were mentioned in the text of the report. These were: (1) that the white children in the public schools of rural North Dakota and South Dakota achieved significantly higher scores at every grade level than the white children in the rural schools of eastern Oklahoma; and (2) that both the white children and Indian children in the public schools of Montana and Wyoming, which had been integrated for a generation, said that all or most of their friends were of their own race. All of these findings were actually precursors of the findings of the monumental "Equality of Educational Opportunity," commonly referred to as the "Coleman Report," which was conducted by the United States Office of Education some ten years later in 1965. In the early and middle 1950's, such comparative data were rare.

There is a tendency for unanticipated and distasteful research data to be ignored and misinterpreted. The Coleman Report suffered the same fate. We will return to a discussion of the report later in this paper. Actually, Beatty was disappointed in the University of Kansas findings, which appeared after he had left the BIA. He had hoped that improvements, which he felt he had made in BIA schools after the war, would be reflected in something close to parity between the achievement of BIA pupils and the white pupils in public schools. He was mistaken. It would be some years before even professional educators would understand that disadvantaged and culturally different pupils would not achieve such parity, short term, simply by attending good schools.

The Eisenhower-Emmons Era

The years of the Eisenhower administration from 1953 to 1961 were not brilliant ones for Indian education. This was the decade of House Concurrent Resolution 108, previously alluded to, which sought to terminate the government's role as trustee. Actually, termination was accomplished with the Menominee and the Klamath tribes, and while termination was repudiated as national policy before the decade was out, the government continued to define its trusteeship very narrowly. For example, federal educational services, whether performed directly by the BIA or by contract with the states under the authority of the Johnson-O'Malley Act, was provided solely on the basis of the tax exempt status of Indian land held in trusteeship by the federal government. Thus, federal educational services were awarded only to Indians living on reservations and were denied to urban Indians, even though the latter might have moved to the city with the encouragement of the BIA's "relocation" branch, later renamed "employment assistance." Treaty obligations were considered to be of little effect.

Actually, the concern of the federal government, including the BIA, seemed to be more in the direction of compensating states and local school districts for loss of tax revenue. Later in the decade, tax exempt Indian land was included under the "federal impact" principle, and public school districts were compensated by P.L. 874 and P.L. 815 funds administered by the United States Office of Education. Navajo Emergency Education Program

During most of the Eisenhower administration, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs was Glenn Emmons. The attitudes concerning rela

tions between Indians and the federal government of Mr. Emmons, a Gallup, New Mexico banker, and, say, John Collier, an anthropologist, were light years apart. Emmons believed that Indian children should be in public schools wherever possible and the transfer of Indian pupils to public schools went on apace during his administration. But, importantly and to his credit, Emmons believed that Indian children should be in some kind of school. So, between 1953 and 1955, the Navajo Emergency Education Program was carried out. This involved a crash building program on the Navajo reservation, including the expansion of many existing boarding school facilities. Much of the construction was woefully substandard and, fortunately, most of it has since been replaced.

The Bordertown Program

A unique part of NEEP was what came to be known as the the "bordertown" program. This consisted of the BIA's building dormitories in eight communities near to but not on the reservation, compensating the school districts for the construction of additional classrooms, and paying the district tuition for the education of the pupils. Approximately 1,000 Navajo pupils were accommodated in this way each year. In 1965, at the direction of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the BIA evaluated this program and concluded that public schools being established on the Navajo reservation provided a better long-range solution because pupils could live at home with less disruption of family life and the Navajo community could exercise control of the school. In 1971, the program was again evaluated by the Southwestern Cooperative Educational Laboratory at the request of the Navajo Tribe and the BIA. Somewhat surprisingly, in view of the supposedly important disadvantages cited previously, students, graduates, parents, teachers, school officials, and townspeople expressed general satisfaction with the program and recommended that it be continued.

Indians in Public Schools

By 1970, two of every three Indian pupils were enrolled in a public school. This movement toward the public schools had begun in the 1940's and had accelerated sharply in the 1950's. Many people could not understand what the federal government was doing in the school business anyway. Education has traditionally been a state and local function in America. At some point during the 1930's or 1940's, the Congress had passed a law requiring that BIA schools in South Dakota follow the state course of study. The financial contributions of the federal government to state and local schools under the JohnsonO'Malley and "federal impact" laws has been discussed earlier.

Following the Supreme Court's school desegregation decision in 1954, the impetus toward public school enrollment was heightened. More than once the BIA was called upon by a member of Congress or some other interested person to explain why it did not consider itself to be in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by operating racially segregated schools. The BIA could only explain that it did not operate schools for purposes of racial segregation but only to provide educational opportunity to Indian pupils who otherwise would be without it.

The Coleman Report found that in 1965 Indian pupils in public schools were the "most integrated" of any ethnic group. That is, they, more than any other ethnic group, including whites, had a preponderance of classmates of some ethnicity other than their own. By 1965, the BIA found that Indians represented only about ten percent of the enrollment of the public schools to which they paid Johnson-O'Malley aid.

Yet, the relationship between the public schools and Indians and the public schools and the BIA has frequently been an uneasy one. Indian parents often complain of feeling like "outsiders," and it is quite obvious that in most public schools, Indians cannot exercise much control because of their small numbers. On the other hand, public school officials sometimes resent the "Feds" if they think the BIA is trying to supervise or advise them, while BIA personnel frequently have felt that public school people have little expertise and even less interest in understanding the special educational needs of the Indian student and providing for them.

The Kennedy-Udall-Nash Years

John F. Kennedy took office in January of 1961 and named Stewart Udall as his Secretary of the Interior. It is clear now that at that moment the BIA's educational apparatus was due for a shaking up. Udall displayed a keen personal interest in Indian affairs and very soon appointed a task force to investigate it. It was the better part of a year before a new commissioner was named, and when the appointment came, it proved to be Philleo Nash, a member of that task force. Nash was an anthropologist by training and a politician and public administrator by choice. He entered upon his new assignment with zest. He was well liked by Indian leaders throughout the country and played an active role in the "nuts and bolts" operation of his agency as, for example, in the budget and appropriations process. He came in with a rather poor opinion of the BIA's education program but thought better of it as time went on

Hildegard Thompson stayed on as director of education. Always the professional, she concentrated during these years on trying to improve the quality of the education program, as she had in the past. She promoted the in-service training of BIA education employees through summer workshops. She and her staff developed operating standards for boarding and day schools and construction standards for new school buildings to replace outmoded, dilapidated, and unsafe facilities. She upgraded the professional standards of pupil guidance personnel. In 1962, she inaugurated a master teacher grade with a substantial pay differential for teaching excellence.

An adult education program begun in 1955 in five Indian communities had spread by 1965 to 192 communities with activities varying from literacy training to community development. Summer programs for children and youth, many sponsored by Indian tribes and communities and designed to provide learning opportunity throughout the year, grew from an enrollment of 2,000 in 1960 to 26,000 in 1964. In 1963, the Institute of American Indian Arts, widely acclaimed for its concept and excellence, was established. During the ten-year period

from 1955 onward, the number of Indian youth continuing their education beyond high school increased from 2,300 to 7,000, and BIA funds available for scholarship aid at the college level grew from a little over $9,000 to $1,150,000. During her thirteen-year tenure, the number of Indian children in school grew from 99.000 to 134,000, and the number of school age children not in school declined from nearly 20,000 to less than 9,000.

These accomplishments, while substantial, were not controversial, and they were not dramatized. An enormous amount of time was devoted to budget development and the appropriation process in order to get the wherewithal to put programs into action.

One policy and program change, which Mrs. Thompson instituted in 1958, aroused some little controversy. This was the deferring of the start of vocational training until the last two years of high school and its completion during the post high school years. The rationale for this was the increasing complexity of work and the greater need for a better academic base in such skills as communication, mathematics, and science. Some older Indian people were not persuaded by this argument and feared that youths would not secure the job skills necessary to earn a living.

As 1965 approached, Mrs. Thompson sensed the storm of controversy that was gathering around Indian education and rightly guessed that there was nothing she could do about it. She voluntarily retired in November of 1965.

The Udall-Nash-Bennett Relationship

Eight months elapsed after Hildegard Thompson's retirement before her successor was named and on the job. But, a good deal happened in those eight months nevertheless. Secretary Udall made it quite clear that he was very dissatisfied with the educational program of the BIA. He felt that the evidence was plain: Indian students did not achieve as well in school as white students, and they fell farther behind the longer they went; they dropped out of school earlier and in greater numbers than white students; fewer of them went to college and fewer of them graduated. Education was not the only thing wrong with the BIA-unemployment among Indians was as high as 40 percent and per capita income was about $1,500.

By the early spring of 1966, Philleo Nash was out as commissioner, his resignation having been called for, and Robert L. Bennett was in. Bennett, a member of the Oneida tribe, was the first commissioner of Indian ancestry since the Civil War. A career man with the BIA, he came to Washington from Alaska where he had been the BIA's area director. He was a graduate of Haskell Indian Institute.

Immediately upon Bennett's appointment, Secretary Udall called a meeting of BIA officials at Santa Fe. While the main subject matter of the conference had to do with reservation economics, a block of time was also allotted to a panel of BIA educators for a discussion of ideas for improving the education program. It was revealed that a forthcoming organizational change would give the education branch divisional status headed by an assistant commissioner, who would have line authority. It was also made clear that the new assistant commissioner would be selected from outside the BIA.

Interim Activities

While awaiting the selection of the new assistant commissioner, some rather significant developments took place under a "caretaker" acting director of education. During the spring, an agreement was reached whereby the Rough Rock Boarding School, a newly constructed facility on the Navajo reservation, would be taken over and operated by a Navajo corporation called Dine. It was to be munificently funded jointly by the Office of Economic Opportunity and the BIA, and it would be called the Rough Rock Demonstration School. Also, work went on cooperatively between the BIA and the U.S. Office of Education to include Indian pupils in public schools in the benefits of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, passed the year before. Efforts went forward, as well, between BIA, USOE, and the Congress to include, by amendment, Indians in BIA schools in the benefits of ESEA. Of course, there was always the budget and appropriations seeking which had by then become a year-round operation.

Carl Marburger

Carl Marburger became assistant commissioner for education on July 6, 1966. He came from Detroit, where he had been an assistant superintendent of schools, responsible for programs for disadvantaged pupils. He had also been a consultant to USOE, which recommended him to Secretary Udall. Commissioner Bennett did not participate in the selection and did not meet Marburger until after he had reported for duty. Dr. Marburger was personable, and while he knew nothing about Indians, he knew a great deal about disadvantaged urban children. He was greeted with real enthusiasm by Indian activists and by people in the Great Society programs. He was well received by BIA educators but less well by BIA area directors, whom he wished to bypass in dealing with BIA school officials.

Marburger stayed with the BIA exactly one year before leaving to become commissioner of education for the State of New Jersey. It is hard to assess his accomplishments in that brief time. Much of his time was spent getting the feel of his new job. There are two important things that he definitely accomplished. He organized the Indian Education Advisory Committee composed of 16 tribal leaders from all parts of the country, the first such consultative group ever created. He also worked out in cooperation with USOE the BIA participation in the Elementary and Secondary Act program, which gave BIA education a tremendous financial lift.

Charles N. Zellers

Charles N. Zellers, who followed Carl Marburger in September of 1967 as assistant commissioner for education, lasted out the decade but not much more. Commissioner Bennett had departed before Zellers did, both of them apparently casualties of political change, or changing ideologies, following Richard Nixon's inauguration in January of 1969. Louis Bruce, a Mohawk-Sioux Indian, succeeded Bennett. Zellers, trained in business administration rather than education, had worked in the District of Columbia school system and the U.S. Office of Education.