The task force looked at a variety of schools serving Native students American Indians. There were BIA boarding and day schools, increasingly under local control but still tied up with myriad government regulations; tribally controlled schools operated under contract and grants with the Bureau of Indian Affairs; and mission schools operated by various churches. Public schools served the largest number of Native students and tended to look like public schools anywhere, even when they were located on Indian reservations. While Indians have taken over reservation boards of education and established cultural centers and Native studies programs, these changes tend to be peripheral to basic state-mandated curricula.
The Indian Nations at Risk Task Force declared four national priorities: 1) Developing parent-based and culturally, linguistically, and developmentally appropriate early childhood education, 2) Making the promotion of students' tribal language and culture a responsibility of the school, 3) Training more Native teachers, and 4) Strengthening tribal and Bureau of Indian Affairs colleges. In addition, they adapted the six national goals from President Bush's America 2000 program into 10 national Indian education goals.
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