Tribal Education Trust Fund wins major House victory

After three bill introductions, the bill was pushed through with overwhelming bipartisan support, and the Pueblo, Apache, and Navajo Tribes of New Mexico will seek to create more educational opportunities for Native American students. They are closer than ever to receiving millions of dollars in funding from the state.

Native American legislators and tribal community leaders helped win decisive victories for tribal autonomy in public education. House Bill 134the Tribal Education Trust Fund passed the House on a 68-0 vote.

“What this means is 200 years of erasing Native Americans from this country and saying, ‘We know how to do school, we teach our kids the best way.’ It’s about pushing back on these federal policies,” said the bill’s sponsor, Democratic Rep. Derrick Lente. – Sandia Pueblo).

The bill now needs to pass the Senate. If signed into law, the trust fund would be the first of its kind in the nation.

The bill faced a challenge in the House Appropriations Committee on Feb. 2, with the Navajo Nation’s government pushing back against an earlier element of the proposal that would have created a task force to design a budget distribution model. , withdrew support for the bill. Trust fund money.

The amendment Lente introduced on the House floor Thursday strikes out any language regarding the task force and instead changes the funding formula to a “unanimous consensus process of consultation, collaboration, and communication with New Mexico’s tribes.” “to be formulated in accordance with the law”.

The formula takes into account the population and capacity needs of each of the state’s 23 tribal nations.

Lente told lawmakers on the House floor that Navajo Nation President Boo Nygren and the Navajo Nation Council sent a letter supporting the bill following the latest amendments.

Co-sponsor Rep. Anthony Allison (D-Fruitland) said while rebuking the harms inflicted on Indigenous communities by the education system, the bill is a step toward change and remediation, and calls for change. He praised it for what it brought.

Rep. Lente advances tribal education funding bill with Navajo government concerns in mind

“Education has been used as a process to assimilate us,” Alison (Dine) said. “It has devastated our people for generations…The first Indian education policy killed our language and destroyed our culture by excluding children from language and culture. intentionally designed to kill.”

The trust fund would distribute directly to the tribes 5% of the average year-end market value of the trust fund over the past five years. The money will not go directly to school districts due to concerns about inequitable funding for schools.

The bill calls for $100 million to establish the fund, half of which is already appropriated in the current budget proposal. Lente said he hopes the Senate will agree to extend the remainder.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham sent a letter to the All-Pueblo Governors Council expressing concerns that the trust fund could come at the expense of the $50 million annual tribal capital expenditure package. Members of the All-Pueblo Governor’s Council sent a letter of response to the governor asking him to work with Lente and the Legislature to provide funding for both.

Lente told lawmakers that the bill supports tribal autonomy and gives tribal governments the ability to create programs for children across the state, whether in tribal or public schools. He said there is.

He said it’s important that tribes be able to build their own solutions, especially since the New Mexico Department of Public Instruction has been slow to develop a plan to address this groundbreaking problem. Yazzie Martinez Ruling. The ruling mandates public school education reform in the state.

“This type of action that we are taking on our own here, while we agree that Yazzie-Martinez was given justice, does not mean that we are doing anything to stand up for the children in our community. “This is being done to ensure that we don’t have to wait for the PED to come up with a plan,” Lente said. “We have to be tough and do something for our people.”

Rep. Patricia Roybal-Caballero, a co-sponsor of another bill, spoke emotionally about relatives being taken from their families to boarding schools, saying a tribal education trust fund is necessary but not enough to address tribal issues. He claimed it was “a drop in the bucket.” violence perpetrated against indigenous communities;

Roybal Caballero (D-Albuquerque) told lawmakers on the House floor that it is “timeless” to recognize the importance of New Mexico’s indigenous peoples now and in the future.

“Our return is a form of apology for what has been taken from us through previous generations,” Roybal Caballero said. “This is just the beginning of an effort to correct our historical past, help children learn the truth behind them, and reveal the importance they bring to the table in the classroom.”