Part of the U.S. Department of Education, the Office of Indian Education (OIE) is responsible for supporting local educational agencies, Indian tribes and organizations to meet the academic needs of American Indians and Alaska Natives. The agency tries to provide opportunities so that students of these ethnic groups can be on the same academic level with other populations. OIE seeks to meet its goals by distributing millions of dollars in federal grants to local school districts throughout the United States.
The Office of Indian Education (OIE) was created in 1972 following an investigation by Congress into the state of education for Native Americans. In 1969, the Special Senate Subcommittee on Indian Education issued a report called “Indian Education: A National Tragedy” that focused attention on the dire educational situation among these populations. As a result of these findings, the Indian Education Act (pdf) was passed establishing a comprehensive approach designed to meet the unique cultural needs of American Indian and Alaska Native students.
The act recognized that American Indians have education and academic needs, as well as distinct language and cultural needs. It provided services to American Indians and Alaska Natives that are not provided by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. It also represented the only comprehensive federal Indian education legislation that dealt with American Indian education from pre-school to graduate level education.
The Indian Education Act also established several competitive grant programs for Indian children and adults. In 1974, the original law was amended to add teacher training and fellowship programs.
A 1988 amendment gave Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) schools the ability to apply for formula grants and provided funds for Gifted and Talented education. Then, in 1994, the Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994 authorized Indian Education as Title IX Part A. This reauthorized formula grants for Indian schools and added a comprehensive plan to meet the academic and culturally related academic needs of American Indian and Alaska Native students.
The most recent amendment to the original law came about via the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act. NCLB reauthorized the program as Title VII Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. As part of NCLB, grants to American Indian and Alaska Native schools will be based on state academic achievement standards used for all students.
The Office of Indian Education is often confused with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, located within the Department of the Interior, which also works to improve Indian education and Indian rights. But the BIA works primarily to save and protect millions of acres of land held in trust by the United States for American Indians, Indian tribes, and Alaska Natives, while its education efforts run secondary in its mission. BIA schools for Indian children receive funds from OIE.
In December 2011, President Obama signed an Executive Order that called for the creation of an interagency working group—participants from ED and the Department of the Interior—to work toward the improvement of American Indian and Alaska Native educational opportunities and the strengthening of tribal colleges and universities.
The Office of Indian Education (OIE), one of eight offices in the Office of Secondary and Elementary Education, administers the Indian Education Program of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001. Although the NCLB does not change the agency’s original 1972 mandate to facilitate greater educational opportunities for American Indians and Alaska Natives, it attempts to provide greater accountability and flexibility in use of federal funds.
The primary function of the OIE is to design and oversee a comprehensive system for administering Indian formula and discretionary grants; prepare and track performance indicators of grant program’s efficacy and help carry out national evaluations of OIE programs; provide leadership for Department of Education-wide policy coordination and help formulate policy and guidance; and develop and implement a system for maintaining open communications with the National Advisory Council on Indian Education (NACIE) and other educational organizations.
Under the Indian Education Program, the OIE is the only office that is able to bypass state agencies and award grants directly to local education agencies (LEAs). In addition, the OIE works with the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) and the National Indian Education Study (NIES) to develop research for improving Indian education and for the administration of the national activity grants. The OIE also funds grants for schools under the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The office represents only a fraction of the total department resources for Indian students, but consults on policy matters with all department programs affecting Indian children and adults.
The OIE is responsible for three main components, including providing demonstration grants for Indian children, such as school readiness projects and college preparatory programs; Indian education formula grants which can be given directly to LEAs to reform school programs; and Indian professional development program grants that are used to train teachers and school administrators.
In October 2003, the OIE was elevated to report to the Office of the Under Secretary (OUS) rather than to the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE), although it continues to operate within the OESE.
The OIE has served as the sponsor of the National Indian Education Study (NIES) biennially since 2005. The study provides data on the educational achievement and experiences of American Indian and Alaska Native students, as well as details about the students’ school conditions, curriculum, academic goals, and cultural exposure.
National Indian Education Study 2011 (pdf)
Tribal Leaders Speak: The State of American Indian Education, 2010 (U.S. Department
Education) (pdf)
From the Web Site of the Office of Indian Education
National Advisory Council on Indian Education
National Indian Education Study
In 2012, the Office of Indian Education (OIE) awarded 10 professional development grants to college participants in Arizona, California, Montana, Oregon, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. In 2011, the OIE awarded five such grants totaling more than $1.8 million.
Twelve school districts are the recipients of 2012 demonstration grants. The previous year, six districts were the recipients of nearly $1.7 million in such grants.
The history of formula grants awarded to LEAs between 2000 and 2007 are provided on the OIE’s formula grants web page.
In recent years, more than 44% of OIE’s grants have gone to programs in Oklahoma, Arizona, and Alaska, despite the fact that only 14% of the Native American population lives in these three states.
In terms of contract spending, the OIE has spent nearly $12 million on 225 contractor transactions between FY 2002 and FY 2012, according to USAspending.gov. The top five types of products or services purchased by the OIE during this period were education management ($1,970,943), support services ($1,898,678), educational studies and analyses ($1,156,747), non-scientific study and data ($766,370), and program review/development ($717,076). The top five recipients of this contractor spending were:
1. Kauffman & Associates Inc. $3,110,190
2. Heritage Technologies Limited Liability Company $1,898,678
3. Westat Inc. $766,370
4. Academy for Educational Development Inc. $717,076
5. Manhattan Strategy Group LLC $699,593
Indian Education Lags
A major goal of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2002, was to close the achievement gap between white and non-white students. But test results showed the gap only getting wider for American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) kids.
In 2003, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) testing done by the federal government revealed negative trends among minority students that had been evident for years.
Eight years later, NAEP scores for AI/AN students, compared with 2003 scores, showed that for the most part those negative trends were getting worse. Achievement gaps in reading and math for fourth-graders and in math (but not reading) for eighth-graders has widened since NCLB was implemented.
In 2012, the National Indian Education Association, a nonprofit advocacy group for Native students, sent a letter to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan saying NCLB waivers, which allowed some states to categorize racial and ethnic minorities as “super-subgroups,” might result in schools and districts ignoring Native students and losing information on their progress.
No Child Left Behind Act: A Bust in Indian Country (by Tanya Lee, Indian Country)
Native Student Association Concerned About NCLB Waivers (by Diette Courrégé Casey, Education Week)
The OIE Accused of Funding Non-Indian Education
According to the blog On the Wings of Eagles, the Office of Indian Education (OIE) has repeatedly diverted funding to schools with no Indian students. The office has approved grants to 25 Arkansas school districts without Indian students, and millions of dollars of OIE funds were spent on wireless computer labs and science programs that aided non-Indian students. Arkansas officials lauded the OIE grant diversion as a method to replace decreasing state educational funds in the state school system. The blog also reported that the OIE, along with Arkansas school districts and the Lost Cherokee of Arkansas and Missouri, were under investigation by the Department of Education.
Office of Indian Education Diversion Of Funds (blog, On The Wings Of Eagles)
Executive Order for Improvement
President Barack Obama unveiled Executive Order 13592 in 2011 establishing the White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) Education.
The initiative was intended to help expand educational opportunities and improve educational outcomes for all AI/AN students, including opportunities to learn their native languages, cultures, and histories and receive educations that prepared them for college and beyond. The executive order recognized that AI/AN students drop out of school at an alarming rate, that the education gap between them and non-AI/AN students hasn’t been closed, and even that many Native languages were on the verge of extinction.
The administration intended to strengthen the relationship between the Department of Education and the Department of the Interior, which operates or provides grants to tribes to operate primary-, secondary-, and college-level school systems for AI/AN children and young adults.
Goals of the initiative included increasing the number and percentage of AI/AN children who enter kindergarten “ready for success through improved access to high quality early learning programs and services, including Native language immersion programs, that encourage the learning and development of AI/AN children from birth through age five,” according to a White House press release.
Obama also hoped to increase the number and percentage of AI/AN students who have access to “excellent” teachers and school leaders, including effective science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, language, and special education teachers.
Educating the Next Generation of Native Leaders (U.S. Department of Education)
NIEA Reform Suggestions
The National Indian Education Association (NIEA) called in 2011 for changes to the federal Office of Indian Education (OIE), arguing the OIE should be elevated within the U.S. Department of Education.
In a briefing paper presented at the NIEA’s annual legislative summit, the advocacy organization noted the OIE at various times since its creation had been downsized, and even placed under the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. This resulted in the role of the OIE’s director being limited primarily to grant management.
The NIEA added that the director lacked authority to “meaningfully participate in Department policy discussions and decision-making, to manage much needed collaboration and alignment between offices within [the department] and other federal agencies, such as Department of the Interior, and to ensure coordinated and efficient expenditures on Indian education.”
Given these concerns, the organization said the OIE should be elevated within the Education Department and that its top official should not be a director, but an assistant secretary of Indian education reporting directly to the Office of the Secretary of Education.
Restoring the Trust in Native Education (NIEA Legislative Summit)
Indian Tribal Leaders Give ED Input on Needs of Urban Indian Students (by Joe Barison, Homeroom)
Jenelle Leonard (Acting Director) August 2010 – 2011
Biography (AllGov)
Official Biography (Department of Education)
- Table of Contents
- Overview
- History
- What it Does
- Where Does the Money Go
- Controversies
- Suggested Reforms
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