Montana students learn Indigenous issues — or, at least, they’re supposed to. The state is the only one in the nation with a constitutional mandate to educate students on Native cultures and contributions.
Last month, Montana settled with the ACLU, tribal nations, the Native American Rights Fund, students and parents over a lawsuit alleging that it was responsible for certain schools’ and districts’ failures to provide sufficient Indian education as required by law.
“Montana’s Constitution has a really unique provision recognizing the distinct and unique cultural heritage of Natives since 1972,” said Samantha Blencke, senior staff attorney with the Native American Rights Fund. “The Indian Education for All statute (IEFA) was enacted in 1999 to implement that constitutional promise. And then this settlement is about making those words into a legal commitment.”
While the state has not lacked the resources and legal clarity to implement IEFA, she added, it has acted inconsistently: Some public school districts have provided quality Indian education, while others — slightly more than half, Blencke said — have not, even though “it’s not a new program, or an optional program.”
If implemented consistently, Montana’s IEFA provision could provide a blueprint for other states looking to strengthen their curriculums for Native and non-Native students alike. The settlement also shows how much pressure it sometimes takes before states implement their own laws — a struggle familiar to many tribal nations.
ARTICLE X of the 1972 Montana Constitution guarantees equal educational opportunity for all and says that the state “recognizes the distinct and unique cultural heritage of the American Indians and is committed in its educational goals to the preservation of their cultural integrity.” With the exception of Hawai’i, other Western state constitutions offer few protections for Indigenous cultures.
In 1999, Montanans updated Article X with IEFA, which compels educators to work with tribal nations on curricula that present “the cultural heritage and contemporary contributions of American Indians, with particular emphasis on Montana Indian tribal groups and governments.” The goal, according to the Office of Public Instruction, is to ensure cultural enrichment, academic engagement and equitable teaching.
But according to Alex Rate, legal director of ACLU Montana, this hasn’t always happened. “We knew that we had this fabulous constitutional provision related to Indian education,” Rate told HCN, “but anecdotally, we had been hearing from various pockets of the state that people were not seeing any Indian education in public schools.” Following community outrage, he said, the ACLU submitted public records requests to find out how IEFA funding was spent.
Their investigation, which began by 2019, revealed that while the state Legislature appropriated millions of dollars each year for Indian education, only about half of it was accounted for. Some schools were doing great, Rate said, but others reported inappropriate expenditures — on library books unrelated to Indigenous issues, or on funding a librarian’s salary — and still others didn’t report IEFA spending at all. “We didn’t have any transparency into whether or not a school was buying a scoreboard for the football stadium with Indian education money,” Rate said. “Obviously, that’s not the intent behind the constitutional provision.”
The ACLU reached out to parents and tribal nations and found “a collective desire to file a lawsuit,” Rate said. In 2021, the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, Fort Belknap Indian Community, Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians of Montana joined as plaintiffs. Later, the Crow Tribe joined as well.
But who was responsible: individual teachers, schools, districts or the state? “We could have sued a local school district that was failing to implement Indian education,” Rate said. But to maximize impact statewide, they identified two state agencies responsible for supervising Montana’s public education: the Office of Public Instruction and the Board of Public Education. “The point here,” Rate said, “was to ensure that the guarantees of the Montana Constitution, the promises that were made, were not just words on paper.”
“The point here was to ensure that the guarantees of the Montana Constitution, the promises that were made, were not just words on paper.”
GROWING UP IN A predominantly white urban community in the Midwest, Jason Dropik (Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians) said his education about Native people was limited to about “one paragraph in a fourth-grade textbook.” And it got worse: “The teacher knew that I was Native and said, ‘Can you teach us about Natives?’” When he was a school administrator, he said, teachers told him that their students didn’t even know that Native people lived in their communities — an experience that is not uncommon across the West.
Dropik is now the executive director of the National Indian Education Association (NIEA), a nonprofit dedicated to influencing local, state and federal policy to improve the education of Native children and promote Native languages and cultures.
NIEA has found that while 92% to 93% of Native students attend public schools nationwide, the majority of their teachers — even in predominantly Native schools — are white. And Native students are more likely than any other racial group to report fearing attacks at school – about three times more likely than the average American kid.
“The research strongly supports across contexts and experiences the sense of identity and your sense of belonging to space, what that can do for, first and foremost, safety,” Dropik told HCN. “That is really important, just knowing that you are valued within a community.” Safety, he added, leads to better attendance and, ultimately, greater educational attainment.
Improving Indian education, he added, begins with state leaders, districts and schools establishing good relationships with tribal nations in their areas.
“That is really important, just knowing that you are valued within a community.”
Many Western states have, in lieu of a constitutional provision, departments or legislation promoting Indigenous education. Oregon and Washington require collaboration with tribal nations on K-12 curriculums. California and New Mexico have Indian Education Acts, while Arizona, Colorado, Idaho and Alaska have offices or departments dedicated to Indigenous education. In 2018, Wyoming required public schools to include “the history, traditional culture and contemporary contributions of Wyoming and regional Native American tribes” in social studies content and performance standards. And Nevada has Indian education legislative efforts dating back to 1997, with some funding ups and downs.
Rate says Montanans provide an example others can follow. “Legislation can come and legislation can go,” Rate said. “Even in the gerrymandered, hyperpartisan world that we live in, the protections that exist in the Constitution remain foundational.”
THE TWO-PART SETTLEMENT with the Montana Board of Public Education in May and the Office of Public Instruction last month affirms that the state is responsible for overseeing implementation of IEFA at a district level and in specific schools that are falling short — something Rate said Montana initially denied.
“This settlement and this accountability framework offers a useful model for other states,” said Blencke. “A legal or policy statement isn’t enough. States need systems that say who’s responsible, what evidence is required, how compliance is reviewed, and what happens when it’s not met.” She said the settlement holds existing policy to clear, substantive expectations, and, importantly, emphasizes building lasting government-to-government relationships between state government and tribal nations.
Rather than money, the settlements promise teacher training, spending documentation and audits and tribal consultation on curriculum development. Neither state agency admitted to any wrongdoing, but both agreed to undertake more active oversight to ensure that districts and specific schools meet state-mandated requirements.
“I am pleased that an agreement has been reached in this five-year lawsuit and that we can move forward with ensuring every Montana student receives authentic instruction on our state’s tribal nations,” said Montana Superintendent Susie Hedalen, who leads the OPI, in a statement emailed to HCN. “In Montana, we support all students and work to ensure they are seen and supported.”
“This settlement is a long overdue step toward honoring the promise that Montana made to its students in 1972, that every child learns about the histories and cultures of our Tribal Nations,” said Michael Dolson, Council Chairman of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, in a press release. “Indian Education for All builds the understanding and respect that all of our communities need.” (HCN reached out to all six tribal nations involved in the settlement, but did not receive responses by press time. The Board of Public Education declined to comment for this story, but Chair Tim Tharp said, in a statement in May, “Our time and efforts are better spent working to improve education for all students in Montana and not arguing in court.”)
Dropik said that state entities should approach tribal nations to build relationships, rather than make transactions. “Let’s just be present because we’re curious and because we want to continue to support one another,” he said.
“When our common good is elevated, then everyone benefits.”
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