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Overview:

Part of the US Department of Education, the Office of Indian Education (OIE) is responsible for supporting local educational agencies, Indian tribes and organizations to meet the academic needs of American Indians and Alaska Natives. The agency tries to provide opportunities so that students of these ethnic groups can be on the same academic level with other populations. OIE seeks to meet its goals by distributing millions of dollars in federal grants to local school districts throughout the United States.

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History:

The Office of Indian Education (OIE) was created in 1972 following an investigation by Congress into the state of education for Native Americans. In 1969, the Special Senate Subcommittee on Indian Education issued a report called “Indian Education: A National Tragedy” that focused attention on the dire educational situation among these populations. As a result of these findings, the Indian Education Act (PDF) was passed, establishing a comprehensive approach designed to meet the unique cultural needs of American Indian and Alaska Native students.

The act recognized that American Indians have education and academic needs, as well as distinct language and cultural needs. It provided services to American Indians and Alaska Natives that are not provided by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. It also represented the only comprehensive federal Indian education legislation that dealt with American Indian education from pre-school to graduate level education.

The Indian Education Act also established several competitive grant programs for Indian children and adults. In 1974, the original law was amended to add teacher training and fellowship programs.

A 1988 amendment gave Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) schools the ability to apply for formula grants and provided funds for Gifted and Talented education. Then, in 1994, the Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994 authorized Indian Education as Title IX Part A. This reauthorized formula grants for Indian schools and added a comprehensive plan to meet the academic and culturally related academic needs of American Indian and Alaska Native students.

The most recent amendment to the original law was made by 2001’s No Child Left Behind Act. NCLB reauthorized the program as Title VII Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. As part of NCLB, grants to American Indian and Alaska Native schools will be based on state academic achievement standards used for all students.

The Office of Indian Education is often confused with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, located within the Department of the Interior, which also works to improve Indian education and Indian rights. But BIA works primarily to save and protect millions of acres of land held in trust by the United States for American Indians, Indian tribes and Alaska Natives, while its education efforts run secondary in its mission. BIA schools for Indian children receive funds from OIE.

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What it Does:

The Office of Indian Education (OIE), one of five offices in the Office of Secondary and Elementary Education, administers the Indian Education Program of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001. Although NCLB does not change the agency’s original 1972 mandate to facilitate greater educational opportunities for American Indians and Alaska Natives, it attempts to provide greater accountability and flexibility in use of federal funds.

The primary function of OIE is to design and oversee a comprehensive system for administering Indian formula and discretionary grants; prepare and track performance indicators of grant program’s efficacy and help carry out national evaluations of OIE programs; provide leadership for Department of Education-wide policy coordination and help formulate policy and guidance; and develop and implement a system for maintaining open communications with the National Advisory Council on Indian Education (NACIE) and other educational organizations.

Under the Indian Education Program, OIE is the only office that is able to bypass state agencies and award grants directly to local education agencies (LEAs). In addition, OIE works with the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) and the National Indian Education Study (NIES) to develop research for improving Indian education and for the administration of the national activity grants. OIE also funds grants for schools under the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). OIE represents only a fraction of the total department resources for Indian students, but consults on policy matters with all department programs affecting Indian children and adults.

OIE is responsible for three main components, including providing demonstration grants for Indian children, such as school readiness projects and college preparatory programs; Indian education formula grants which can be given directly to LEAs to reform school programs; and Indian educational development program grants that are used to train teachers and school administrators.

In October 2003, OIE was elevated to report to the Office of the Under Secretary (OUS) rather than to the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE), although it continues to operate within the OESE.

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Where Does the Money Go:

In 2008, there were 96 formula grants (PDF) to LEAs worth $1.9 million.

In 2007, the Office of Indian Education awarded 45 professional development grants totaling more than $12 million. As well, the agency awarded 1,237 formula grants to local education agencies in 2007 that served 474,867 students.

More than 44% of OIE’s grants go to programs in Oklahoma, Arizona and Alaska, despite the fact that only 14% of the Native American population lives in these three states.

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Controversies:

OIE Accused of Funding non-Indian Education

According to the blog On the Wings of Eagles, the Office of Indian Education has repeatedly diverted funding to schools with no Indian students. OIE has approved grants to 25 Arkansas school districts without Indian students, and millions of dollars of OIE funds were spent on wireless computer labs and science programs that aided non-Indian students. Arkansas officials lauded the OIE grant diversion as a method to replace decreasing state educational funds in the state school system. The blog also reported that OIE, along with Arkansas school districts and the Lost Cherokee of Arkansas and Missouri, were under investigation by the Department of Education.

Office of Indian Education Diversion Of Funds (blog, On The Wings Of Eagles)

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Table of Contents
Overview
History
What it Does
Where Does the Money Go
Controversies
Suggested Reforms
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Founded: 1972

Annual Budget: $119.5 million

Employees:

Official Website: http://www.indianeducation.org/index.cfm?c=4

Office of Indian Education

Silverthorne, Joyce

Director

Since September 2011, the nation’s lead official on issues of Native American education has been Joyce A. Silverthorne, who succeeded Jenelle Leonard, the acting director since August 2010. Located in the Department of Education, the Office of Indian Education is responsible for supporting local educational agencies, Indian tribes and organizations to meet the academic needs of American Indians and Alaska Natives.

A self-described “air force brat,” Silverthorne was born circa 1947 and grew up at various Air Force bases around the world. Her mother, a full-blood enrolled member of the Kickapoo Tribe of Kansas, and her father, an enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation, Montana, met in Washington, D.C.

In 1977, Bachelor of Arts degree in business education at the University of Montana and a

masters degree in secondary education administration in 1990, also from the University of Montana. She completed all work except a dissertation for a doctorate in Education at Gonzaga University in 2004.

A certified teacher and administrator, Silverthorne taught at Two River Eagle School and she taught and worked as a manager of the bilingual education personnel training program at Salish Kootenai College.

An enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Joyce Silverthorne was director of the Tribal Education Department for the Tribes from 1999 to 2007, and served two years as Montana Education Superintendent Denise Juneau’s P-20 Education (i.e., preschool to college) policy advisor starting in December 2008. She also served as a gubernatorial appointee to the Montana Board of Public Education for 10 years.

Silverthorne is a mother of four children and a grandmother.

-Matt Bewig

Official Biography

Language Preservation and Human Resources Development (by Joyce A. Silverthorne)

Talks on Video by Silverthorne

Joyce Silverthorne: Prejudice is an Equal Opportunity Problem (by Israel Tockman and Alice Tejkalová, Common Ground)

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Leonard, Jenelle

Previous Acting Director

The Acting Director of the Office of Indian Education since August 2010, Jenelle Leonard has more than 30 years of experience as an educator, including work as a public school teacher and administrator, a technology implementation and training consultant, a college professor, and a regional and state education department administrator. Her specialty has been bringing technology programs to schools.

While working in the Houston region school system, Leonard developed a program that emphasized teaching technology to staff members. She moved to Washington D.C. in 1981 and tried to introduce this training-oriented program. However the DC schools were not ready for a “microcomputer consultant,” so Leonard began teaching college-level English, while serving as a volunteer at her daughter’s school, teaching teachers. When the DC school district woke up to the need for computer training two years later, Leonard was chosen to lead the teacher training center. She eventually became the director of the Computer Literacy Training Laboratory for the District of Columbia Public Schools.

By 1992, she was back in Texas as the Texas Education Agency's senior director for technology services.

Leonard has also held supervisory- and technology-related positions in Prince William County Public Schools in Manassas, Virginia,and at BDM Education Technologies Group, a K-12 consulting company.

From 1997 to 1998 Leonard served nearly a year and a half as a consultant at the U. S. Department of Education in the Office of Educational Technology. She advised on issues related to the development and implementation of technology initiatives and national goals, such as professional development, telecommunications technologies, curriculum integration, and instructional applications.

She later served as leader of the Education Department’s Technology Innovation Challenge Grant Program (TICG). In addition to managing the TICG Program, which included developing national guideline materials and policies, reviewing and issuing grants, program monitoring, and program evaluation, she served as an agency consultant, providing guidance within the department, as well as to state and local organizations, institutions and agencies.

In October 2001, Leonard was appointed to the board of advisors of Classroom Connect Inc., a private company involved in teacher development programs.

In December 2002, Leonard joined the School Support and Technology Programs (SSTP) Office in the Education Department as program manager/team leader of the State Technology Grants Program.

After that she was the group leader for the Technology and Flexibility Group, in the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE). Her primary responsibilities were to supervise staff assigned to the group, and coordinate, manage, administer and oversee 11 different programs, which included the state technology formula grants and the Rural Education Achievement Program.

Prior to becoming acting director of the Office of Indian Education, Leonard ran the Office for School Support and Technology.

Official Biography (Department of Education)

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Office of Indian Education

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