“The message we would like to resonate is that the problem of low performance by American Indian students is not intractable and is most often a function of community resources and characteristics,” Christopher D. Lohse, principal author of the study, said Friday.
Viewed another way, the study concludes that, on average, Indian students in Montana generally do better when they attend off-reservation schools.
It was written by Lohse, a research analyst for the Office of Research and Policy Analysis, Legislative Services Division, and Susan Ockert, an economist with the Census and Economic Information Center in the state Department of Commerce.
A draft of the report was made available to a legislative committee studying ways to reform funding of Montana schools last year, but the results of the study have not been widely reported.
On six of Montana's reservations, a significant “achievement gap” exists between reservation schools and non-reservation schools - even schools that are only a few miles apart.
Lame Deer High School on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation is one of the lowest-performing high schools in terms of academic achievement. Colstrip High School, 22 miles north and off the reservation, is one of the top 10 high schools in terms of Indian academic achievement.
On western Montana's Flathead Reservation, the achievement gap between Indian and non-Indian students has all but disappeared.
“In general, we found less of an achievement gap in off-reservation schools in Montana, but one still existed. But when we looked at variability within schools, we were able to find instances where American Indian students were performing at the same levels as whites, or in some instances even outperforming them. Those schools were on the Flathead Reservation and in Great Falls,” Lohse said, citing preliminary results from an as-yet unpublished analysis.
In fact, on the Flathead Reservation, which includes most schools in southern Lake County and eastern Sanders County, Indian academic performance is about as high as anywhere in Montana, the study found.
For example, among all Montana schools with significant Indian populations, Polson's Linderman and Cherry Valley elementaries and St. Ignatius Elementary, all on the Flathead Reservation, are the top three schools on the study's list of high-performing schools.
A “significant” Indian population was defined as at least 10 or more Indian students in the school who took the standard test of academic achievement for their grade level. Indian ethnicity was defined by a parent's description of their child to the school administration.
Ronan and Arlee high schools, also on the Flathead Reservation, are among the top three high schools in Indian academic performance in Montana, the report said.
The top middle schools with a significant Indian population in Montana were all off-reservation schools. Two were in Helena and one in Great Falls. Polson Middle School (grades 7-8) did make the top-10 list. It was 10th.
The school with the highest-performing Indian students in Missoula was Hellgate High. Missoula's C.S. Porter was listed sixth among the top 10 middle schools. No other Missoula schools earned top-10 rankings.
Very small schools in Montana were excluded from the analysis because of privacy concerns, and data on private schools were incomplete.
Why have some Flathead Reservation schools actually closed the achievement gap?
Probably because it is integrated economically and racially, and enjoys relative prosperity compared to other reservations, Lohse said. Many of the schools that are performing well have committed to culturally relevant instruction, he said.
Unlike Montana's six other tribal homelands, the Flathead Reservation is an “open” reservation, where non-Indians actually outnumber tribal members by almost a 4-1 margin. Thus the schools are well-integrated, not serving a single race or culture, and the reservation is not geographically isolated. The reservation is culturally diverse and economically prosperous, with per-capita incomes and other measures of social and economic welfare far better than Montana's other Indian reservations, according to data in the study.
Indian students on the Flathead Reservation, on average, not only perform better than their peers on other reservations, but do just as well or better than Indian students in more culturally diverse, racially integrated and economically advantaged schools such as those in Missoula, Helena or Billings, the study said.
Lohse suggests some reasons that off-reservation - and Flathead Reservation - schools do a better job educating Indian students than do schools on other reservations.
“Two factors appear to be most predictive of (Indian) students' (poor) performance - racial and economic isolation,” he said.
He said the study was careful to control for the social and economic status of students in the schools both on and off tribal homelands.
“It would be easy to dismiss the results as precisely what would be expected: Wealthy urban areas perform better than poor rural areas. Such a statement is true, but obscures an important finding. The American Indian students attending integrated schools are not significantly better off (in terms of parents' wealth, education or social standing) than their peers on the reservations,” yet they still perform better than students from similar backgrounds who live on a reservation, the study states.
Denise Juneau, a Blackfeet tribal member who is the Office of Public Instruction's director of Indian education, said she had no quarrel with the data or the study's method.
“It says what it says,” she said.
Reservation communities often have systemic problems such as poverty, Juneau said. Some historical factors tend to hamper Indian educational achievement on reservations. For example, the boarding school experience, in which a generation of tribal youngsters were taken from home, sometimes forcibly, and educated in an environment hostile to Indian culture, has had a negative effect on tribal education across America, not just in Montana.
“There is an achievement gap, and kids are being left behind,” Juneau said.
What does the study mean for policymakers? One thing is clear: Assimilation is not an option.
As Lohse states: “Montana Indian Country, and indeed Indian Country in general, often provides a stark example of both racial and economic isolation. But because of political, cultural, historical, geographic and economic reasons, it makes no sense to promote the integration of reservation communities,” Lohse said.
Juneau agreed with Lohse that you can't expect to integrate sovereign tribal nations into the larger culture. Such an assimilation policy was attempted 50 years ago, but since has been rejected by Congress and is almost universally opposed by tribal people.
One way to help student performance on tribal homelands would be to improve the standard of living of families living on reservations through economic development, the report states.
“Policy responses are reservation- and community-specific, but include natural resource development, agriculture and the extension of private enterprise,” the study suggests.
Policymakers “also have a major role to play in correcting social structures that serve as the genesis for inequality,” Lohse said.
Juneau said that last year's special session of the Legislature, which was called in part to address funding inequality in education, took steps in the right direction to help close the achievement gap between Indians and whites.
Indian Education for All, a constitutionally mandated program to require state schools at all levels to teach students about American Indian history and culture, will cost about $500,000. Over the long term, this can help remove some of the systemic prejudices against Indians that may hamper education on tribal homelands in Montana, she said.
“Until Montana educates its citizens on these issues, and there is recognition these (tribal nations) are separate sovereigns that need to work together - until that happens, I don't think much will change. So it was a great accomplishment to fund that for the first time ever.”
Reporter John Stromnes can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at jstromnes@missoulian.com
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