UNDERREPRESENTED MINORITIES IN THE STEM FIELDS – 84

Accreditation Use Only

Underrepresented American Indians and Alaskan Natives in U.S. Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematic Fields

Elizabeth Woody

Portland State University

June 17, 2012

INTRODUCTION

There is a crisis in science education in the United States. While science and engineering is one of the fastest growing fields with over five million jobs in the U.S. students are not prepared for entry into these fields due to poor academic performance in the public school system. There presently are no Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) career pathways through K-12 to college, and upper graduate levels. Due to inconsistencies in delivery of school standards that vary state-to-state, there is no “one size fits all” remedy to increase performance, or literacy, and entry into college in the fields of STEM.

The crisis is leading the country to the threshold of illiteracy, inability to deal with complex life issues, and increased inability to assume active participation in the civic community. The crisis is recognized on federal levels as a threat our national security, economic growth and stability. As time progresses without appropriate and competitive academic achievement, the U.S. loses ground and status among the international community. Students lose out on economic gains and access to middle class American dreams. The smaller sets of community loses out on an informed and literate citizenry.

Overall, there is a general consensus that there is a lack of women and underrepresented minorities in these career areas, and in the educational system as professors. Underrepresented minority groups comprised 28.5 percent of the American Population in 2006, yet there only 9.1 percent of college-educated Americans are in these fields. By the year 2050, there will be major population demographic shifts in the U.S., with Hispanics and Asians increasing dramatically while African American populations remain the same, and the European American population decreases and ages.

The status of educational achievement in the U.S. received national attention in the 1980s through a governmental report titled, A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform. It described the U.S. educational system as lacking direction and failing, perhaps by low achievement status of U.S. students leaving high school. The report stated that in the U.S. there were twenty-three million illiterates, and test scores (for grades 4, 8, and 12) fell steadily for two decades.

History of recent federal policy on education lists: A Nation at Risk, America 2000, Goals 2000: Educate America Act, Voluntary National Tests, and the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2002 and ESEA Reauthorization: A Blueprint for Reform as preferred resolution to NCLB’s shortcomings in 2011. As the last incarnation of the ESEA, the NCLB Act expanded the federal role in education and became a focal point of education policy. Coming at a time of wide public concern about the state of education, the legislation sets requirements that now reach into virtually every public school in America.

The last policy pending congressional approval is called the ESEA Reauthorization: A Blueprint for Reform and intends to build on significant reforms already made in response to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, around four areas: 1) Improving teacher and principal effectiveness; 2) Providing information to families to help them evaluate and improve their children's schools; 3) Implementing college and career-ready standards; and 4) Improving student learning and achievement in America's lowest-performing schools by providing intensive support and effective interventions. This year, Senator Merkley has stepped forward with a “STEM Education Bill” as part of the Preparing Students for Success in the Global Economy Act (S. 1675). The legislation has a $500 million per year commitment to public schools nationwide for 10 years specifically targeted for STEM education and additional resources to recruit, train and support teachers.

For AI/AN children there is an additional overlay of stress in terms of federal policy, and delivery of public education. In 1991, the U.S. Department of Education published, Indian Nations at Risk: an Educational Strategy for Action, as part of the national strategy. The Indian Nations at Risk Task Force identified four reasons the U.S. Indian Nations are Nations at Risk: 1) Schools have failed to educate large numbers of Indian students and adults 2) the language and culture base of the American Native are rapidly eroding 3) the diminished lands and natural resources of the American Native are constantly under siege and 4) Indian self-determination and governance rights are challenged by the changing policies of the administration, congress, and the justice system.

Ultimately, the report covers why the Native peoples are at risk for the four reasons previously explained, as well as a fifth one, “Political relationships between the tribes and the federal government fluctuate with the will of the U.S. Congress and decisions by its courts.” The definition of the Federal Responsibility for Native Education is contained within the previously mentioned document. The U.S. Constitution provides for a special relationship with U.S. American Indian nations, which includes broad federal authority and special trust obligations. Federal Indian education began during George Washington’s time and continues to the present day as part of an assimilation process. The assimilation is well defined in the U.S. Treaties, and carried on through U.S. American Indian Policy where the AI/AN student was taken from their homes to boarding school, required to cut their hair, wear American clothes, become Christian, forbidden to speak their Indigenous languages, and learn how to farm or use a trade skill, such as blacksmithing. American Indians were forbidden in many establishments in the west, where signs such as, “No Indians or Dogs allowed.”

Most discussion with regard to the disparity of AI/AN educational opportunities and outcomes simply point to the lack of consensus on which factors are most influential and whether a lack of access to educational resources, and that culture and environment plays a role in the achievement gap. AI/AN education has been formed from over two hundred years plus of policy. Tribes are subject to the whims of Congress, the justice system, and the lack of State interest or investment.

Indigenous peoples of the Americas are part of nations whose languages and cultures are unique to the world. Traditional Ecological Knowledge and technologies of this hemisphere have demonstrated AI/AN are resourceful and ingenious peoples who have contributed vast stores of knowledge to the world upon “re-contact” 500 years ago with the rest of the world, and this knowledge is vital to the present crisis the world faces in the uncertainties of Climate Change. In particular need are the AI/AN observation and recording Climate Change impacts upon the natural resources, waters, and food systems in remote and fragile environmental systems in to the science communities and systems.

Additionally, Oregon will experience new educational policies, but has within this arena faced more challenges that call for greater accomplishments, unique to our region. We have the Columbia River Basin, the near coastal ecosystems; and a diverse geography with overlays of many federal polices of management that require co-management with tribal peoples as result of the Boldt Decision of the 70s, as well as the U.S. Treaties with Indian Nations. Indian Nations will be at the forefront of water issues, and core contributors on future debate of the Endangered Species Act as species continue to fall in numbers, and oddly, succeed.

The success of AI/AN students at Oregon schools requires greater attention, with a need for the development of models that support their unique identity, as well as the socio-economic factors of reservation life while connecting with the urban Indian. Portland, as Oregon’s largest city, has the 9th largest AI/AN urban population in the country at about 38,000 people. We have fertile ground to test and refine a plethora of different and innovative strategies to increase proficiency in the basics of education, including providing a well rounded education that include instruction in AI/AN policy, natural resources, and an enduring understandings of U.S. history from the perspective of tribal history and policies that are part of what every citizen should know.

The Oregon American Indian and Alaskan Native State Plan of 2006, ensures support of the academic progress of the 11,900 AI/AN students of Oregon, along with the understanding and application of the Executive Order of 96-30 State/Tribal Government to Government Relations (signed in May of 1996) which provides an additional venue of tribal involvement with the Oregon AI/AN Education State Plan. In 2011 the Oregon legislature set forth a plan called the“40-40-20 Goal and set up the Oregon Education Investment Board (OEIB) of which Governor Kitzhaber is the Chair. There is plenty of policy to support needed change.

The established organizations that serve AI/AN peoples in the region do the best work on American Indian Education policy. Unique in this situation, is the Center for Coastal Margins Observation and Prediction (CMOP) who reports to the National Science Foundation, which reports directly to Congress. There is a conduit for change within their Education Program that includes K-12, Graduate and Post-Graduate studies. That is what makes the effort of the K-12 Program unique compared to other programs in the region. It has the mandate to innovate, and investigate methods across multiple disciplines. CMOP has supported a Native teacher for two summers, and worked on the nine-week science infusion curriculum project.

The organizations of National Congress of the American Indian, Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, National Indian Education Association, and the Oregon Indian Education Association are long established and active policy players. They can make recommendations to their state and federal representatives. While under-represented in STEM career fields, there is no shortage of active AI/AN leaders who can wield their government-to-government influence.

For the previously explained reasons, a complex set of activities for AI/AN programs at CMOP realizes the importance of the treaty obligations that still exist today. The U.S. Constitution as “Supreme Law of the Land” upholds these obligations. These obligations are legal, and morally grounded; their services provided by Congressional recognition and action—yet the states frequently excuse themselves from delivery, or set up adversarial positions with the tribes within their borders. Citizens of the tribes have experienced discrimination in this and other ways. The educational experience is fraught with conditions and obstacles that are multi-dimensioned and lack of quality delivery by the school districts of the state of these tribal people.

Supporting teachers of AI/AN children in a stressed system makes a great deal of sense. Developing a transferable curriculum that incorporates local leaders and AI/AN STEM professionals creates the awareness this is a possible field for the student. It can fit into the present curriculum and enrich it with AI/AN policy and natural resource stories and accomplishments. In addition, through the available programs of CMOP, the student can become college ready, and see their own pathway to STEM careers. This program can build, school by school, a network of resources to be refined over time and infuse the present curriculums. Evaluation will include cultural elements, and also include the evaluation of the AI/AN presenters based on their participation in the program. The CMOP website can post curriculum for the regional schools to use. By developing, evaluating, and analyzing the curriculum and strategies used, the proposed project will contribute significantly to the literature and professional practice knowledge base on how to design, implement, and sustain engaging STEM programs for Native American students and families on the ground.

Center for Coastal Margin Observation and Prediction can:

·  play a role in support of the development of the curriculum infusion.

·  increase its teacher support through the summer program.

·  build a stronger relationship to the Educational Policy Body National Advisory Council on Indian Education and inform AI/AN Policy with its results.

·  propose additional curriculum elements refined by AI/AN in the field to the regional representative organizations.

·  position itself for outreach to Native American Communities to provide best science, and assist in communicating with Congressional representatives and the State using the information gathered and refined over time.

SECTION ONE: INTRODUCTION OF THE BACKGROUND AND IMPORTANCE OF INCREASING MINORITY REPRESENTATION IN STEM

There is a crisis in science education in the United States; and it is one that requires urgent attention. The Science and Engineering (S & E) workforce is fast growing in the U.S. with more than 5 million jobs and is projected to be the fastest growing sector in the future. There are several challenges, and three are widely identified; first is the clear absence of a career pathway in Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education within the U.S.

Second, there are inconsistencies in the K-12 delivery of STEM education across a myriad of schools and districts across all the states; which make it difficult to prescribe a “one size fits all” remedy. The history of educational policy has been grappling with this problem and its definition for many decades. The states struggle with funding their educational systems from K-Graduate studies and the gap grows each year.

Thirdly, there is a lack of diversity, in that there are few women and underrepresented minorities in the fields of STEM. Underrepresented minority groups comprised 28.5 percent of the American population in 2006, yet only represented 9.1 percent of college-educated Americans work in these fields. This “suggests the need to triple their numbers to match their share of the overall U.S. Population (National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering and Institute of Medicine, 2010).”

There is an additional issue due to historical policy concerning American Indian and Alaskan Native (AI/AN) students and their communities. The AI/AN communities are under stresses that impact many communities, but are exacerbated due to the intimacy of these communities and lack of choice concerning their children’s educational options. The history in American Indian Education is considered a generation lost due to governmental efforts and policies to remove children from their families and assimilate them (see addendum US Department of Education Legislative History AI/AN). The assimilation process included removing children and placing them in bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) boarding schools, changing their appearance with dress codes and hair cuts, fobidding them to speak their Indigenous languages, or practicing their religions. It wasn’t until 1924 the AI/AN was granted U.S. citizenship and the right to vote. In the 1970s the AI/AN through acts of congress were allowed religious freedom and the 1990s the right to speak and teach their indigenous languages.