Canku Ota (Many Paths) An Online Newsletter Celebrating Native America August 10, 2002 - Issue 67 Native's Making the Grade Wisconsin's first public school was opened in 1828 by a Stockbridge-Munsee Indian named Electa Quinney, who brought the New England concept of a free school with her when the government moved her Mohican tribe from New York to Wisconsin. Quinney taught in a one-room school in Kaukauna where Indian and white students, most of them poor, could learn together. It was a strong start, but two centuries later, Wisconsin's 12,311 American Indian students lag behind their white classmates by nearly every measure: Just 73 percent of Indian ninth-graders graduate four years later, compared with 94 percent of white students. More than 16 percent of Indian high school students will be held back a grade, compared with less than 5 percent of white students. The cumulative grade point average of Indian students in the Madison schools is 1.92, about a C-, compared to 2.88 or about a B-, for white students. | |
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