Office of Indian Education: A Comprehensive Overview

The Office of Indian Education (OIE), formerly known as the Office of Indian Education Programs, is the Native American education agency within the United States. The Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) was renamed and established on August 29, 2006, to reflect the parallel purpose and organizational structure the BIE has in relation to other programs within the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs. The BIE is headed by a director who is responsible for the line direction and management of all education functions, including the formation of policies and procedures, the supervision of all program activities and the approval of the expenditure of funds appropriated for education functions.

Historical Context and Legislative Foundations

The federal government's involvement in Native American education is rooted in treaties established for reservations and trust lands. In the early years, the government authorized religious missions to establish schools and churches on reservations. However, at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Congress authorized the government to establish numerous Indian boarding schools for a more concerted program of assimilation of Native American children. The unique historical relationship between Tribal Nations and the United States government is a special federal-Indian relationship. This federal-Indian relationship was shaped by the United States Constitution and treaties, and as living documents, the United States Constitution and treaties between tribal Nations is the foundation for the special federal “fiduciary” responsibility for the education of Native learners.

Since the Snyder Act of 1921, there have been major legislative actions that restructured the Bureau of Indian Affairs regarding educating American Indians. First, the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 introduced the teaching of Indian history and culture in BIA schools. Until then, it had been Federal policy to acculturate and assimilate Indian people by eradicating their tribal cultures through a boarding school system. The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 (P.L. 93-638) gave authority to federally recognized tribes to contract with the BIA for the operation of Bureau-funded schools and to determine education programs suitable for their children. Shortly after the 1975 legislation act, The Education Amendments Act of 1978 was put into motion and influenced radical changes that set the foundation for the B.I.E. The Education Amendments Act of 1978 (P.L. 95-561) and further technical amendments (P.L. 98-511, 99-99, and 100-297) provided funds directly to tribally operated schools, empowered Indian school boards, permitted local hiring of teachers and staff, and established a direct line of authority between the Education Director and the AS-IA. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (P.L. Department of Education supplemental program funds they receive through the Bureau. Under various pieces of federal legislation, the United States Congress has stipulated that its responsibility is to ensure that educational programs for all American Indian students and adults meet specific criteria.

Mission Statement

As stated in Title 25 CFR Part 32.3, BIE’s mission is to provide quality education opportunities from early childhood onward in accordance with a tribe’s needs for cultural and economic well-being, in keeping with the wide diversity of Indian tribes and Alaska Native villages as distinct cultural and governmental entities. Furthermore, the BIE is to manifest consideration of the whole person by accounting for the spiritual, mental, physical and cultural aspects of the individual within his or her family and tribal or village context.

BIE School System: Structure and Scope

The BIE school system has 183 elementary and secondary schools and dormitories located on 64 reservations in 23 states, including seven off-reservation boarding schools, and 122 schools directly controlled by tribes and tribal school boards under contracts or grants with the BIE. The BIE school system employs thousands of teachers, administrators and support personnel, while many more work in tribal school systems. The Bureau also funds or operates off-reservation residential schools and peripheral dormitories near reservations for students attending public schools. The BIE also serves American Indian and Alaska Native post-secondary students through higher education scholarships and supports funding for tribal colleges and universities. As of 2020 the BIE-funded/grant/direct schools in total had 46,000 students, meaning they educated about 8% of the Native American students in the United States. In comparison to the numbers recorded from the year 1987, throughout the 2020-2021 school year, the number of students that were enrolled in institutions that were funded by the BIE was 34,529.

Alden Woods of the Arizona Republic described the BIE as having the characteristics of both a state education agency and a school district, with its supervision and funding of tribally controlled/grant schools making it the former and its direct operation of BIE schools making it the latter.

Tribal Control and Self-Determination

Circa 1990 the Hopi tribe began the process of taking BIA schools in their territory into tribal control. The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 was not the only legislation act that contributed to transforming the Bureau of Indian Education. This act empowered tribes to contract with the BIA for the operation of Bureau-funded schools and to determine education programs suitable for their children.

Funding and Resources

By the beginning of the 21st century, education expenses of the BIE represented 35% of the BIA budget. In 2015 the BIE spent about $15,000 per student in the schools it operated, 56% above the per-student average cost for a public school student in the United States. But studies since the 1969 Kennedy Report have shown that the schools have been underfunded.

Challenges and Criticisms

BIA/BIE schools have been criticized for decades for poor academic performance, and for the failure to establish metrics that allow performance to be measured. Academic performance in BIE schools is not the only thing that has received criticism or questioning by the public. There have been major concerns regarding students' health and safety because of the poor quality of school facilities. A variety of different factors have contributed to this. Some of these factors include limited funding and poor management structures.

In 1988 a Department of Interior report blamed all levels of leadership for substandard test scores. In 2001 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) wrote "The academic achievement of many BIA students as measured by their performance on standardized tests and other measures is far below the performance of students in public schools. BIA students also score considerably below national averages on college admissions tests."

Read also: Enhancing Education in Lake County

Academic Performance and Graduation Rates

In 1969 the graduation rate was about 59%. Citing this statistic, that year President of the United States Richard Nixon criticized BIA schools. In 2015 the graduation rate was 53%. In the 2017-2018 school year, the graduation rate was 64%, but in 2018-2019 the graduation rate had declined to 59%. In 2015 the average United States graduation rate was 81%. From circa 2017 to 2020, the BIE did not follow the terms of the Every Student Succeeds Act.

Teacher Retention and Staffing Issues

Circa 2015 the BIE had 4,500 employees. In November 2015 the BIE had 140 empty teaching slots. The agency had difficulty with teacher retention, especially as many schools are located in isolated areas. Today in the year 2025 during the month of February, the BIE experienced an even more severe decrease in the number of teachers and faculty members who are employees of the BIE. This is a result of president Trump's decision in making a reduction of staffing on a very large scale. President Trump's action has majorly affected institutions throughout the BIE. One example is Haskell University which has experienced a pause in financial aid distribution, more than thirty courses lacking teachers, and over all a quarter of staff being terminated.

Specific School Examples

Crystal Boarding School: Crystal Boarding School is a K-6 boarding school in Crystal, New Mexico. It opened in 1935 as part of an effort to replace off-reservation Indian boarding schools with on-reservation boarding schools, as a part of the New Deal project. The school is in proximity to multiple uranium mines. The current building opened in 1959. In 2014 about 30 students boarded but most did not. Only one dormitory was open, as another was deemed unsafe. In 2013 5% of the students were classified as having mathematics skills on par with their grade levels even though the school had already shifted most of its instruction to mathematics and reading at the expense of science and social studies. In 2015 Politico stated that the school's campus was in a poor condition.
Dennehotso Boarding School: It was created in or after 1932, with the building completed in 1935. In 1985 the school had 520 students and 19 employees. The two current buildings are OFMC projects: a 46,545-square-foot (4,324.2 m2) school facility for 186 students and a 10,072-square-foot (935.7 m2) dormitory for 33 students. The scheduled groundbreaking was February 11, 2013.
Lukachukai School: In 1976, the seventh grade at Lukachukai ended so that grade was sent to Chinle Boarding School (now Many Farms Community School). In 2015 the school was under-resourced, and the school community made an effort to get a replacement facility.
Teec Nos Pos Boarding School: A building for the Teec Nos Pos Boarding School was dedicated in 1962. In 1962 the school had 353 students. In 1963 there were plans to build 17 additional classrooms as well as a cafeteria, two dormitories, and a multipurpose room, and housing for employees.
Wingate Elementary and High School: As of 1956 the Wingate Elementary dormitory is a former military barracks that also houses students at Wingate High. In 1968 the girls' dormitory had 125 girls; the Associated Press stated that the dormitory lacked decoration and personal effects and was reflective of a campaign to de-personalize Native American students.
Charenton School: In 1937 a two classroom public school building condemned by the St. Mary Parish School Board was moved to Charenton, and began serving the community as a 1-8 school; the student population went over 60. In 1968 the kindergarten was established. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) built a new school, which began operations in 1978, to replace the former facility. It had 38 in the 1978-1979 school year, but this went down to 29 in 1980-1981 and 22 in 1981-1982.
Chuska/Tohatchi Consolidated School: It is in Tohatchi, New Mexico and has boarding facilities. It had 597 students in 1967. It became the Chuska/Tohatchi Consolidated School in 1985 after the Tohatchi Boarding School was merged into it. The Navajo Nation took control of the school circa 1999.
Duckwater Shoshone School: A K-8 school, it is in a building on the Duckwater Reservation in Duckwater that previously functioned as a church. The school was established circa 1973 by tribal members who were not satisfied with their children's course in the Nye County School District.
Theodore Roosevelt School (TRS): Theodore Roosevelt School (TRS) is a tribally controlled middle school in Fort Apache, Arizona. The dormitories opened sometime after 1935. A cafeteria opened in 1948. In 1995 it had 100 students. By 1995 conditions at the school had deteriorated to the point where students had to be boarded at ad hoc dormitories as the standard dormitory buildings needed heating repairs and asbestos removal.
To’hajiilee Day School: To’hajiilee Day School ranges from grades K-12. In March 2022 the high school building was no longer in use due to foundation problems that resulted from frequent flooding in the area.
Wounded Knee Day School: It is a K-8 school. The school is in proximity to the site of the Wounded Knee massacre.
Manuelito Hall: Manuelito Hall in Gallup, New Mexico, a dormitory which housed Native American students attending Gallup-McKinley County Schools. In 1973 it had about 300 students, including 12 from Arizona. That year the BIA closed Manuelito Hall, planning to move students to various boarding schools. The public school system's funding was not anticipated to be harmed by this closure. There were some families that wanted their children to remain at Gallup-McKinley schools as they perceived them to be better than BIA schools.

Other schools include: Te Tsu Geh Oweenge Day School a.k.a. Hunters Point Boarding School (St. Joseph K. St. St. Stephens Indian School (St. Pyramid Lake Jr./Sr. Shoshone Bannock Jr./Sr. It was established in 1931 as the consolidation of Day School #20 and Day School #21, with the former buildings of those two schools becoming teacher housing. The tribal K-8 school has a Cuba address, but is actually in Torreon. It first opened in 1935.

Efforts for Improvement

Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama made attempts to improve BIE schools. Another attempt made to resolve the issue of poor academic performance in BIE schools, was the legislation act of 2001 titled "The No Child Left Behind Act" which put the new ruling into effect that says schools will be held responsible for making the effort to improve their students' academic performances.

State-Level Initiatives

Indian Education is part of the Office of Comprehensive Student Services at the Nevada Department of Education (NDE). It provides technical assistance and guidance to school districts (LEAs) and schools to address the unique needs of American Indian (AI) students, while collaborating with tribes and organizations across Nevada to improve AI student achievement. Indian education in Nevada aims to enrich students' understanding of the five major indigenous groups within the state: the Northern Paiute, Southern Paiute, Washoe, Western Shoshone, and Fort Mojave. During the 69th legislative session (1997), Assembly Bill 266 allocated funding to the NDE to hire an Education Consultant (Education Programs Professional) to focus on the specific needs of American Indian children. In the 82nd legislative session (2023), additional funding was allocated to hire an Education Programs Professional to oversee and manage the formal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) Tribal Consultation process in Nevada.

The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction’s Office of Indian Education is dedicated to improving the academic success of American Indian students across the state. We collaborate with schools, districts, tribal communities, and state agencies to align policies, initiatives, and resources that support the unique educational needs of American Indian students. Department of Education programs funds the Indian Education Formula Grant (Title VI). It supports the efforts of school districts, Indian tribes and organizations, postsecondary institutions, and other groups to meet the unique educational and culturally related academic needs of American Indian and Alaska Native students.

The Indian Education Division is responsible for building, ensuring and maintaining effective two way communication between the New Mexico Higher Education Department (NMHED) and Tribal Communities within the State. This includes individual in-person meetings, phone conferences, video conferences and electronic communications between the Tribal Liaison and all Tribes, Nations and Pueblos within the State. These relationships and communications are essential to Government-to-Government communications and Tribal Consultation. The Indian Education Division is committed to working with Tribes, Nations and Pueblos in New Mexico for the best interests of Native American Students in Higher Education. The Division works to promote and share NMHED resources available for Native American Students. In addition, the Division will work with Tribes, Nations and Pueblos to hear needs, concerns and questions and work to address them accordingly.

The North Dakota Department of Public Instruction (NDDPI), Office of Indian/Multicultural Education and the North Dakota Indian Affairs Commission are excited to host our 11th Annual North Dakota Indian Education Summit (NDIES) on July 17 & 18, 2025, at the ND State Capitol building in Bismarck ND. The Indian Education Summit is designed to provide professional development and education on best practices in Indian education and is open to all ND educators. The event will include two full days of dynamic keynotes, educational breakout sessions, cultural presentations, breakfast, lunch, snacks, beverages, product vendors, informational booths, handouts/resource materials, valuable door prizes, and great networking opportunities.

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