State’s Indian Students Outpace National Average

By NORA FROESCHLE

Local school officials says grants, cultural pride and support are the key.

American Indian students in Oklahoma are graduating at a far better rate than their counterparts around the nation, according to a report released this week.

“Diplomas Count: School to College for 2008″ found that 63.8 percent of Oklahoma’s American Indian students graduate from high school, compared with the national average of 50.6 percent.

The report from Education Weekly, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is available online at www.tulsa world.com/ edweek. The Editorial Projects in Education Research Center compiled the report using data from 2005.

It places Oklahoma’s overall graduation rate at about 70.8 percent, just more than the national average.

Diplomas Count shows a sizable gap between Oklahoma’s American Indian high school graduation rate and those of many other states, including South Dakota, where just three out of 10 Indian students receive diplomas.

In Oklahoma, Indian students typically attend public schools but are shepherded through the system and tracked in ways the regular student population generally is not.

Title VII and the Johnson O’Malley federal grant program provide funding to Indian Education programs at public schools.

At Union Public Schools, which has an American Indian student population of about 1,700, the grant programs provide college and career counseling as well as tutoring for Indian students.

Cathy Collins, director of federal programs for the district, said 125 American Indian students graduated from Union this year.

“I think Oklahomans are attuned to our Native American population. We tutor them at the youngest ages,” Collins said. “We offer a lot of college and career support, and we pay for their summer school through our grant money.”

Two career counselors encourage and assist the students in the process of college and admission, and four full-time teachers are dedicated to tutoring those who need extra help, she said.

Jana Roth, coordinator of the Title VII and Johnson O’Malley grant programs for Broken Arrow Public Schools, said programs within the state’s public school districts strive to imbue cultural pride as well as academic achievement.

Broken Arrow has an American Indian population of 2,184, she said.

“We have a cultural summer school, and we’re trying to make sure we have a traditional language element in there,” Roth said.

Meanwhile, the state Education Department takes issue with the report’s numbers.

“Our most recent federally reported graduation rate for Native American students in Oklahoma is 2006, in which the rate was 84.6 percent,” said Shelly Hickman, a spokeswoman for the department.

Nora Froeschle 581-8310

nora.froeschle@tulsaworld.com

Originally published by NORA FROESCHLE World Staff Writer.

(c) 2008 Tulsa World. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.