A Step Toward BIE Reform?

When it comes to providing children with the worst American public education has to offer, few operators are as woeful as the U.S. Bureau of Indian Education the federal agency that is a hybrid traditional district, state education agency, and charter school authorizer serving 48,000 native children. Fifty-nine percent of BIE eighth-graders scored Below Basic in 2013, double the 26 percent national average, according to results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress; the average BIE eighth-grader’s math performance is three grade levels below the national average for all middle-schoolers heading into high school. If it were a traditional district, BIE would rank as the second-worst in the nation after Detroit Public Schools.