How The Federal Government Is Hurting Native American Students
Posted: 10/16/2013 4:40 pm EDT | Updated: 10/16/2013 6:06 pm EDT
As Congress squabbles over ending the federal government shutdown, Jim Gross, the superintendent of Selfridge Public School District #8 in North Dakota, looks on in skepticism.
He grew up on Standing Rock Indian Reservation, where he was adopted by the local Sioux tribe, and moved back there 21 years ago because he wanted to "do good things for the Native kids." But the weak economy, which drove the reservation into an ever-deepening state of poverty, and the federal sequestration cuts and 16-day-old government shutdown, are making it hard for him to do his job.
"Back then, politics was people getting together, something would come out about it if you sit down," he said. "Both sides have gotten so far to the extreme, the radical stage. Our families say, well, okay, here's the government again. They're not doing anything again."
Schools that serve students who live on Native American reservations and military bases generally don't have the same level of property taxes that fund most public