Funding shell games cheat kids

That the history of federal provision of education for First Nations children is fraught with failure, most Canadians today well understand. The lack of sufficient fund­ing played a large role in the outrageously poor conditions — the cold, the damp and the paucity of good food — at Indian residential schools that led to the deaths of children from illnesses that more robust people would sur­vive. Federal politicians were sent numerous reports about the resulting depressing quality of education through the ages.

A 2006 article in the Canadian Journal of Education noted that in 1880, the acting superintendent at Battleford, Saskatchewan, told the Indian Affairs minister that Ottawa would be hard-pressed to hire a teacher for reserve schools for $300 a year, or less. A federal committee on education policy in 1946-48 heard repeated calls for improved funding to boost school resources and to hike teacher salaries.

While the prevailing ethos of education for First Nations children has changed dramatically, reports today on school funding are discouragingly familiar.

First Nations now are given wide latitude over spending of funds transferred from Indian and Northern Affairs Canada to operate schools on reserves with curricula designed to educate children within their culture. This is particularly true for those bands that have block funding for their services.

But the underfunding of schools continues. Bands and their education authorities insist that the federal per student grants fall about 25 per cent below the budgets seen in provincially funded public schools, and so schools lack books, computers and special resources for basics such as reading and arithmetic. Enriched instruction in original languages suffers or is absent. First Nation education authorities complain they have difficulty attracting and retaining certified teachers when neighbouring schools or divisions offer salaries thousands of dollars higher.

For its part, INAC says that its per student grant, between $8,500 to $12,000, is well within the $9,900 average of Manitoba's public schools. First Nations education directors counter that is deceptive: The INAC average includes higher per-student grants paid to non-aboriginal school boards for the band students they instruct, elevating the average.

But the gaming is wide spread. It is a poorly concealed secret that bands, managing competing priorities for spending, hold back a share of the grants ostensibly earmarked by INAC for education. Like all governments, bands dig out of deficit by cutting services across the board. Unlike other governments, bands do not have a tax base from which to draw revenues generally or for education specifically.

Further, with no specific "education act" that lays down governance of schools, criteria for instructors and curricular standards, accountability is slack or missing. Graduation rates, while climbing, fall far below the Canadian average.

Block funding arrangements were intended to empower First Nations leaders, to encourage creative management of priorities. That has failed to materialize, generally, and has allowed the finger pointing to continue, discouraging real progress in the classrooms. Some Manitoba bands have Frontier School Division run their schools because they gain access to professional administration, and to higher per student grants that enrich salaries for teachers. Tribal councils could form regional education associations and mimic the services of Frontier, which operates under provincially established standards.

Education funding should be dedicated for schools. The management of schools must be professional, with good accountability so parents and band members see that students get the instruction they need to stay in school and learn. The shell game that moves money from the federal treasury to the bands cheats First Nations kids of an education even roughly comparable to that of other Canadian children.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 24, 2009 A12