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I am a researcher and graduate student of American Indian descent (Stockbridge-Munsee/Mohican). I have always been very aware of the absence of other American Indian students in postsecondary education programs; have noticed the shortage of American Indians employed as educators, professors, or administrators; and am acutely aware of the number of American Indian populations excluded from qualitative or quantitative data sets as part of mainstream research agendas that are published on the state or national level. This is the beginning of my dissertation research journey, and the data that I have studied thus far demonstrates a ten-year failure of the traditional, Western, and public educational system in Wisconsin to nurture, graduate, and utilize Native Americans from birth through adulthood. This historical failure in the Wisconsin educational systems and organizations has left the First Children and the First People of this country far behind as compared to their other minority and white counterparts (Bowman 2002). The extent of how far and why they are behind is what I am determined to discover. Anecdotally speaking, I knew in my heart that the few Indians who did survive school accomplished this despite many barriers or whatever politically correct legislation was the popular rhetoric at the time. But in my head I needed to ascertain, scientifically document, and understand the factors that were responsible for this shameful record regarding the education of Native American students and their underrepresentation as professionals within the educational community. In a time of attempts to abolish affirmative action and hearing the promises of leaving no children behind, I have diligently tried to set aside time to conduct research [End Page 91] and reflect upon these complex issues so I could better understand the history and causes of these persistent, systemic educational problems. For the past twelve years I have struggled to find, let alone comprehend, why I have experienced little or no sense of urgency or empirical evidence in the mainstream educational and scientific community about the following issues: How can we even begin a discussion of "Closing the Gap" (North Central Regional Education Laboratory 2002; Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction 2003; Wisconsin Cooperative Educational Service Agency #82000; and Wisconsin Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development 2002) to raise Native American achievement when research shows that we are completely left out of the very educational systems that profess that they will not leave us behind? (In other words, there are very few Native or non-Native educational research scientists or organizations studying Native Americans or using Native American data sets for experimental or quasi-experimental research designs at the kindergarten through graduate level.) How can the educational system reconceptualize the meaning of "statistically significant data" to create methods of culturally relevant research and evaluation so that it better fits Native American communities? (Please note that I am making an ostentatious assumption that the academe and educational organizations are interested in culturally valid and appropriate research strategies for the purposes of increasing Native American achievement and activity levels within their respective organizations. This supposition is based on valid and reliable outcome data that will be revealed later in this article.) How do we as an educational and scientific community define Native Americans, for attainment and achievement purposes, given the myriad of ways Native Americans are defined across tribal and nontribal communities, peoples, and organizations? (Of particular note here is that Native educators, scholars, or policymakers have not even agreed on a universal definition based on the diverse philosophies within Native American communities—let alone non-Native peoples.) Given this, I must share that as an educational scholar and Native American [End Page 92] person, I am both frustrated and motivated by the underrepresented population of high-achieving Native American students and professionals in our prekindergarten (PK) through postsecondary educational systems. I am frustrated because of the...
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