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Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Navajo Lawmakers Send Education Proposal Back To Committee

By Felicia Fonseca/
Associated Press
      The Navajo Nation's board of education will remain intact for now, after the Tribal Council voted to send legislation to reduce the number of board members back to a committee.
    The Tribal Council voted 59-8 Tuesday to return a proposal to cut the 11-member board to seven to the Education Committee. The council is meeting in Window Rock, Ariz., this week for its spring session.
    The proposal sponsored by members of the committee would have unseated the board's elected members. It also would have stripped the board of its authority to hire an education superintendent and allowed the tribe's president to appoint someone to lead the Department of Dine Education.
    The board would have remained in an advisory capacity, with its duties given mainly to the Education Committee.
    Committee member Leonard Anthony has said the board has failed to do its job, particularly in setting education standards that would incorporate the tribe's culture and tradition.
    The council amended the tribe's education law in 2005 to create an education department, an education superintendent and the board.
    Board Vice President Rebecca Benally — one of six appointed members — said Tuesday that tribal lawmakers should give the board time to prosper.
    "They really need to understand that they are the makers of the policy, not the people who do the action part of the policy," she said before the council's vote. "I think if they can understand that in their minds, it will be quite clear who needs to do the job. There can't be any micromanaging."
    She expressed hope that the Education Committee and the board could work together without amending the education law.
    "In a very deep-thinking way, (I) try to understand the Education Committee. I do — somewhere, somehow — try to be positive and think they mean well," she said. "I think we can come together in unity for the sake of the children."

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