What Is Good Native Governance?
Dina Gilio-Whitaker - 4/9/14

Every few decades it seems that Indian country has new concepts that it adopts that become the backbone for how we talk about ourselves. Those concepts usually seem to be about how we frame our relationships as Indian people to the dominant society, or more specifically to the federal government. They often mirror whatever the current policy regime happens to be. For the last 40 years we have spoken in terms of self-determination and sovereignty. Now “good governance” seems to be our new buzzwords.
A few weeks ago I attended a conference on that very topic at a prominent law school. It was organized by some prominent Native law scholars and academics, people highly regarded for their brilliant work in the fields of Indian law and Native American studies. Sadly, the conference was only one day long and could easily have filled two or three days with presentations. The presenter list read like a who’s who of people that have written influential policy papers, law articles, and books on topics related to tribal governance.
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Disappointing ACT Scores: The Need for More Indian Professionals
Dr. Dean Chavers - 4/13/14

For years I have tried to find data on Indian students—college preparation, high school completion rates, college entrance rates, college pre-test scores (ACT and SAT), college dropout rates, and college completion rates. I have also tried to find information on the fields that Indian students majored in.
Most of the time, that data is not available. I have often had to collect my own data. The feds and the states say the Indian sample is too few to bother with. How can four million Indians not be enough to count? The U. S. Education Department said this less than five years ago.
The American College Testing (ACT) recently came out with its first-ever report on the academic preparation of Indian students for college study. It is called “The Condition of College & Career Readiness 2013: American Indian Students.” They report, “Within subjects, ACT has found that students who take the recommended core curriculum are more likely to be ready for college or career than those who do not.”
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