Study finds that Native students face many educational hurdles in Oregon

A new study funded by Spirit Mountain Community Fund has found that there are many hurdles hampering Native students from being successful in Oregon's educational system, and there also are many problems for educators and Tribal representatives in determining which public school students are enrolled members of Oregon's nine federally recognized Tribes.

The study's executive summary, released Jan. 22 by its authors ECONorthwest and the Chalkboard Project, compared Tribal membership rolls for seven of Oregon's Tribes with data from the state Department of Education.

The findings were, according to a press release, "informative and disheartening."

The findings include:

• Tribal students in the seven Tribes showed elevated rates of chronic absenteeism, which means students missed10 percent or more of school days. One-third of Tribal students were chronically absent in 2011-22, with the highest rate - 43 percent -- at the high school level. Students who miss that that much school are unlikely to ever read or do math at grade level or earn a diploma, educational studies have shown.
• Almost 33 percent of Tribal students in the seven Tribes were enrolled in priority or focus schools, which are deemed underperforming through federal and state rules and are targeted for intervention representing the bottom 15 percent of state schools. For instance, all three schools attended by students who live on or near the Warm Springs Reservation in central Oregon are ranked in the bottom 5 percent of Oregon schools based on their 2011-12 test scores and graduation rates.
• Three out of four Tribal students in the seven Tribes are eligible for free or reduced price lunch, which means their households have incomes below 185 percent of the federal poverty level.
• Tribal students pass the state math and reading assessment tests at rates 13 to 20 percentage points below the statewide average, depending on grade level.
• Eleven percent were suspended from school, compared with 7 percent of Oregon students overall, and 11 percent changed schools at least once during the 2011-12 school year.
• Fifty-five percent of Tribal students in the seven Tribes in the class of 2011 graduated on time with a traditional high school diploma compared to 72 percent of all Oregon students.

The seven Tribes that participated in the study were the Burns Paiute, Cow Creek Tribe of Umpqua Band of Indians, Klamath Tribes, Confederated Tribes of the Siletz Indians, Confederated Tribes of Umatilla Indians, Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs and the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. The Coquille Tribe and Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw did not participate.

In addition to the disheartening findings, the study revealed that identifying students who are Native American is a difficult task.

Oregon tracks students as Native American if they or their parents say they are. For instance, 67,172 Oregon public school students were identified in Department of Education records as American Indian/Alaskan Native in 2011-12. Of those students, only 4.4 percent were enrolled in one of the seven Oregon Tribes analyzed.

Seventy-four percent of enrolled Tribal students were identified as Native in Department of Education records while another 18 percent were identified as American Indian in combination with another race or ethnicity. But 8 percent were not identified at all as American Indian in state records.

In general, enrolled Tribal students had below-average attendance, achievement and graduation rates, and the performance gaps exceeded those for other students who self-identified as American Indian or Alaskan Native.

"These complications make it difficult for Oregon Tribal governments to direct their resources to meet the needs of their students," the study's press release states. "There is currently no on-going way for the Tribes or the state to evaluate Oregon Tribal member student outcomes accurately."

Spirit Mountain Community Fund Director Kathleen George said the fund is committed to turning this data into "real action" to help Oregon's Tribal children.

"Every child deserves a quality education and it is clear that too many Tribal kids are out of sight and out of mind in our education system," she said. "We need to act quickly and decisively to help Tribal students. These kids cannot wait any longer to get an effective education."

She also said that Tribes and Tribal families need to "foster a change in culture to help our children understand that showing up for school every day is the path to success in school and later in life."

A full report based on the analysis will be released this spring and is expected to include recommendations to help improve outcomes for Oregon's Tribal students.

"This analysis is a step forward in understanding the challenges facing the student members of seven of Oregon's Tribes," said Sue Hildick, Chalkboard Project president. "We fully expect this report to open up important conversations and lead toward community-driven solutions."

The Chalkboard Project acted as a catalyst and collaborator with the Community Fund and ECONorthwest for the study.