After 54 years, why should Minnesota American Indian families believe Minneapolis Public Schools leadership when it says, once again, that better results are coming?
For more than half a century, Minneapolis has been at the center of the struggle for better educational outcomes for American Indian children. That struggle helped produce Indian Education programs, alter American Indian schools, develop culturally responsive curriculum, establish parent advisory structures, provide student support services, and formalize agreements between Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) and the American Indian community.
But after roughly 54 years of organized Indian-focused educational programming, Minneapolis must confront a difficult question:
What has Indian Education programming actually changed for the academic lives of American Indian students?
This is not a question about whether American Indian culture belongs in public education. It does. It is not a question about whether American Indian parents deserve a voice. They do. And it is certainly not a question about whether American Indian students are capable of succeeding.
The question is whether the educational system responsible for serving approximately 1,700 American Indian students is producing the academic outcomes those students deserve.
The history is important.
In the early 1970s, Minneapolis was already confronting a severe crisis involving American Indian students. A 1975 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights documented the Minneapolis Public Schools’ efforts to address the problem. During the 1966–67 school year, only 10 American Indian students reportedly graduated from Minneapolis public high schools. By 1971–72, that number had increased to 34, but Minneapolis Superintendent John B. Davis acknowledged that the improvement was nowhere near sufficient (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights [USCCR], 1975). The district had initiated a Student Support Program during the 1971–72 school year specifically to address the high American Indian dropout rate (USCCR, 1975). (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights)
At the same time, American Indian parents and community activists were increasingly rejecting the idea that Minneapolis’ conventional public schools were adequately educating their children.
The American Indian Movement (AIM), founded in Minneapolis in 1968, became an important force in that movement. In 1970, AIM announced plans for a school designed specifically around the cultural needs of urban American Indian students. In January 1972, the AIM Survival School opened in Minneapolis. It eventually became the Heart of the Earth Survival School, an institution that placed Indigenous culture, language, and identity at the center of education (Lurie, 2025). (Minnesota Historical Society)
The timing was significant. Congress enacted Title IV of the Indian Education Act in 1972, providing federal resources for American Indian and Alaska American Indian education. Those funds helped organizations such as Heart of the Earth develop and expand (Lurie, 2025). (Minnesota Historical Society)
The movement was born out of failure.
American Indian families were not demanding culturally relevant education because everything was working. They were demanding something different because too many children were being failed by the existing system.
More than five decades later, that historical context should make today’s data even more uncomfortable.
The academic numbers remain extraordinarily low.
Minneapolis Public Schools’ American Indian students recorded reading proficiency rates of approximately 20% in 2015, 25% in 2019, 20% in 2021, and 22% in 2022. Mathematics was worse: approximately 19% in 2015, 18% in 2019, 9% in 2021, and 9% in 2022 (Minnesota Department of Education [MDE], n.d.). MDE’s American Indian Student Achievement Report is specifically designed to track attendance, graduation, statewide assessment results, and other outcomes for American Indian students (MDE, n.d.). (Testing 123)
Those numbers should be impossible for a system that claims to have spent decades developing specialized supports for American Indian students.
In 2021 and 2022, fewer than one in ten American Indian students in the reported Minneapolis data met proficiency expectations in mathematics.
That is not a small achievement gap.
That is an academic emergency.
And it is important to say what this does not mean.
It does not mean American Indian children cannot learn mathematics.
It does not mean American Indian families do not value education.
It does not mean culture is the problem.
It means the system has not yet figured out how to consistently produce successful academic outcomes for a population it has been specifically trying to serve for generations.
MPS itself recognizes the seriousness of the issue. In 2006, the district and the American Indian community entered into a historic Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the stated goal of “dramatically improving academic achievement and graduation rates” for American Indian students. The agreement was renewed in 2012, with an increased emphasis on partnerships, strategies, and accountability (Minneapolis Public Schools [MPS], n.d.). (Minneapolis Public Schools)
That agreement is enormously important.
Because it means the problem has not simply been identified.
It has been formally acknowledged.
And it has been acknowledged for nearly two decades.
Yet the graduation numbers remain troubling.
For the class of 2022, MPS reported a four-year graduation rate of 50% for American Indian students. MPS subsequently recalculated its 2023 figures to include summer graduates and estimated the American Indian four-year graduation rate at 50% again (MPS, 2024). (Minneapolis Public Schools)
To be fair, MPS has reported more recent improvements. The district has highlighted an increase in the American Indian four-year graduation rate in its latest graduation reporting. Improvement should be recognized. But improvement from an extraordinarily low starting point does not erase the underlying problem.
A system can improve and remain unacceptable.
That is the conversation Minnesota needs.
Today, MPS describes its Department of American Indian Education as an organization intended to strengthen educational outcomes through culturally responsive instruction, family and student engagement, and community partnerships. It also provides professional development, culturally relevant curriculum and family support (MPS, n.d.). (Minneapolis Public Schools)
Those are worthwhile objectives.
But objectives are not outcomes.
Programs are not outcomes.
Budgets are not outcomes.
Staffing is not outcomes.
Students’ learning is the outcome.
That is where the political conversation needs to go. Candidates running for governor, the Minnesota Legislature, Minneapolis mayor, Minneapolis City Council, and the Minneapolis Board of Education should be asked directly:
After approximately 54 years of Indian Education programming, why are American Indian students still experiencing such profound academic disparities?
What programs have produced measurable improvements?
Which ones have failed?
How much public money has been invested?
What are the reading and mathematics targets?
How many students are graduating?
How many are graduating prepared for college, technical education, military service, or the workforce?
And perhaps the most important question:
What will you do differently?
Minnesota already recognizes that American Indian students have unique educational and culturally related academic needs. State law requires American Indian education programs to address academic achievement, retention, attendance, curriculum, counseling, and graduation (Minn. Stat. § 124D.74, 2024). (Minnesota Department of Education)
So this is not simply a cultural conversation.
It is an accountability conversation.
The original movement for Indian Education was about dignity, identity, community control, and educational justice. Those principles remain essential. But the modern challenge is to ensure that cultural responsiveness and academic excellence work together, not as competing ideas.
American Indian students deserve culturally affirming schools.
They also deserve to read.
They deserve to perform mathematics at high levels.
They deserve to graduate.
They deserve access to college and careers.
And they deserve an educational system willing to honestly examine its own performance.
For more than five decades, Minneapolis has had the opportunity to learn from the past.
The data suggest that opportunity has not yet been fully realized.
The 54-year question, therefore, is not whether Minnesota should continue supporting American Indian Education.
It should.
The question is whether Minnesota and Minneapolis Public Schools are willing to move from programs to measurable results, from good intentions to academic outcomes, and from celebrating the existence of services to demanding evidence that those services are changing students’ lives.
Fifty-four years is long enough to ask difficult questions.
It is long enough to demand accountability.
And it is long enough for political candidates to tell American Indian families exactly what they intend to do differently.
Because the next generation of American Indian children should not have to wait another 54 years for the system to get it right.
References
Lurie, J. (2025). Heart of the Earth Survival School. MNopedia, Minnesota Historical Society. Minnesota Historical Society—Heart of the Earth Survival School (Minnesota Historical Society)
Minneapolis Public Schools. (2024, March 28). Minneapolis Public Schools shares updated class of 2023 graduation rates. Minneapolis Public Schools—Updated Class of 2023 Graduation Rates
Minneapolis Public Schools. (n.d.). American Indian Education. Minneapolis Public Schools—American Indian Education
Minneapolis Public Schools. (n.d.). Public hearings & memorandum of agreement. Minneapolis Public Schools—Public Hearings & Memorandum of Agreement
Minnesota Department of Education. (n.d.). American Indian Education Aid. Minnesota Department of Education—American Indian Education Aid
Minnesota Department of Education. (n.d.). American Indian Student Achievement Report. In Use statewide assessment data. Minnesota Department of Education—Use Statewide Assessment Data
Minnesota Statutes § 124D.74 (2024). American Indian education programs. Minnesota Revisor of Statutes—Section 124D.74
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. (1975). Bridging the gap: The Twin Cities Native American community. U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. U.S. Commission on Civil Rights—Bridging the Gap
Very disturbing article. There are however some glimmer of hope. A group of native students at South High, led by a remarkable teacher, want to learn to build robots! The hard, complex type…Can they be a beacon for others?
The article misses a few key item most would like to know more about. How do similar students perform in other states & larger cities? Surely there are examples of programs that work well and have for some time? My experience with groups like AISIS, show there are lots of ways to succeed. Role models are key. What kind of role models do MN kids have? This is probably more important than a fancy new school and another well written but unexecutable plan?
It’s the same at the outstate, public schools with a large native american population. Poor performance and attendance as well as many behavioral issues. Don’t know how or even if that can be improved. The horse may starve.
According to the Minnesota Report Card site, less than 30% of the students at the Anishinabe Academy “attend school on a regular basis and are not frequently absent.”
7.3 % of kids at Anishinabe Academy meet math standards. A majority of Anishinabe students are American Indian.
Again, according to the Minnesota Report Card, at Nellie Stone Elementary, 46% of the students at the Nellie Stone Elementary attend school on a regular basis.
6.5 % of these students meet math standards. 52% of the Nellie Stone students are African American.
I’m going suggest that there are multiple reasons for poor school scores and graduation rates and I’m reminded of the very old saying. “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.”
As noted, we’ve spent a half century trying to get the water right with little overall success.
I think it’s time to examine the horse.