Chapter 4: Leadership in Indian Education: Perspectives of American Indian and Alaska Native Educators

More than 473,000 American Indian and Alaska Native students attend elementary and secondary schools in the United States. While the majority of these students attend public schools, approximately 9% attend schools operated or funded by the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE)¹ and tribes. American Indian and Alaska Native students experience high drop out rates, academic failure, and special education referral and placement at rates higher than many of their non-Native peers (Freeman & Fox, 2005). These issues pose a number of leadership challenges for individuals working in schools with American Indian and Alaska Native student populations.

In this chapter, we explore the complex nature of leadership in schools serving American Indian and Alaska Native students. We draw upon our experiences as American Indian educators and researchers to explore the extent to which effective leadership in schools serving American Indian and Alaska Native students requires a unique set of knowledge and skills reflective of and responsive to the cultural and linguistic diversity of the student population with which these knowledge and skills are employed. Over the years, we have grappled with this question as we have worked to prepare American Indian and Alaska Native students² to assume leadership positions in schools and organizations serving Indigenous students. Give the lack of extant research in this field, much of what we know is based on our personal and professional experiences living in and working with Indigenous communities.