Mr. Chairman,

The Coalition of Indian Controlled School Boards President, Mr. Birgil Kills Straight and the Board of Directors thank you for this opportunity to provide the following testimony regarding the proposed draft regulations of the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs on Public Law 93-638 entitled "The Indian Self Determination and Education Assistance Act".

It is also our pleasure to present this testimony in behalf of the Coalition of Indian Controlled School Boards' membership and other concerned educators as shown on the enclosed list.

The Coalition of Indian Controlled School Boards presents this testimony with strong feelings of ambivalencey regarding the reconciliation of what is self-determination and tribal sovereignty to what we view simply as authorization for the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs to contract with American Indian Tribes and Tribal Organizations to operate programs and services for themselves, which heretofore were administered for them by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The rhetoric thrown out to American Indian people called self-determination and tribal sovereignty from those whose responsibility to implement the law or who strongly desire to see the law implemented should be stricken from the language of the law and the regulations, or defined properly. Contracting to operate services by American Indian Tribes, or Tribal Organizations may eventually contribut to self-determination or tribal sovereignty, but until evidence is available which substantiates such a happening the Coalition of Indian Controlled School Boards prefers to view this Act simply as the transference of programs and service management from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian Public Health Service to tribal governments or tribal organizations,

The heart of our ambivalence has its basis upon whether or not this new direction in Indian relations will produce what American Indians call self-determination or is it going to increase Bureau of Indian Affairs control over the self government of American Indian Tribes. Placing contracting control in the hands of tribal governments gives the Bureua of Indian Affairs substantial power to dictate the pace and scope of selfdetermination. Given the BIA's continuing supervisory functions over tribal affairs (even for example, to the extent of approving tribal contracts with attorneys) and given its informal influence with many tribal governing bodies, the approach taken in the regulations cannot help but give the BIA extensive power to initiate or stifle self-determination efforts.

The Coalition of Indian Controlled School Boards maintains this attitude because we represent an element of the American Indian population whose initiative to control educational programs and to operate schools stemmed not from their tribal governments or from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but who gained control and exercised self-determination in education as an American Indian community despite the lack of support from tribal governments and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. It has been the experience of the CICSB and many of those whom we represent that education is not a high priority and that few, if any, of the community controlled or contract schools presently existing developed from initiative exerted by tribal governemtns.

The CICSB feels that the BIA's major fault in the regulations is to have extended P.L. 93-638 in so far as tribal governmental involvement is concerned beyond the intention of Congress. There is no question that Congress, in

trying to

No group,

this law intends to strengthen tribal government, but we refuse to believe that it does so at the expense of local initiative by grassroots Indian people. Yet, throughout the regulations, (especially in Sections 401,4, 401.11, 401.18, 401.19, 401.20, 201.72 and 401.73) the BIA has interpreted P.L.93-638 to be solely a tribal government contracting law, Contrary to the express language in the statute (Section 102), the BIA is give tribal governments an absolute veto over all contracts, even highly successful contract schools which heretofore have operated either without formal tribal support or with only tacit acquiescence by tribes, such as Ramah, Wind River or Menominee, are permitted to bargain and contract with the government without the express sanction of a tribe, and in the case of services to more than one tribe, of all involved tribes. Moreover, under the Bureau's understanding of retrocession, any contract whether or not with a tribal governing body, can be taken back upon the request of the tribe at any time without notice or an opportunity for a hearing to those at the community level most affected by contracts! The scheme invites wholesale political interference in the operation of locally-controlled Indian schools. It thus represents a failure of the BIA to protect the interests of those primarily affected by educational contracts, the children.

An example will help illustrate the improtance of our interpretation. Several years ago a non-profit Indian-controlled and elected corporation on the Pine Ridge Reservation called Oyate, Inc., was operating a successful bi lingual education program under contract to the BIA. The project was to have continued for five years under annual contract renewals. During the course of that first year the BIA evaluated the program and found it to be exemplary. But then a tribal election took place. A new chairman, a member

of a political faction opposed to Oyate, was elected. Upon assuming office he decided, without regard to educational merit, to assume control of the bilingual project himself, Not notifying the corporation, he contacted the Area Director and eventually the Commissioner, to request that the BIA not recontract with the original group. Instead he wanted the contract for the second year of the project to go to a new organization to be made up of his own advisory committee, a group with no demonstrable educational experience or direct ties to the local reservation community involved, Despite protests and ultimately a law suit by the original contractor, the BIA followed the Chairman's wishes and, in accordance with what it called the principle of tribal sovereignty, refused to renew the contract with the original contractor. Instead, several months later, it wrote a new contract with the Chairman's group, which by this time had been belatedly endorsed by a largely uninformed tribal council. Within months the program died,,

Indian self-determination must not be and cannot be purchased at the price of sacrificing local initiative, particularly when it comes to the education of approximately one half the American Indian population. The Coalition of Indian Controlled School Boards encourages conditions under which stable, continuous, secure, and educationally justified control of Indian schools and education programs are in the hands of Indian parents and Indian communities where precedence of existing school systems of the United States have recognized it should be. This, to us, is self-determination. We don't want an Indian self-determination spoils system. We want self-determination as was intended by Congress--"a system giving Indian people the right to control their own projects and services". This concept is maintained in the legislative history of the Act: "The provisions of Title I shift the power of determining when Indians are ready to assume the management of programs funded for their benefit

from the arbitrary whim of a bureaucrat to the community (emphasis added) where it belongs". (Senator Abourezk, Congressional Record, April 1, 1974, Page S. 4821).

Finally, this conception is re-emphasized in the opening sections of the Act itself, where one of the purposes stated is "to support the right of Indian citizens to control their own educational activities". No where in Sections

2 and 3 of the Act, containing Congress' findings and declaration of policy does the word "tribe" appear. Rather, the language is couched in terms of Indian people and Indian communities. The CICSB thinks that this is significant. It shows self-determination to be a concept, expected by Congress, to be applicable at all levels, from grassroots community institutions to tribal government. It is a concept essential to education of American Indian people.

The CICSB believes that the history of the Act as well as its express language supports this view. Section 102 is a positive mandate only. The Secretary is directed (emphasis added) to insure a contract when the request comes from an Indian tribe. The innovation strengthens tribal government by eliminating Secretarial discretion to refuse a contract in cases where tribal governments want them. That is exactly what the language says. Most emphatically, it does not say that the Secretary has authority to write a contract under previously existing statutory authority in the absence of a tribal request. Wise policy suggests the need for a measure of retained Secretarial discretion to issue self-determination contracts to Indian organizations even when not sanctioned formally by tribal governments.

At this point the Coalition of Indian Controlled School Boards wants to make clear its staunch support of tribal government as such. The statute rightly seeks to strengthen tribal governments. But, just as firmly, we believe that Congress did not intend to strengthen tribal governments by eliminating local initiative or to increase BIA control over self-determination.

It is extremely