First Nations education a cash-strapped 'non-system,' bureaucrats tell minister

First Nations schools on reserves are in such a dire statethat federalbureaucrats in charge of the file have taken to calling it a "non-system," a striking admission that manyIndigenous students are being ill-served by the very schools these public servants oversee.

A "secret" briefing note prepared for Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett, and obtained through access to information, saysFirst Nations schools arefailing students not only becauseof a dearth offederalfunding butbecause "many communities lack the educational systems and structures required to close the educational outcome gap."

Most of the individuallyrun,band-operated schoolsdon't have proper curriculum development, teacher training, testing and quality assurance and the larger supportstructures like a school board, electedtrusteesor an education ministry that makeschools work, the briefing note from Novembersays.

Experts have also pointed tothe near total absence of any formal plan to improve educational outcomesas another roadblock to success.Indeed, the short- and medium-term goal of the department is for band schools to simplyrecord "incremental improvements in academic achievement year-over-year."

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Prime Minister JustinTrudeauhas made First Nations education a cornerstone of his Liberal leadership.Thefirst announcement he made at the outset of last year's election campaignwas a $2.6-billion commitment over four years to boost spending to bring on-reserve students in line with their non-Indigenous counterparts, something thepublic service says is needed right away.

"Additional funding [is] required to support a new system more comparable to provincial systems," the 14-page briefing note cautions the minister, conceding that funding levels are "significantly higher" for provincialschools inremote and northern locations than whatIndigenous and Northern Affairs providesFirst Nations schools in similar locales.

CindyBlackstock,theexecutive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, saidit'sdisingenuous for the federal government to describe First Nations education as a "non-system," because it actually designed theprovision of education and unloaded schooling on bands throughout the 1980swithout the proper support structures.

It has alsocommissioned many expert studiesand yet has done little to implementtheir recommendations, she said.

"They have known about these problems for decades and they'venot dealt with them.Why isn't the federal government doing better when it knows better?"

Funding crunch

The lack of clear educational standardsis exacerbated by amoney crunch that has left First Nationsschools desperate for stable and predicable funding.

Indigenous programming has been hampered by a two per cent cap on annual spending increases since it was imposed by former finance minister Paul Martin in the1990s. This spending has beenwell short of population and inflationgrowth rates. (The First Nations school-age population has grown 29 per cent since 1997.)

Public servants in the department have been raising red flags to their political masters for years. A briefing note penned in 2014advisedthe Harper government to immediately lift the cap and stop dipping into First Nationsinfrastructure money to keep social programs for Indigenous childrenafloat.

"For the [kindergarten to Grade 12]education program to maintain provincial comparability and NOT draw on other program funds, new investments are required, including a 4.5 per cent escalator on all education funds going forward," the note reads.

Theirincremental approach to equality never achieves equality.Children don't have incremental childhoods.- Cindy Blackstock, executive director,First Nations Child and Family Caring Society

The Liberal First Nations education campaignpromise has already been partly broken as $50 million Trudeaupledged for post-secondary education was excluded from thisyear's budget.

The money for kindergarten to Grade 12 education has also been spread out over five years instead of the promised four whichamounts to an $800 million cut.The funding isalso heavilyback-loaded, with25 per cent of it not set to roll out until 2020-21, a year after the next election.

"If you're serious ... you make those big budget investments in your first couple of years," Blackstock said. "They have used this 'It's afirst step' narrativeto protect themselves. But theirincremental approach to equality never achieves equality.Children don't have incremental childhoods."

But in thebriefing note obtained by CBC News, the department tells Bennett that committing more money, as First Nations advocates have been asking for, is only part of the solution.

"New investments alone will not improve outcomes, but increased funding is an important and necessary piece of the puzzle.Other factors relating to socio-economic conditions and the fact that many First Nations schools exist as a 'school house model' are also important factors that affect student outcomes," the report says, referring to the absence of an actual system tosupport individual schools.

The minister's office didn't provide comment in time for publishing, but the minister told CBC News Thunder Bay last week the government is open to changes to First Nations schooling.

"In this budget, there was money to build education systems and that's where we know we've got to go in terms of listening to educators to develop those systems, whether that's changing the school year, whether that's curricula changes, professional development."

Literacy, numeracy results disappoint

The goal of Indigenous Affairs is to have First Nations students reach provincial education standards, but standardized testing resultsrevealthere is still much work to be done.

In 2013-14, only 21 per cent of on-reserveboys in Ontario reached or exceededprovincial literacy standards, while a paltry 18 per cent were competentin mathematics, according to statistics produced by the department.The figures were marginally higher for girls.

I don't know if you could find literacyrates in the world that low, except for maybe sub-Saharan Africa.- Charlie Angus,NDP Indigenous affairs critic

"I don't know if you could find literacyrates in the world that low, except for maybe sub-Saharan Africa," NDP Indigenous affairs criticCharlie Angussaid in an interview with CBC News. "How many centuries is it going to take toget them up to a provincial standard?"

The numbers werenot nearly as low forIndigenous studentstaught off-reserve.The results showed38 per cent of allstudents in grades 3 and 6achievedOntario's standard for numeracy,while 50.5 per cent metliteracy standards. The results were still below those of non-Indigenous students.

Graduation rates for Indigenous students taught in Ontario's public system in 2013-14werealso much higher: more than 70 per cent compared to45 per cent for those on reserves.

Blackstock said this is proof that there isn't something "intrinsically" wrong with First Nations students, but rather poor outcomes arethe result of "profoundunderfunding."

"I'm a common sense girl who grew up in the bush and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that theseschools are in a total state of disrepair. It's absolutely clear that conditions are so poor. Ifwe applied those same conditions to kids in Toronto,overtime, we'd see the same results. It's the conditions that we're putting them in. That's what's so tragic to me."

She said First Nations kids have access to the Internetand travel beyond the borders of their communities, so they know how othersare learning.

"These kids know that other kids are succeeding. The children internalise it as their own failure. 'I'm not smart enough. I'm not good enough. It's our community, we're losers.'"

As a result, she said, federallyfunded First Nations schools have ceded large portions of their enrolment to provinciallyrun schools because they are seento be better run.

Indeed, 33 per cent of First Nations learners normally living on a reserve now attend provinciallyoperated or private schools.

'The department is just lying'

"First Nations schools just can't compete with the provincial school system. It just doesn't happen," said PerryBellegarde, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations.

For example, if a student attends the First Nations school in the northern Ontario community of Attawapiskat,the federal department will pay $8,000 to the school. If that same student transfers 500 kilometres south to a public school inTimmins, the department will pay the provincial system $16,000, according to figures provided by NDP MP Charlie Angus.

The tuition associated with attending public schools is covered by thedepartmentbecause the education of status Indians is the sole responsibility of the federal government.

The department has publicly rejected these comparisons in the past. In fact, a senior bureaucrat testified under oath at the recent Thunder Bay, Ont., inquiry into student deathsthat there isn't a gap, and if there is a gap, it's too hard to quantify.

In the Harper era, public servantsroutinelypointed to statistics that show comparable per capita spending levels nationwide $12,233per student in a provincial school versus $15,290 for a student on a First Nations reserve. Others, including the Fraser Institute, have argued that claims of a gap are grossly exaggerated.

But other experts say the government's figuresobscure the unique spending challenges faced byFirst Nations schools in remote locations with most studentsfrom lowersocio-economicbackgrounds.

Blackstocksays the department's numbers are also misleading because 30 per cent of the funding is proposal-based and requires an application, so it isn't guaranteed to all schools in need.

DonDrummond, former Ontario premier DaltonMcGuinty'sbudget czar, and an expert on Indigenous education at Queen's University, says there's a funding gap and it's likely closer to 30 per cent in most jurisdictions.

"The proof is in the pudding:The Liberalsgave a fairly large budget increase. If there wasn't a gap, why did they do that?"

Angus figures the gap is actually "30 to 50 to 100 per cent, depending on where you go."

"Itvaries all over, from region to region," the NDP critic said."That speaks to inequity in the system. You just can't figure it out."

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