A Landscape Analysis of State Efforts to Provide Native American Education for All
Native Americans are a vibrant and growing population with rich, distinct cultures and histories in the United States. However, Native peoples are invisible to many Americans. The 2016-2018 Reclaiming Native Truth (RNT) project – the largest research and strategy setting initiative ever conducted by and for Native peoples – found that the invisibility of Native peoples is pervasive and entrenched across all sectors of American society.
Education is one of the most powerful opinion shaping systems in America. Most Americans likely have attended or currently attend a school where information about Native Americans is either completely absent from the classroom or relegated to brief mentions, negative information, or inaccurate stereotypes. This results in an enduring and damaging narrative regarding Native peoples, tribal nations, and their citizens. Even though some exceptional efforts are happening around the country to bring accurate, culturally responsive, tribally specific, and contemporary content about Native Americans into mainstream education systems, much work remains to be done.
The newly released Becoming Visible Report is an analysis of the landscape of current state efforts to bring high-quality educational content about Native peoples and communities into all kindergarten to 12th grade (K-12) classrooms across the United States. The focus of this report is on state education policies and programs that support culturally responsive Native K-12 curricula for public schools.