• There are 562 federally recognized tribes in the United States and 4,500,000 U.S Citizens who identtified themselves as having American Indian, Alaskan Native, or Native Hawaiian ancestry (U.S. Census 2005).
• Twelve states have more than 100,000 American Indians, Alaskan Native, or Native Hawaiians, including California, Oklahoma, Arizona, New Mexico, Washington, Michigan, Florida, Texas, New York, North Carolina, Hawaii, and Alaska. (U.S. Census 2005).
• There are approximately 624,000 American Indian and Alaska Native students in the U.S. K-12 system (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics 2005).
• About 93 percent of all American Indian and Alaska Native students attend regular public schools, and 7 percent attend schools administered by the U.S. government's Burerau of Indian Affiars (BIA), a system of 184 schools for educating American Indian students spread over 23 states. (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics 2005b).
• Only 71 percent of American Indians and Alaskan Natives have a high school dipolma and only 11 percent have a Bachelor Arts degree (U.S. Census 2005).
• The national graduation rate for American Indian high school students was 49.3 percent in the 2003-04 school year, compared to 76.2 percent for white students (EPE Research Center 2007).
• Only 44.6 percent of American Indian males and 50 percent of American Indian females graduated with a regular diploma in the 2003-04 school year (EPE Research Center 2007).
• Nearly 75 percent of Alaska Natives over 18 had high school diplomas by 2000, and 6 percent of adult Alaska Natives had four-year college degrees (U.S. Census 2000).
• American Indian and Alaska Native students were more likely than students of other racial and ethnic groups to recieve services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Specifically, about 12 percent of American Indian and Alaska Native students recieived IDEA services in 2003, compared to 8 percent of white, 11 percent of black, 8 percent of Hispanic, and 4 percent of Asian/Pacifc Islander students (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics 2005b).
• In 1998, American Indian and Alaska Native students made up 1.1 percent of the 1.1 percent population in gifted education (U.S. Department of Education 2000).
• About 20 percent of students at BIA schools recieve special education services (U.S. General Accounting Office 2001).
• American Indian and Alaska Native students are 1.53 times more likely to recieve special education services for specific learning disabilities and 2.89 times more likely to recieve such services for developmental delays than the combined average of all other racial groups. (U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs 2004).
• Fifteen percent of American Indian and Alaska Native eighth graders were categorized as students with disabilities in 2005, meaning they had or were in the process of receiving Individualized Education Plans, compared to 9 percent of all non-American Indian and Alaska Native eighth graders (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics 2006).
• The national graduation rate for American Indian high school students was 49.3 percent in the 2003-04 school year, compared to 76.2 percent for white students (EPE Research Center 207).
These facts were presented by National Indian Education Association and can be furthur viewed here.
