The Rapid City Journal dead-tree version reports that the Winner School District will pay $100,000 in legal fees. A neighbor notes this is two million buffalo-head nickels. This ought to send a message to Native Americans. Study hard, become a lawyer and screw the taxpayers. I guess more power to them. There are surely enough incompetent and/or lazy government administrators around to keep taxpayers scratching for cash to pay wasted taxes for many years.
The RCJ story suggests that there might be something in the neighborhood of 100 Native Americans in the Winner School. You don't have to be a math wizard to see that $1000 per Native American was wasted. And probably $100 per student of all nationalities and colors.
The woman quoted in the RCJ was the GRANDMOTHER of one of the children involved. Does this suggest where part of the discipline problem comes from? Alan Aker in the RCJ Father's Day column mentioned that impact on students in schools.
Perhaps the tribal governments need to be looking at what they can do in their own communities to stimulate education and child care instead of blaming schools for the problems. There may be something buried in the agreement to that effect, but it sure isn't blatantly obvious in the press release.
Without cooperation of the Native American governments and families and effort by them, four years will pass and all the problems that now exist will still exist and they will still be blaming everybody but themselves.
Native Americans may be celebrating this as another great victory, but it will be a very hollow victory if it just sets their children up for even more glorious failures in the future.
A Native American author on SD Public Radio noted that it is past the time for Native Americans using excuses to justify failure. The opportunities are there if they are willing to work with the gifts given them.
There is nothing that suggests Native Americans do not have the same or better mental potential than any other race. They and all the other kids in schools need to know they are being handed opportunity by the daily lesson. Take it or leave it, but don't blame somebody else if you don't take advantage of the gift. A good mind is a terrible thing to waste no matter what color skin covers it.
All that said, instructors and professors from grade school through college need to be able to tell students why what they are learning is important. Learning without reason for many students is as meaningful and rewarding as learning long strings of random numbers. If teachers can't justify the need for the learning, they ought not be teaching or they better find out the actual reason. If there is no reason, it is time for curriculum reform. How many dates from history can you remember? Do you really remember what the exports are that come from every country in the world? Why if there are encylopedias, online databases, textbooks, etc are schools not spending more time on teaching what information you may need in the future and where to find it when you need it? Obviously there is information that students need to have stuck firmly in their heads. Being able to read and write is one part of that. Common sense that seems too uncommon..like the difference between easily reversible and irreversible or impossibly expensive to reverse decisions. Waste and sloth are not just religious problems, but personal and social problems. Make your own list.
Schools are failing. Parents are failing. No child left behind is not a solution. It is more of the problem where money is pissed away on testing that primarily rewards companies with Bush family connections or which have made major contributions to Bush,Inc..
I have now wasted more time on this. My guess is this and the settlement as it now appears are all just more pissing in the wind.
**Stay tuned..and watch out for the wind--- Doug Wiken
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