Heitkamp, Lankford, Daines Reintroduce Bipartisan Bill to Build Access to Cultural Educational Opportunities for Native Students

Press Release

U.S. Senators Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), James Lankford (R-OK), and Steve Daines (R-MT) reintroduced bipartisan legislation to make sure Native American students who are eligible for federal learning resources that can help address their unique academic and cultural needs are not prevented from accessing those critical programs.

Although the Bureau of Indian Affairs' (BIA) last official count of eligible Native students took place more than two decades ago, the federal government still relies on this severely outdated data to determine federal funding needs and distribution for the Johnson-O'Malley (JOM) program -- a federal cultural educational support program that works to boost academic achievement among underserved students in Native populations. By requiring the federal government to accurately count all Native students who could be served under the program, Heitkamp, Lankford, and Daines' bipartisan Johnson O'Malley Supplemental Indian Education Program Modernization Act would work to change that -- helping close significant gaps in access to programs that can help Native students improve academically.

"Native students are among America's most underserved youth, and for years the federal government has been neglecting its duty to help them access learning opportunities that can help them thrive," said Heitkamp. "By updating decades old data the federal government uses to determine federal funding for critical cultural and educational support for Native students, Senator Lankford and I are working to prevent Native children from falling through the cracks. We need strong bipartisan solution like this bill to build access to critical learning programs Native students need to succeed, and to build opportunities that make sure no Native child is forgotten."

"It is the tragic reality that American Indian students in some parts of the country must overcome many hardships as they seek a quality education. The Johnson O'Malley program provides much needed cultural and academic assistance to those students and helps open the door to a brighter tomorrow. This legislation corrects a twenty year old problem and ensures the program operates with an accurate count of Indian students attending public schools," said Lankford.

"We need to ensure that Native American students have the tools they need to learn," said Daines. "We can't properly help tribal communities in a meaningful way without knowing who and how many people we are serving. Education is the bridge to a brighter future and I'm determined to work to improve the educational systems in tribal communities."

"Senators Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) and James Lankford's (R-OK) Johnson-O'Malley Supplemental Indian Education Program Modernization Act will provide long needed and necessary updates to the JOM program which awards supplemental assistance to eligible Indian students from Federally-recognized Indian tribes that attend public schools; and for educational programs designed to meet their specialized and unique educational activities, ages 3 to grade 12," said James Whitman, an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes and former National Johnson O'Malley Association Board of Directors member representing the state of North Dakota. "The most important provision of this bill will result in the first update of the number of Indian students eligible for Johnson O'Malley services and assistance in over 20 years. Obtaining this eligible student count will drive the policy, program and funding discussions needed to make JOM more effective, meaningful and beneficial for all eligible Indian children."

Click here to learn more about Heitkamp, Lankford, and Daines' bill.

During a time when Native students graduate from high school at a rate far lower than any other racial or ethnic demographic in the country, Heitkamp, Lankford and Daines are working to make sure that the cultural programs in public schools that have linked to boosting Native students' morale, as well as academic performance and attendance, are readily available in classrooms. Despite the stark need for such programs, the last official count in 1995 by BIA, identified 271,884 Native students eligible for such resources. Since that time, the BIA has attempted to officially verify Native students eligible for the program without success, while the National Congress of American Indians has recently indicated a large gap in access to these programs -- with a marked increase of more than 500,000 Native young people nationwide in 2010 that could be eligible for JOM cultural resources.

Heitkamp, Lankford, and Daines' bipartisan bill would call on the U.S. Department of the Interior to update its severely outdated count of Native students in a timely manner by using existing public information from the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to show underserved students who are potentially eligible under the program. This data is crucial for making sure Native students in public schools can access the cultural and educational investments critical to their success.

In a U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs hearing last May, Heitkamp reinforced the need to pass her bipartisan bill to make sure programs designed to enrich the academic performance among Native students are reaching students as intended. Heitkamp has long worked to make sure Native young people living in Indian Country have access to the quality educational opportunities and resources they need to thrive by:

Identifying challenges faced by Native young people: Among Heitkamp's top priorities is to comprehensively address the challenges Native children face -- including inadequate access to educational opportunities. Her first bill introduced as a U.S. Senator, a bipartisan bill to create a Commission on Native Children, was signed into law last fall. Heitkamp has been pushing the President Trump and leaders of Congress to appoint more members to the Commission so it can begin its important work of studying the complex challenges facing Native children and make recommendations on how to make sure Native children get the protections, as well as economic and educational tools, they need to thrive.

Protecting and strengthening Native languages and cultures: Building on her work to reauthorize legislation to help preserve often endangered Native languages, Heitkamp encouraged Congressional leaders in November 2015 to protect cultural language enrichment and immersion programs in the U.S. Senate's K-12 education reform bill that boosts pride and morale in Native communities and improves students' academic performance and attendance.
Improving access to educational resources and opportunities for Native youth: Heitkamp has long promoted safe after-school programs like 21st Century Community Learning Centers for vulnerable and at-risk youth in Indian Country, and pushed to include provisions reinstating resources dedicated to such programs in the U.S. Senate's K-12 education reform bill in April 2015. Heitkamp also convened North Dakota educators to discuss challenges Native students in rural areas face in accessing academic opportunities, and met with the head of U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Rural Utilities Service (RUS) in 2014 on improving connectivity to make sure Native students in rural areas can access technology for educational and economic opportunities

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