The Trump administration’s recent moves to dismantle the Department of Education have left Native American leaders feeling frustrated and unheard as several tribal education projects are caught in limbo between federal agencies.
Tribal leaders say they are seeking solutions to the lack of direction from the Department of Education as it tries to delegate some of its responsibilities through new interagency agreements. They say they are unsure about the logistics of some existing projects, from the movement of personnel to their financing under new agencies.
“In reality, we also need to be thinking about if this is going to happen, and it looks like it’s happening, then how can we step in to make sure that the transition goes the way that we would have recommended had we been consulted in the first place?” Jake Keyes, chair of the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma, told NOTUS.
Tribes are also wondering where they stand under the MAGA-led Department of Education that wants states to have more power over education — particularly the many tribal nations that are in red states.
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The agency announced in November that it would move several projects related to tribal education to the Department of the Interior and the Department of Labor. These projects span a wide range of tribal education matters, from professional development of teachers to grants for colleges run by tribes.
Under the Trump administration, the Department of Education has made clear its intention to dismantle the agency. Now that tribal education programs are caught up in the first wave of interagency agreements from the Department of Education, Native American leaders say they are increasingly concerned that the agency is willing to violate its trust and treaty responsibilities to tribes to achieve its goals.
“We have a preeminent right to education because of the treaties,” Aaron Payment, a board member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Michigan, told NOTUS. “The treaties exchanged two billion acres of land in exchange for the promise of health, education and social welfare. My tribe ceded 14 million acres of land for the promise of health, education and social welfare. That’s a federal responsibility, and that’s a federal constitutional right for American Indians.”
The Department of Education directed NOTUS to a statement from Secretary of Education Linda McMahon made on Feb. 11.
“This partnership is not just a policy: it is a promise rooted in trust, treaty obligations, and our shared responsibility to ensure that every Native American student has access to high-quality education and the opportunities that follow,” McMahon wrote in a press release.
A high concentration of tribal land is within Republican-controlled states, and some tribal leaders are concerned that if it is left up to states to decide how federal funds should be allocated to tribes, there could be issues.
One tribal leader gave the example of an education official in their state who is “pushing an English-only initiative.”
“We were able to talk to him, and he does understand that there was a guidance issued from U.S. ED, and that tribal languages and history is not [diversity, equity and inclusion],” said Derrick W. Leslie, the education director of the White Mountain Apache Tribe of Arizona. “And a lot of states, especially red states, tend to have this anti-DEI [sentiment], which is worrisome.”
Tribal leaders in Oklahoma echoed a similar sentiment. The state is often ranked 50th in education in the country. Before its MAGA-aligned state superintendent resigned in September, he threatened to withhold federal funding from schools that did not follow a Department of Education mandate to end DEI. In a state that is often the site of culture wars over DEI in education, the tribal leaders said their education seems particularly vulnerable.
“If the state had been in charge of Indian education throughout these past several years, that would have been devastating for us. On top of that, our state seems to have an issue with being able to actually even manage education,” Keyes said.
This month, the agencies began the formal process of consulting with tribes about facilitating the transfer of education programs, part of a formal process where agencies meet with tribal leaders about any policy change or action that has tribal implications. Tribal leaders traveled to Washington this month to meet with Department of Education officials, but many left the meeting frustrated and disappointed in a process they said seemed intended to placate leaders rather than solve issues.
Hundreds of people showed up online and in person to the consultation, and leaders were only given a few minutes each to speak.
The resounding sentiment at the consultation was: It’s too late to consult with tribes about a decision that has already been made.
“I feel like they were just checking a box to say that they met with tribes and they listened to tribes, but that the plan is already in motion,” Leslie told NOTUS.
Several tribal education leaders who were present at the consultation told NOTUS that leadership from the Departments of Education, Interior and Labor left no room for reconsideration and spoke about the interagency agreements as though they were already implemented.
These leaders — which included McMahon, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer — appeared only briefly during the nearly three-hour consultation.
In her statement, which is from the day after the consultation, McMahon said that the consultation was meant to help tribes “focus on serving students instead of complying with burdensome bureaucratic regulations.”
Tribal leadership only spoke directly with Julian Guerrero Jr., the director of the Office of Indian Education.
“I feel like the people that needed to hear those statements weren’t there,” Carrie F. Whitlow, the executive director of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Department of Education of Oklahoma, told NOTUS about the agency officials. “So by the time they got up there, the tone was that this is happening, and it’s been signed, and basically we are doing you all a favor.”
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