Culturally Sustaining Policymaking in Indigenous Communities

Discover how top-down, policy-into-practice educational mandates have adversely affected indigenous communities in the United States’ midwestern core. The author scrutinizes how leaders and intermediaries in Nebraska, involved at various tiers of policy development and reform, conceptualized and implemented school accountability policy in Indian country. In particular, Phillips explores state-directed reform efforts in a school on the Santee Sioux Reservation consistently labeled as failing and persistently experiencing intervention from outsiders presented as experts. The book interrogates who gets to define educational quality, who counts as an expert on improving schools, and what improvement actually looks like. Additionally, the text highlights the way local educators and members of the community employed everyday tactics and incognito acts of improvement to reshape school turnaround efforts. Readers will see what is possible for education policy done with—rather than to—Native communities and schools, with lessons that have relevance beyond the midwestern states.

Book Features:

• Offers an education system reform perspective that has impact in Indian country.
• Introduces the concept of culturally responsive and sustaining policymaking.
• Explores how policy reform efforts are implemented across tiers of the educational system, from the legislative floor to a local classroom.
• Shows how local actors assert agency to remake policy spaces and improve policy implementation.

Aprille J. Phillips is an associate professor of education at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.

Contents (Tentative)

Series Foreword: James A. Banks

Foreword: Teresa McCarty

Acknowledgements

List of Figures

Introduction
Democracy and School Reform
Grounding Terminology and Conceptual Framing
School Policy Reform in Indian Country
Methodology and Positionality
Overview of Chapters

1. So What? Lessons Learned and Why They Matter
Accountability: What Came Before
No Child Left Behind
NCLB Limbo
The Role of State Departments of Education
Spatial Tactics as Resistance

2. Welcome to Flyover Country
Accountability and Nebraska’s AQuESTT
The Nebraska Way
A Nebraska Way of Education Governance
The Nation’s Only Unicameral
A Brief History of Schooling and Governance in Nebraska
Policy Landscape and Key Figures
The Shifting Roles of NDE

3. A Broader Story Than the Village of Santee
Early Interactions with Colonizers
A Dakota Education
“Big Knives” and the “Physical and Moral Degradation” of Reservation Life
School as a Policy Tool
Sovereignty, Self-Determination, and Self-Education
Agency, Survivance, and Schooling
What’s a “Good” Education?
Culturally Sustaining and Responsive Pedagogy
Culturally Sustaining/Revitalizing Education Policymaking

4. More Policy Crafted on the Legislative Floor
The Introduction of LB438
Public Hearing: A Better Way to “Fix” Schools
LB438 and the Second Session of Nebraska’s 103rd Legislature
LB438 Becomes Law

5. Nebraska’s AQuESTT: Bolder, Broader, Better
The SBOE Hires a New Commissioner of Education
From Vision to Plans on Paper
Codifying AQuESTT
Sketching out AQuESTT’s Implementation
Bolder, Broader, Better
The First AQuESTT Classification and Designation

6. Run by Outsiders
Initial Thoughts About Improvement in Santee
A Diagnostic Review
State Plan Development
Priority Schools: Developing Progress Plans
Progress Plan Approval and Initial Implementation

7. Compliance, Kind Of
Reporting First Year Progress
Continued Compliance, Kind of . . . and Incognito Improvement Efforts
Incognito Improvement Acts Endure

8. Wait, What Just Happened?
The “Consultocracy”
Sovereignty and Who Gets to Define Educational Quality
Everyday Tactics and Incognito Acts of Improvement
The Decolonizing Work of Culturally Sustaining Policymaking
Conclusion

Afterword
A Final Trip to Santee
The iSanti Ozuyapi at State

References

Index

About the Author