A New VOICE for Indian Education Issues
The numbers don't lie. The Indian drop-out rate is four times greater than that of non-Indians in Montana. While more than 10 percent of students in Montana are Indian, only 2 percent of teachers are. There are many issues keeping Native Americans from achieving academic excellence. An organization of Indian parents is setting out to address these issues and create positive change in the education system.
Voices Of Indian Communities for Education (VOICE) has already identified some reasons that the education system may be unresponsive to Indian needs. Along with there not being many Native American teachers, there is also a lack of representation on school boards. Also, Indian culture and history are not emphasized in curriculum. This lack of education feeds society's anti-Indian sentiment. Part of overcoming this racism is educating people on tribal sovereignty and the treaty history between tribal and the federal governments. To help Indian youth, VOICE knows that a basic understanding of Indian issues needs to happen at all level throughout the education system.
To implement change, VOICE believes parents must take an active role. To this end, another aspect to VOICE will be providing resources to parents so they can be involved. The organization hopes to go statewide, with members from both reservation and urban communities. If you are interested in getting involved, please call (406) 442-5506.