Political Quotes

“I rise today to introduce the Native culture, language, and access for success in schools bill, Native CLASS. As a former educator, I understand the critical role of education, not just to the life of a young person, but also to the future of a culture and a community. For too long, the Native people of this country have lived with a substandard education system that lacks cultural relevance and is burdened with administrative challenges and severe underfunding. Three major reports by the Federal Government on Native education since 1928 have demonstrated little, if any, improvement in the education of Native people in the past 80 years. This ailing system has resulted in some of the worst education outcomes in the country. On average, in the States with the highest Native populations, the graduation rates for Native students are lower than the graduation rates for all other racial/ethnic groups, hovering well below 50 percent. We can no longer tolerate this, especially because our Federal Government has a unique trust obligation to provide a quality education to its Native people. Native languages and cultures are the roots of all Native peoples, and to oki, to cut those roots is to inherently harm the Native peoples. The comprehensive legislation I am introducing today puts forward a new vision of Native education, one that is grounded in culture, language, and local community control.…”