Sunday January 14, 2007, 3:12 pm
State government and tribes must cooperate to give Native American students opportunities to get high school diplomas and go to college, Keith Moore told legislators Thursday.


State education officials also told legislators more work is needed to raise achievement on tests for Native American students. Scores on ACT exams by Native American students in South Dakota have climbed in recent years but still trail overall state scores on the test for college-bound young people, state Education Department reports show. The department report shows an increase in the ACT scores of Native American students from 16.8 in 2002 to 17.5 this year.

He told the Senate Education Committee that the high-school graduation rate for Indian children lags far behind that for the population as a whole - about 66 percent for Native Americans in the state public schools compared with 89 percent statewide.

Gear Up breaks the ice, both for students and their families, he said. Students live in dorms, eat campus food, meet professors and become familiar with a college setting, Moore said.

Republican Rep. Jim Bradford of Pine Ridge said many Lakota students from his reservation struggle even with the transition from elementary school to high school. Part of the reason is because the reservation has numerous grade schools or K-8 schools but many aren't tied to a high school.


"I think that's a positive, but we definitely need to move that higher,'' said Wade Pogany of the state agency. He said the statewide average score on the ACT in the most recent round of tests was 21.8.