One of Zellers' first moves was to continue what Marburger had begun, a reorganization and expansion of the Washington office staff. This involved the addition of specialists in the teaching of English as a second language, in early childhood education in anticipation of kindergarten, in curriculum development to better adapt the learning materials to the cultural background of students, and in psychological and guidance services to ameliorate the problems of boarding school students particularly. Perhaps, most significant was what was called Project TRIBE, a plan on the Rough Rock model described briefly earlier, whereby Indian groups could assume responsibility for the operation of their own school. In other words, Zellers tried to move to allay the most prevalent and virulent criticisms of BIA education: that the Indian culture, including the native languages, was being ignored and denigrated; that the boarding schools were barbaric and wreaking havoc with the mental health of the students in them; and that Indian tribes and communities were without authority or influence over the schools which served their children.

The last half of the decade of the 1960's was a turbulent period in the history of Indian education, and little has been written about it. It may still be too early to attempt an analysis, but perhaps a beginning can be made.

The BIA Historically

For those who are anti-establishment, the Bureau of Indian Affairs is a sitting target. Few agencies in the federal government have been established longer. It goes back to 1824, antedating the Department of Interior by a quarter of a century. It has always been an unpopular agency, reflecting the uneasy national conscience about our native population, which has ranged from rage and rancor to pious tears, bringing with it widely fluctuating policies. Many persons working for the BIA have looked with envy at the National Park Service, which brings so much happiness to millions of Americans each year. There has been a temptation for persons working in the BIA to develop what has been called a "garrison mentality," retreating into an in-group stockade as protection against the arrows and acid pens directed at them. This has been true of Indians as well as non-Indians. Yet, most BIA employees become very pro-Indian.

It was not strange then, that when the Senate Subcommittee on Education was approached in 1966 about including pupils in BIA schools in the benefits of ESEA, it raised the question of whether Indian education should not be moved to the Office of Education in HEW and asked Interior and HEW to jointly look into the matter. The two departments called Indian leaders together in Denver later that year and posed the question. The answer was a resounding "no," which was duly reported to the Senate. In 1967, Persident Johnson named a very secret White House task force to consider the same question. While its report was never made public, it is known that it recommended transfer of Indian education to the U.S. Office of Education and the Secretary of HEW was sent out to Kansas City to make the proposal to a gathering of Indian representatives. Again, the response was decidedly negative. Yet, a third time a leading anthropologist made the same recommendation to the new Nixon administration in

1969, and again, the National Congress of American Indians felt it necessary to veto the suggestion.

How can it be that Indians would wish to retain a agency with such a negative image? Is it not likely that Indians feel that for good or ill the BIA is their own peculiar and particular agency and they do not wish to get lost in the amorphous structure of HEW? While serving as a "lightning rod" for the frustrations of a wronged and deprived people may seem to be an inglorious role, it can be a useful

one.

The Great Society Programs

Beginning in 1964, the BIA, controversial as it was, confronted, or was confronted by, President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs. Having their genesis in the civil rights struggle beginning with the Supreme Court's desegregation decision in 1954, these programs heightened the public awareness of the problems of the socioeconomically disadvantaged minorities and brought about rising expectations among the minorities themselves. Beginning in 1964, there emerged the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Office of Economic Opportunity, Community Action programs, Job Corps, Vista, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and much more.

The initial reaction of the BIA was one of satisfaction that the mood of the nation had at last turned favorable toward the plight of American Indians and other disadvantaged peoples. It established liaison with the office of Economic Opportunity and its component parts. Rising expectations were not to be satisfied by a long-term effort and ancient wrongs could not wait to be righted in the next generation. Washington was soon full of bright eyed young people eager to set things right and looking for villains that had caused the problems. The BIA found that it was a prime suspect. This was a jarring experience for people who had not thought of themselves as villains. While it did not basically change the BIA's approval of the Great Society objectives, it made old line workers defensive. This posed a particular problem for Marburger and Zellers when they came in from outside to direct the education program. As Zellers said, being new, he could not accept either credit or blame for what had happened in the past. But, since the BIA was getting little credit and a great deal of blame, it was not hard for BIA people to understand what he meant. After all, he was now head of the education effort, bad image and all. He could not escape the fact, and it made it very hard for the BIA to succeed at anything.

A Basic Misconception

The criticism of the education of Indians was finally concentrated in the hearings and report of the Senate Subcommittee on Indian Education, popularly called the Kennedy Report. It was wholly condemnatory of both the federal and public school effort. There is persuasive evidence that from the outset, one of the objectives of the subcommittee was to effect the transfer of Indian education to HEW, but in the face of determined Indian opposition, it could not, in the end, recommend it. There were, however, two other very significant studies going on in the middle and later 1960's, which, if they had been paid attention to, would have relieved much of the obfuscation about

Indian education, which the Kennedy Report with its distortions had brought about. These were the Coleman Report alluded to earlier, and the National Study of Indian Education, commissioned by USOE and directed by Robert J. Havighurst of the University of Chicago. Criticism of the education of Indians usually was of two kinds: first, the legitimate complaints of overemphasis on acculturation, the neglect of Indian cultural materials in the curriculum, the shortage of Indians in the instructional force, the large number of Indian pupils in boarding schools, and the lack of an Indian voice in running the schools. At the same time, concern about the education of Indians was most often expressed in terms of educational deficit; their low educational attainment in terms of years of schooling, their low achievement as measured by standardized achievement tests, their high rate of dropout from school, the low percentage of high school graduates enrolling in college, the low college graduation rate, and sometimes the low self-concept of Indian students. These two lists of things were mentioned together so repeatedly that the idea of a cause and effect relationship took hold; that if the first list of things were eliminated, the educational deficits would disappear or at least would disappear more rapidly. There was no real evidence to support that conclusion. No doubt the evils included in the first list needed to be corrected for humane, or ethical, or democratic reasons, but there was no warrant for supposing that their correction would erase the educational deficit.

Indeed, Coleman had discovered that the deficits were common to all disadvantaged groups-Negroes, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Indians-and that Indians were the highest achieving of these groups, not the lowest. He concluded that the deficits were the product of the total society in which they had grown up and not primarily of the schools, although he concluded further that the disadvantaged students were far more dependent on the school for help than the more favored students. Havighurst, a respected sociologist of top rank stature nationally, reached basically the same conclusions. Havighurst, in addition, became so perturbed by some of the innuendos coming out of the Senate Subcommittee hearings that boarding schools were causing abnormally high suicide rates that he took special pains to investigate the charges and found no evidence to support them.

The Kennedy Report contained 60 recommendations, many of them worthwhile, some of them naive, but it did pave the way for greatly increased appropriations for Indian education and for special legislation making it possible for Indian groups to exercise much more authority in the education field.

The Prospect

As the Indian education enterprise headed into the 1970's, its future was uncertain, and this was particularly true of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. There had been a rapid turnover of leadership in the BIA, and this was to get worse. The preeminent issue of control of schools seemed to be crowding out a concern for quality education and for learning itself. There could be no question that Indian people sought. with a tenacity that was awesome, to preserve the best elements of the old culture, but there were not many signs, in spite of all the sound

and fury about self-determination, that anyone was doing much to find out just what the rank and file of Indian people really wanted in the way of education.

Biculturalism versus Acculturation-An Adversary Relationship

In 1970, this writer did a synthesis of the literature of the 1960's on the education of the American Indian. The study revealed two separate and not very sympathetic camps. On the one hand, are the biculturalists or cultural pluralists, most often scholars in the social sciences. On the other, are the acculturationists, often referred to by their critics as assimilationists. This group includes most educational practitioners at the elementary and secondary levels, at least. Both sides make gestures toward the "both... and" doctrine; that is, both the dignifying and the preserving of the native culture and the preparing of Indian youth to cope in the mainstream of American life. It is evident, however, that the cultural pluralists have their hearts in the first part-and the practitioners have theirs in the second part of the doctrine. Probably no one since Willard Beatty has worked hard enough at achieving a true combination of the two.

It is time for school people, whether of BIA, public, or denominational schools, to admit they have been remiss (and this needs to be said by someone who has been a part of the establishment) in not being sensitive enough to the bicultural needs of Indian people. Indian children do need to know about their history, their heroes, and the current affairs of their tribe. Their acquiring of English language skills must be based upon the language they already know. Indian parents must be involved in decision-making about the schools which serve their children. On the other hand, the critics of the schools are often intransigent in not trying to understand the practical problems with which school people are faced. For example, they do not admit the difficulty of securing enough trained, bilingual, Indian teachers, or they insist on believing that the BIA operates boarding schools only to save money or to annihilate Indian culture. It is time for détente in the Indian education cold war.

*

*The contents of Section E were provided by Madison Coombs, former Deputy Assistant for Education and Director of Educational Research, BIA, based on his experiences and recollections.

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