IN SUPPORT OF USING NATIVE LANGUAGES, HISTORY AND CULTURE TO ENRICH AND SUPPLEMENT ACADEMIC INSTRUCTION FOR NATIVE AMERICAN STUDENTS

WHEREAS, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948 states in Article 26 that "Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children," and the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities adopted by the U.N. in 1992 declares in Article 1 that "States shall protect the existence and the national or ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic identity of minorities within their respective territories and shall encourage conditions for the promotion of that identity. Article 2 affirms that "Persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities…have the right to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion and to use their own language, in private and in public, freely and without interference or any form of discrimination"; and

WHEREAS, for most of U.S. history, the basic human rights outlined by the U.N. in 1948 were denied, and it was the policy of the U.S. government to assimilate Indian students into the mainstream English-speaking population through schools in which the speaking of Native languages was suppressed, and study after study and investigation after investigation from the 1928 Meriam Report on has shown that this policy was not successful and that the academic achievement of American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian students lagged far behind national averages; and

WHEREAS, the most recent study, Status and Trends in the Education of American Indians and Alaska Natives (2005), issued by the U.S. government’s National Center for Education Statistics, shows Natives with three times the White unemployment rate and more than twice the White dropout rate, the highest 15-19 death rate, the highest percentage of special education students, the highest absenteeism, the less likely to have completed core academic programs in their schools, and most affected by school violence; and

WHEREAS, in 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed the Native American Languages Act, affirming the U.S. government’s commitment to uphold the U.N. ideals expressed above. This act declared it U.S. government policy to "preserve, protect, and promote the rights and freedom of Native Americans to use, practice, and develop Native American languages." In it, Congress found that "there is convincing evidence that student achievement and performance, community and school pride, and educational opportunity is clearly and directly tied to respect for, and support of, the first language of the child or student" and made it government policy to "recognize the right of Indian tribes and other Native American governing bodies to use the Native American languages as a medium of instruction in all schools funded by the secretary of the Interior"; and

WHEREAS, in 1991, the U.S. government’s Indian Nations at Risk Task Force set for its second goal that "By the year 2000 all schools will offer Native students the opportunity to maintain and develop their tribal languages and will create a multicultural environment that enhances the many cultures represented in the school." This admirable goal is still far from being achieved in 2006; and

WHEREAS, more and more evidence is being collected that schools that start by immersing their Native students in their heritage language and introduce English later have English language test scores in the upper grades that exceed the scores of Native students with an all-English education and also have lower dropout rates (See e.g., Johnson, F.T., & Wilson, J. (2005). Navajo Immersion in the Navajo Nation. NABE News, 28(4), 30-31 and Reyhner, J. (1990). A Description of the Rock Point Community School Bilingual Education Program. In J. Reyhner (Ed.), Effective Language Education Practices and Native Language Survival (pp. 95-106). Choctaw, OK: Native American Language Issues):

RESOLVED, that the American Federation of Teachers support bills in Congress that fund Native language immersion programs so that Native American students can use, practice and develop their Native American language; and

RESOLVED, that the AFT join with other organizations, such as the National Indian Education Association, to have the U.S. government fully fund the development of Native language immersion programs in public and BIA schools for American Indian and Hawaiian and Alaskan Native students as guaranteed in the 1990 Native American Languages Act.