major Internet provider has added some kind encryption to its services over the past year, tracking your online traffic is easier than you think.
And you don’t have to be the target of the hacker or the NSA for your traffic to be intercepted. There is a hole in mobile security that could make tens of millions of Americans vulnerable.
Unsecure Wi-Fi networks have been a well-known vulnerability in the tech industry for years. They can let even the most unsophisticated hacker capture your traffic and possibly steal your identity.
Opening The Door To Hackers
Earlier this spring, when I conducted , Sean Gallagher, a reporter from the , came to my house and we connected a little device called a Pwn Plug — invented by Dave Porcello, — to my network.
Seeing just how much data streamed out of my phone the second I connected was a big surprise. My phone pinged Apple, Google and Yahoo. Then apps like Twitter and Facebook connected to the Internet. This all happened in just seconds of it simply sitting on my desk. I hadn’t touched the phone.
If Porcello had been a hacker, those few seconds could have been a gold mine.
“Anything you are logged into when you reconnect it basically relogs in, so there is an opportunity for an attacker to capture the cookie or maybe even the password,” he said.
And chances are good that your beloved smartphone is constantly — relentlessly — looking for networks to connect to.
“When you have wireless turned on,” says Oliver Weis, who works with Porcello at their company, Pwnie Express, “your phone or your laptop is sending out what are called probe requests out to the world — saying, ‘Hey, where is my network? Where is my network? Is this network around? Where is this network?’ “
There is this book I read to my kids by P.D. Eastman called Are You My Mother. It’s about this tiny baby bird that goes wandering around the world asking whatever it meets, “Are you my mother?” It asks a cow, then a dog and then a cat. Weis says there are evil Wi-Fi networks out there in the world programmed to act like a hungry cat that say, “Yes, I am your mother; yes, I am your network.”
If your phone believes the cat, Weis says, the cat can intercept all traffic going through your phone.
That open Wi-Fi connection opens the door for hackers. They can get in the middle of transactions between, say, you and your bank.
Now, if you set up your phone correctly and only sign on to Wi-Fi networks you know, you can make these attacks more difficult. But some of America’s biggest companies, like AT&T and Comcast, are aggressively rolling out nationwide open public Wi-Finetworks. These networks are insecure.
They aren’t the only companies doing this but they are the biggest. Comcast is turning its customers’ cable boxes into public Wi-Fihotspots, and it has a million hotspots across the country. AT&T offers open Wi-Ficonnections at most Starbucks.
“A big problem with AT&T phones is that they all have a preferred network on their list that is open, and that is AT&T Wi-Fi,” Weis says.
There is no password, “so when your AT&T phone is near an AT&T Wi-Fi network, it will automatically connect,” he says.
You could turn off your Wi-Fi connections or shut off AT&T’s auto-connect setting. But if you don’t, your phone will connect to legitimate AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots — or hotspots called AT&T Wi-Fi set up by hackers.
The same is true for any open public Wi-Fi network. Spoofing them is as easy as changing the name on a Wi-Fi router. And Weis says if folks are just walking by one of the evil hot spots and their phone connects to it, they may never know.
“There is all this stuff going on behind the scenes — literally invisible packets in the air coming out of their pocket, saying things about who they are and where they have been and what they do,” Weis says.
Protecting Yourself
In the past year, the number of people using Xfinity Wi-Fi has almost tripled. Comcast told me that the number of out-of-home Wi-Fi sessions shot up 750 percent.
Don Bailey, a security expert at Lab Mouse, says these public Wi-Fi connections don’t have to be insecure.
“There should be a way to identify whether or not you have attached to a public Wi-Fi,” Bailey says.
That should happen automatically, he says, so when you connect to a network like this, all your traffic should be encrypted without you having to do anything. In fact, both Comcast and AT&T already offer consumers apps that will do this — but you have to buy them, install them and opt in. So most people don’t.
I asked both companies if these open Wi-Fi networks were opening up millions of their customers to potential attacks.
AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said the company takes “extraordinary measures” to keep its customers safe. Comcast said it was planning to roll out a more secure Wi-Fi network sometime in the future, but it didn’t say when.
Comcast pointed out that for a more secure system to work, it will need the cooperation of every company that makes a device that connects with the network. That takes time.
WASHINGTON — Chelsea Barnes, 20, is a Native American working on Capitol Hill this summer for a government that doesn’t recognize her heritage.
Barnes’ boss, Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., was among those who voted against her tribe’s federal recognition. Ten years after the bill failed, Cole, a member of the federally recognized Chickasaw Nation, came face-to-face with his decision.
A member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, Barnes began her summer job in Cole’s office on June 3 as part of the 2014 Native American Congressional Internship. Run by the Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation, the 10-week program is designed to teach indigenous students about the federal government.
“I just see it as an opportunity to represent my tribe in the office,” said Barnes, a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “Sometimes you don’t have to say anything. Just being there helps.”
Cole is one of seven members of Congress with interns from Barnes’ program this summer.
Chelsea Barnes, 20, a member of the Lumbee Tribe and a senior at the University of North Carolina, studies Political Science and Communications and is interning with Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma. Cole is a member of the Chickasaw Tribe. ANDRE CHUNG — MCT
Two out of the 12 students in this program are from a tribe seeking federal recognition. Both are Lumbee. Joined by Anthony “AC” Locklear, a first-year student at UNC School of Law, Barnes’ arrival on Capitol Hill falls weeks after the Interior Department’s Bureau of Indian Affairs proposed a revision to the 35-year-old federal recognition process for tribes. It’s intended to make the process more transparent and efficient.
If the Lumbee Tribe were to receive federal recognition through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Cole said, his opinion could be different. That’s “the best way to go,” he said. “If they went through that process and signed off on (federal recognition) I wouldn’t have a problem with it.”
Locklear, who is interning with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, said the revised system could be a step toward this status for his tribe, which has petitioned for federal recognition since 1987. The prospect instills in him a newfound sense of hope, he said.
“I feel like it’s good timing that Chelsea and I are here in D.C., ‘infiltrating the system,’” Locklear said with a chuckle.
Although both Locklear and Barnes said they do not plan to fight for federal recognition this summer, “just being a face helps a great deal,” he said.
Cole’s resistance to granting the Lumbee Tribe federal recognition through Congress is not unique. When legislation for the tribe’s federal recognition came before Congress in 1989, the measure failed to pass both chambers. Yet Cole’s opportunity to meet with a member of the tribe is distinct, Locklear said.
“A lot of (lawmakers) have never met Lumbees and if they have, it’s only in the political arena,” Locklear said. “Being able to put such an innocent face, in Chelsea, behind our tribe will hopefully help them not be so opposed when they see Lumbee students who are really doing work for the other tribes as well.”
Such interactions between indigenous students and politicians elucidate the purpose of the internship, said Jane Curlin, director of Education Programs for the Udall Foundation.
She said an intern from the program could be “the first American Indian” someone in Washington has ever met. “Raising the visibility of how wonderful these native students are _ how accomplished they are and how much they have to offer _ I think is really important in Washington, D.C.,” Curlin said.
Over the course the program, all 12 interns _ each of whom works in separate offices across the three branches of government _ will periodically come
Anthony Locklear, 22, a member of the Lumbee Tribe, is a 2nd year law student at the University of North Carolina and is interning this summer at the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Interior Indian Affairs. ANDRE CHUNG — MCT
together to meet with senators and tribal leaders. Cole, who took an intern from this program for the first time this year, said he hopes the experience will enrich the diversity on Capitol Hill.
“I think too many other tribes have not taken the opportunity to directly impact the federal government,” he said. “They need to be actively engaged. Hopefully a lot of them will think about running for office themselves. I’d like other tribes to have that kind of opportunity to understand they can, indeed, shape the process.”
The interns’ first so-called “enrichment program” was a June 4 meeting with Sens. Mark and Tom Udall, of Colorado and New Mexico, respectively. Both are sons of the namesakes of the Udall Foundation, a congressionally established group that promotes programs for the environment and about Native Americans.
Morris Udall, Mark Udall’s father, and Stewart Udall, Tom Udall’s father, were ardent environmentalists who both served in the U.S. House of Representatives. Stewart Udall also served as secretary of the interior under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Their sons have been proponents of various Native American communities while in Congress.
“It’s nice to see that we’re carrying on that legacy as well as they are,” Locklear said.
FILE – This undated file photo provided by the Cass County (N.D.) Jail shows Valentino Bagola who was convicted in September 2013 in the brutal killings of two children on the Spirit Lake Indian Reservation in May 2011. A U.S. House subcommittee has scheduled a hearing on June 24, 2014, on child protection and the justice system on the Spirit Lake Indian Reservation. Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer requested the hearing saying he wants to assess whether congressional action is warranted to address problems with child abuse and deaths that have plagued the reservation. Jail, File) Photo: Courtesy Of The Cass County (N.D., AP
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A U.S. House subcommittee has scheduled a hearing for later this month on child protection and the justice system on the Spirit Lake Indian Reservation in northeastern North Dakota.
U.S. Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., requested the hearing, saying he wants to assess whether congressional action is needed to address problems with child abuse and deaths that have plagued the reservation in recent years.
“The recurring deaths and child abuse cases on Spirit Lake are unacceptable,” he said. “Clearly the current system is failing our children.”
The Spirit Lake tribe has been overhauling its child protection system, which came under fire in 2012. The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs stepped in late that year to bolster and oversee the system. The agency late last year assigned seven agents to the reservation.
Federal prosecutors last year successfully tried two cases involving child deaths on the reservation. Valentino “Tino” Bagola was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted in September of killing his 9-year-old niece and her 6-year-old brother, who were stabbed a combined 100 times. In November, Hope Louise Tomahawk Whiteshield was sentenced to 30 years in prison for the death of her nearly 3-year-old step-granddaughter, who died after being thrown down an embankment.
Tribal members about a year ago also ousted Chairman Roger Yankton Sr. in a recall vote, saying his administration was corrupt and ineffective and had allowed a culture of child abuse and child sexual abuse to worsen on the reservation. Yankton denied the allegations.
The hearing of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Indian and Alaska Native Affairs is set for June 24 in the Longworth House Office Building in Washington, D.C.
Air Force Master Sgt. Shenandoah Ellis-Ulmer, second from left, poses with other members of the Native American Women Warriors, an all-female color guard that support Native female veterans. (Photo courtesy Shenandoah Ellis-Ulmer)
Even with a family military background dating back to World War I, Shenandoah Ellis-Ulmer never considered while growing up that serving in the military might be the right choice for her, too.
But that changed in her sophomore year in college after she was placed on academic probation at the University of Minnesota — what she now says was a much-needed wakeup call to spur her to seek more purpose and direction.
Still unclear, though, was exactly what purpose she should pursue and what direction she should take.
Then she recalled overhearing two classmates in the National Guard talk about the opportunities that had opened up to them after enlisting.
And for Ellis-Ulmer, there was that purpose and direction.
Nearly 20 years later, Air Force Master Sgt. Shenandoah Ellis-Ulmer, now 40, is an intelligence analyst at Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane, Washington.
She’s also a member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation in South Dakota, the first woman in her family to serve in the military and just one of thousands of Native Americans who are serving or have served their country in uniform.
Ellis-Ulmer, who has served in South Korea and the Middle East in addition to her various stateside assignments, said serving in the Air Force “has given my children, my husband and myself a different outlook on the world.”
“I want to give my children a different perspective on life because life is not what the reservation is,” she said. “Life is what you make of it.”
A tradition of service
Army Lt. Col Tracey Clyde, a Navajo from Shiprock, New Mexico, during a deployment to Joint Base Balad in Iraq. (Photo courtesy Tracey Clyde)
The Defense Department reports a total of 27,186 American Indian and Alaska Native active-duty officers and reserves, and the Veterans Affairs Department reports more than 156,000 Native American veterans. They have served in every war in American history, and 25 have have received the nation’s highest award for valor, the Medal of Honor.
At least 70 Native American and Alaska Natives have died during combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 513 others were wounded in those combat zones.
Native Americans traditionally have had a strong military presence because they have a strong sense of patriotism, said Clara Platte, executive director of the Navajo Nation Washington office.
“There’s a deep tie to the land and our people and our culture, and being able to serve in the military is a way to honor that heritage,” Platte said.
But that doesn’t mean the cultural transition from “Indian Country” to military base is always easy.
Army Lt. Col. Tracey Clyde, 47, a member of the Navajo tribe, spent most of his childhood with his grandparents herding sheep near the Sweetwater Chapter on the Navajo Nation reservation in New Mexico.
In high school, Clyde decided to set his sights on attending the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.
But once there, he soon realized that adapting to the social norms might be a challenge — even in simple things like the slang cadets might use to greet each other.
“One of the things that I had to keep from getting mad at was when they talk to each other and sometimes say, ‘Hey chief,’ ” Clyde said. “That’s one thing I got mad at my roommate for, but then I noticed other cadets my age were saying the same thing to each other.”
Clyde quickly figured out the greeting wasn’t meant to be derogatory and found his footing as an Army officer. Then while he was stationed in Seoul, South Korea, his Native American culture found him again.
A fellow officer who was also Navajo told him that her baby had just laughed for the first time. Navajos traditionally celebrate a baby’s first laugh, so Clyde and other Native Americans on their base held a ceremony, asking for the baby to be blessed by generosity and kindness.
“All Native Americans — whether they were Navajo or not — met in her apartment and we had our ‘first laugh’ party,” said Clyde, now assigned to the Army Human Resources Command at Fort Knox, Kentucky. “Even though we were far away from our homelands, we still took the opportunity to continue our culture regardless of where we were stationed.”
Throughout his 25 years in uniform, Clyde has taken every opportunity to help other Native Americans adjust to life in the military, so “they’re not so culturally shocked with all the stuff they’re thrown into.”
An honorable life
Ellis-Ulmer, who has deployed 15 times to the Middle East, said that for her, and for most Native Americans, serving in the military is considered an honorable life.
A survivor of childhood sex abuse and domestic violence as an adult, Ellis-Ulmer does her part to help other Native American women who have lived that life.
As a member of the Native American Women Warriors, an all-women color guard that supports Native American female veterans dealing with homelessness, sexual assault trauma and the transition back to civilian life, Ellis-Ulmer regularly speaks at powwows and community events to raise awareness of veteran issues.
“I don’t think I’ve come across one Native woman who has said that they were not abused, whether it was by their husbands, their partners or their family members,” Ellis-Ulmer said. “Dealing with all these violent acts against Native women is my motivation because I don’t want this mentality of abuse to perpetuate.”
As a way to show her appreciation for what the Air Force has done for her, Ellis-Ulmer speaks about military life as part of the We Are All Recruiters program, which allows active-duty members to recruit for the Air Force in their own communities.
Recently the Santee Sioux tribe honored her for her military service with a golden eagle tail feather.
“They told me to wear it turned down,” she explained, “Because now I’m a warrior to them.”
HELENA – Indian plaintiffs who sued in federal court to force the Montana secretary of state and three rural counties to open satellite voting offices on remote reservations have settled the lawsuit out of court.
Under the agreement, the three counties agree to open satellite voting locations on three reservations and pay plaintiffs’ attorney fees in the amount of $75,000. In a separate agreement, the state agrees to pay an additional $25,000 in attorney fees, according to Secretary of State Linda McCulloch.
“I pledged to help assist the tribes and the counties to make this all work,” McCulloch said.
Both sides hailed the agreement as a win.
Northern Cheyenne tribal member Mark Wandering Medicine, along with 11 other Indian plaintiffs, in February 2013 sued McCulloch and county elections officials in Blaine, Rosebud and Big Horn counties, alleging the defendants violated portions of the federal Voting Rights Act, which “prohibit voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color or membership in one of the language minority groups.”
The plaintiffs argued their rights to equal access to voting were violated when McCulloch and county elections officials refused to set up satellite voting offices on remote Indian reservations in advance of the November 2012 presidential election.
The U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, the ACLU of Montana and the national ACLU Voting Rights Project filed court documents supporting the plaintiffs’ claims that tribal members living on the Crow, Northern Cheyenne and Fort Belknap Reservations are at a voting disadvantage compared to white voters in Rosebud, Blaine and Big Horn counties.
The plaintiffs argued that the only late-registration and early voting options available to them between the close of regular voting registration and Election Day is at county courthouses in the white population centers. In some cases those courthouses are more than 100 miles round-trip from where most tribal members live, making it difficult for many impoverished Indians to register late and vote after the regular registration deadline.
The case was set to go to trial June 30.
In a settlement agreement reached Tuesday, the counties agreed to open satellite county election offices beginning Oct. 7. Those offices will be open on the reservations two days a week for tribal members to register late and cast absentee ballots in person.
During those days the voting offices will not be open at their normal locations in the county seats.
Alex Rate, attorney for the Wandering Medicine plaintiffs, said the settlement agreement is a bit step toward the goal of achieving voting equality on the reservations.
“Given the history of discrimination against Montana’s first peoples, we believe that everyone should have equal access to the ballot box, and this agreement is a giant step towards reaching that goal,” Rate said. “Further, this agreement validates the central pillar of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act: that Indian voters must have an equal opportunity to participate in the political process.”
Bret Healy, a South Dakota-based Indian voting rights consultant with Four Directions, called the settlement a big victory for Indian voting rights but said the underlying technical issues that are preventing the state and counties from opening full-fledged satellite voting offices still need to be addressed.
“The final solution that we think is the appropriate one is to wrestle the technology obstacle to the ground so a satellite office is open five days a week as well as the county voting office,” Healy said.
The defendants argued that the plaintiffs’ demands for satellite voting offices were not allowed under Montana law, which requires each absentee ballot to be issued in sequential order using paper ballots that are prenumbered. The ballot number an absentee voter receives is determined by a complex, statewide computerized system that is not programmed to issue ballots from more than one location, the defendants said. Due to Montana law, as well as technical impossibilities with the statewide computer system, satellite offices were not an option, they argued.
“Because what the plaintiffs sued for was not something they could obtain, Blaine, Big Horn and Rosebud counties offered the plaintiffs an alternative,” said Sara Frankenstein, the attorney representing the counties in the litigation. “The three counties have offered to move their election offices for two days a week from its normal location in the county courthouse to a tribal facility on Indian reservations during the 30-day early voting period. The three counties are looking forward to working with their respective tribes on that issue, and are happy to address plaintiffs’ concerns with an alternative method that is actually legal and possible, and at the same time will cost the county very little to provide.”
Healy said the Secretary of State’s Office needs to work to address the technology hurdles in order to give tribal members on the reservations full equal voting opportunities.
“The bottom line is Native American voters on these reservations are going to go from zero days of equality and late registration and absentee balloting opportunities to at least a strong step forward,” Healy said.
McCulloch said counties will not be able to have two voting offices open simultaneously under current state law.
“The law would have to be changed and the Montana Votes system would have to be changed,” McCulloch said.
Healy said with this “inelegant fix” in place, Four Directions will work with other tribes across the state to request similar arrangements in their counties while at the same time continue to advocate for full satellite voting offices on the reservations.
“It simply defies belief that in this day and age we can’t have main voting office and satellite offices open and running five days a week,” Healy said. “The only reason that hasn’t happened is because nobody has rolled up their sleeves and tried to fix this.”
Walsh to hold hearing on the challenges to voting
Montana Sen. John Walsh on June 25 will chair a Senate Rules Committee hearing examining the hurdles voters in rural areas face due to long distances to polls, lack of easy access to mail voting and the lack of infrastructure. The committee will also hear about ways states have tried to make voting easier for people.
Walsh’s office said he organized the hearing in response to the concerns he heard from people across Montana, particularly in Indian Country.
The hearing title is “Election Administration: Examining How Early and Absentee Voting Can Benefit Citizens and Administrators.”
Witnesses at the hearing include:
• Rhonda Whiting, board chair for Western Native Voice, a Montana nonprofit that seeks to increase Native American voting and voting access, headquartered in Billings.
• Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown.
• Larry Lomax, of Nevada, a former member of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration.
President Barack Obama made his first presidential visit to Indian Country on Friday – and some residents of the Sioux reservation used the opportunity to voice their opposition to a proposed pipeline that would carry tar sands oil through their land.
The president and first lady arrived by helicopter at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, which straddles the border between North Dakota and South Dakota. Native Americans, some dressed in full feathered headdresses and multicolored, beaded outfits, greeted the couple.
“We can follow the lead of Standing Rock’s most famous resident, Chief Sitting Bull. He said, ‘Let’s put our minds together to see what we can build for our children,” Obama said. Sitting Bull was a Sioux chief who defeated Gen. George Custer at the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn.
The Obamas also spoke privately with tribal youth about their challenges growing up on the 2.3 million-acre reservation, home to nearly 1,000 residents who struggle with a lack of housing, health care, education and economic opportunity.
Some Sioux leaders used the visit to tell Obama that the proposed Keystone XL pipeline — which would run through their land — would be a treaty violation.
Bryan Brewer, president of the Ogalala Sioux Tribe, said in a statement that the Keystone pipeline was “a death warrant for our people,” and that it would violate treaty rights. Critics of the pipeline warn of possible oil spills, environmental impact from the line’s construction, and Keystone’s overall effect on raising carbo
May 22, 2014 | By Pamela Nisevich Bede, M.S., R.D.
Sure, your backyard barbeque is meant to be a party, but that’s no excuse to offer foods that will ensure you’ll avoid stepping onto the beach — and the scale. In fact, every BBQ has room for a few entrees and sides that keep your health-conscious guests happy, and your body looking and feeling good. Try the following tips and you are sure to wow your guests and keep them asking for more — without them ever knowing they were “indulging” in healthier options.
An effort by the Obama administration to overhaul the troubled federal agency that is responsible for the education of tens of thousands of American Indian children is getting major pushback from some tribal leaders and educators, who see the plan as an infringement on their sovereignty and a one-size-fits-all approach that will fail to improve student achievement in Indian Country.
As Barack Obama makes his first visit to Indian Country as president this week, the federal Bureau of Indian Education—which directly operates 57 schools for Native Americans and oversees 126 others run by tribes under contract with the agency—is moving ahead with plans to remake itself into an entity akin to a state department of education that would focus on improving services for tribally operated schools.
A revamped BIE, as envisioned in the proposal, would eventually give up direct operations of schools and push for a menu of education reforms that is strikingly similar to some championed in initiatives such as Race to the Top, including competitive-grant funding to entice tribal schools to adopt teacher-evaluation systems that are linked to student performance.
The proposed reorganization of the BIE comes after years of scathing reports from watchdog groups, including the U.S. Government Accountability Office, and chronic complaints from tribal educators about the agency’s financial and academic mismanagement and failure to advocate more effectively for the needs of schools that serve Native American students. It also comes a year after U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell called the federally funded Indian education system “an embarrassment.” The BIE is overseen by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is housed within the U.S. Interior Department.
Pushback From Tribes
The proposal, released in April, was drafted by a seven-person “study group” appointed jointly by Ms. Jewell and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Five of the panel’s members currently serve in the Obama administration.
Some of the nation’s largest tribes, however, are staunchly opposed to the proposal, including the 16 tribes that make up the Great Plains Tribal Chairmans Association, which represents tribal leaders in South Dakota, North Dakota, and Nebraska.
“It’s time for us to decide what our children will learn and how they will learn it because [BIE] has been a failure so far,” Bryan V. Brewer, the chairman of the 40,000-member Oglala Sioux tribe in Pine Ridge, S.D., said last month in a congressional hearing on the BIE.
In the same hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Charles M. Roessel, the director of the BIE and a member of the panel that drafted the plan, said the agency’s reorganization “would allow the BIE to achieve improved results in the form of higher student scores, improved school operations, and increased tribal control over schools.” (Despite multiple requests from Education Week, the BIE did not make Mr. Roessel or any other agency official available for an interview.)
Visit to Standing Rock
President Obama will visit the Standing Rock Sioux reservation on June 13 in Cannon Ball, N.D., and expectations are high that he will announce a major education initiative for tribal schools, which are some of the lowest-performing in the nation. In an op-ed article published last week in Indian Country Today, the president signaled two areas in dire need of federal attention in tribal communities: education and economic development.
Fifth grader Manuel Tyon, 10, rides the bus to Red Cloud Indian School on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation on Oct. 23, 2013. —Swikar Patel/Education Week
Indeed, the achievement picture for American Indian and Alaska Native children is grim. According to federal data, the four-year graduation rate for American Indian and Alaska Native students in 2011-12 was 67 percent, lagging behind all other major student groups except for English-language learners. BIE students, compared to their Native American peers in regular public schools, also scored lower on the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, reading and math tests in 4th grade.
While roughly 90 percent of Native American children attend regular public schools, both on and off reservations, more than 48,000 are enrolled in the BIE system, which includes tribally run schools that are supposed to have autonomy over their operations but rely almost 100 percent on federal funding that flows through the bureau.
Over the years, BIE-operated and -funded schools have faced daunting challenges not unlike those in some of the poorest urban school districts: difficulty recruiting and retaining teachers and school leaders, funding shortfalls, and dilapidated school facilities, to name a few. Mr. Roessel told senators last month that in the current fiscal year, the agency is able to fund just 67 percent of the operational costs needed by the tribally controlled schools it oversees.
Tense History
Tribal educators have complained for years that the agency has not respected tribes’ sovereignty over the schools they run, as spelled out in the Tribally Controlled Schools Act, and has imposed policies that have restricted a major priority for tribes: providing Native language and culture classes.
That history, said one tribal educator, makes the new BIE plan for overhauling itself highly suspect among tribes.
“How we see this plan is simple. The bureau is asking for more money and more staff to continue doing nothing,” said Christopher G. Bordeaux, the executive director of the Oceti Sakowin Education Consortium, a group of tribal schools on the Pine Ridge reservation and other reservations in South Dakota. “For years, we’ve asked the bureau for help, but we never get it. We figure out how to do this stuff on our own. The bureau really has no idea what tribal schools are all about, and they’ve not taken the time to ever listen and learn how to help us, and then they turn around and point to us and say the schools are failing.”
‘Agile Organization’
Under the reorganization plan, the BIE would evolve into an “agile organization” that would focus on supporting school improvement efforts in tribal communities by funding and providing professional development to tribal educators; scaling up recruitment and retention programs to attract talented teachers and school leaders to the often-remote schools; and building and upgrading school facilities, including grossly outdated technology infrastructures in many schools. The plan also calls for developing a single accountability system for BIE schools. Currently, federal law requires BIE schools to adhere to the accountability systems of the 23 states in which they are located, making meaningful comparisons impossible.
Education in Indian Country
On most measures of educational success, Native American students trail every other racial and ethnic subgroup of students. To explore the reasons why, Education Week sent a writer, a photographer, and a videographer to American Indian reservations in South Dakota and California earlier this fall. Their work is featured in a special package of articles, photographs, multimedia, and Commentary.
The study group’s proposal looks to another set of schools that are also federally run—those operated by the U.S. Department of Defense for the children of active military personnel—as a model for BIE to emulate on how to improve school facilities and student achievement.
The plan also argues that the Tribally Controlled Schools Act “should be made more conducive to reform” so that the BIE can attach conditions to the schools that it funds. For example, the plan calls for requiring the schools that it funds to adopt performance-based evaluation systems that include student achievement results and policies that make it easier to remove underperforming employees. It recommends that BIE launch a pilot of performance-based evaluations this fall in some of the schools it directly operates and expand those into tribally controlled schools in the near future.
To do that, however, the study group said BIE would need funding from Congress that could be used to provide incentives for tribal schools to adopt such reforms. The group recommended that the Interior Department “consider adapting the successful, competitive grants currently being used by the U.S. Department of Education as models” that would help tribes “align tribal educational priorities to President Obama’s education reform agenda to improve student outcomes and ensure all BIE students are college and career ready.”
Looming Court Battle?
Only tribes that operate three or more schools should be eligible for such grants, the study group said.
Any attempts to get around the Tribally Controlled Schools Act would spark major pushback from tribes, said Mr. Bordeaux, who lives on the Pine Ridge reservation and is an elected member of the board of directors for the Washington-based National Indian Education Association.
“Under the law, the BIE does not have this kind of authority over our tribal schools,” he said. “If they continue to do this, the only course we’ll have left is to go to court and file a lawsuit.”
What happens next with the BIE’s proposal is not yet clear. Tribal communities had until June 2 to submit comments on the draft, which will eventually be submitted to Ms. Jewell and Mr. Duncan for their review.
But at last month’s Senate hearing focusing on the BIE’s proposal, Mr. Roessel, the BIE director, assured the panel that the agency wants to improve and is already taking steps to do so.
“We will not build a bigger bureaucracy,” he said. “We will not infringe on sovereignty, and we will not continue to fail.”
While U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, who is the chairman of the Senate committee on Indian Affairs, expressed support for BIE’s improvement efforts, he was also skeptical about the agency’s capacity to follow through. He pointed to Mr. Roessel’s inability to provide answers on how many teacher vacancies are in BIE schools or how many rely on housing provided by tribes.
He said that the Interior Department didn’t provide the committee’s staff with basic information on BIE schools in time for the hearing, despite a request to do so 30 days in advance.
“It almost appears that we’ve got a systemic problem here,” Sen. Tester said. “We don’t have lists on school construction needs, teachers that are not there, very basic stuff.”
WASHINGTON, DC – The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) applauds President Obama for upholding his ongoing commitment to tribal nations and Native peoples by travelling to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation this Friday, June 13. Since taking office, President Obama has remained steadfast in honoring our nation-to-nation relationship. President Obama has kept his commitment to host the annual White House Tribal Nations Summit in Washington D.C. These summits have facilitated unprecedented engagement between tribal leaders and the President and members of his Cabinet.
At the 2013 White House Tribal Nations Summit, the President announced that he would visit Indian Country himself – a longtime priority of tribal leaders. Friday’s visit to Standing Rock fulfills that promise. This historic visit is the first by a sitting President in over 15 years and makes President Obama only the fourth President in history to ever visit Indian Country.
NCAI expects the President to address the economic development needs of tribal nations and the needs of Native youth. While tribal youth are included in the Administration’s “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative, this Administration has always known that Native children have specific cultural and education needs that require focused attention.
For this reason, Indian Country has witnessed an unprecedented collaboration between the Secretary Jewell at the Department of the Interior and Secretary Duncan at the Department of Education, to study what is necessary to make sure that all of our Native students – in public schools, tribal schools, and Bureau of Indian Education schools have the tools they need to ensure a strong future for all Native children. In 2013, Secretary Jewell visited the Pueblo of Laguna to see first hand how a tribal education department was improving the quality of schools operations, performance and structure of BIE schools. She witnessed a nation that was engaged and excited to participate in efforts to improve educational outcomes in Indian Country.
It will take visits like this – the agencies working together with tribal governments and national organizations such as the NCAI and the National Indian Education Association to ensure that our students can be the future tribal leaders, teachers, health care workers, and entrepreneurs that our nations and the United States need to thrive for generations to come.
The President’s visit builds on ongoing efforts of his Administration to work closely with tribal nations on policy that affects their citizens. We trust the visit will be a catalyst for more policies that will not only succeed today, but cement the positive relationship between tribal governments and the federal government well into the future. President Obama has made annual summits between our nations in his words, “almost routine.” We trust this will be the continuation of his Administration’s engagement with our nations that makes visits to Indian Country by the President and his Cabinet routine too.
About The National Congress of American Indians:
Founded in 1944, the National Congress of American Indians is the oldest, largest and most representative American Indian and Alaska Native organization in the country. NCAI advocates on behalf of tribal governments and communities, promoting strong tribal-federal government-to-government policies, and promoting a better understanding among the general public regarding American Indian and Alaska Native governments, people and rights. For more information visitwww.ncai.org
Nanuqsaurus, the North’s new “pygmy” dinosaur, was announced to much hoopla this spring, when fragments from a 2006 excavation in Alaska were identified in a recent report as a separate, smaller Tyrannosaurus species. But not much smaller. Despite the fact that Nanuqsaurus was a) half the size of his regal relatives, and b) likely covered in a coat of downy feathers, the 70-million-year-old reptile was still six metres from head to toe, able to comfortably snack on even the largest modern polar bear.
