The New Mexico Tribal Coalition – Rural Systemic Initiative (NMTC), a program of the Santa Fe Indian School (SFIS), recently completed its second year of funding. NMTC’s partnerships and relationships with all 12 schools that it serves are of utmost importance in order to assure a standards-based, inquiry-centered, K-12 mathematics and science education system that supports all learners in attaining success in vigorous, high-quality mathematics and science. In 1997, the Coalition of Educators for Native American Children (CENAC) was created to include all 12 schools that receive BIA funding and serve Indian students, the majority of whom are Pueblo. Through this coalition, these 12 small schools maximize their resources and address common problems. Teachers concerned about mathematics and science achievement in the CENAC schools came together and created the proposal for NMTC. This approach assured that partnerships and buy-in were strongly in place before the grant began.

Nationwide, Native American students score lowest of any ethnic group on all academic achievement indicators. Research shows that standardized test scores are culturally biased and do not accurately reflect minority students’ achievement. Research done by WestEd with NMTC’s Pueblo schools shows that standardized test questions can include information unfamiliar to students, language use that is unclear to the Pueblo population, and concepts that confuse Pueblo children. In a question asking children to add different items for a lunch and estimate by rounding up to the nearest dollar amount money needed for the week, Pueblo children had trouble with the term “at least,” stumbled over the wording “one dollar bills,” and were unfamiliar with the concept of buying lunch (all the schools provide a free lunch). Furthermore, students occasionally decided they could/should save their parents’ money by buying less food for lunch (Sharon Nelson-Barber, personal communication). Research also strongly suggests that minority students resist institutions of the dominant culture (McLaren, 1994; Ogbu, 1992; Smith, 2001). After 400 years of active resistance, encouraging children to learn dominant culture academics will take time and concentrated effort.

While the efforts during Year One focused primarily on partnerships with schools and the recruitment and initial training MST School Leaders (MSTz), Year Two expanded to include more intensive and comprehensive training of the MSTz, as well as reaching a larger group of instructional staff through other professional development opportunities, such as the Brain Compatible Teaching Strategies in Math and Science course. Year Three plans include more onsite whole staff professional development facilitated or supported by the MSTz.

Collecting accurate student achievement, staff demographics, training data for baseline, and developing a database for NMTC continue to be challenging. Although all the schools collect data, they are not collected and stored consistently throughout the CENAC schools. Also, because of a high turn over in principals at some schools, data have been collected in various ways, making accuracy questionable. Clearly there is a need for consistent data collection and storage that yield useful information for the schools and NMTC. Developing a useful database is a goal for NMTC because it would benefit schools, and it is an important tool for NMTC accountability.