ALASKA NATIVES COMMISSION
JOINT FEDERAL-STATE COMMISSION
ON
POLICIES AND PROGRAMS AFFECTING
ALASKA NATIVES
4000 Old Seward Highway, Suite 100
Anchorage,
Alaska 99503
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Witness List | PDF
Version
PROCEEDINGS
(On record at. 2 p.m. )
(Tape #4)
MR. IRWIN: Okay, a couple of little -- take care of some administrative details. First of all, this is the education section of our hearing process; and hearing you today will be our Education Task Force members from the Commission. To my far left is Mr. Sam Towarak from Unalakleet, Beverly Masek from Willow, and then also coming in will be Dr. Walter Soboleff from Tanakee Springs, and he should be here any minute. Also, our co-chair of the Commission, Mary Jane Fate, may, from time to time, come in and sit as well.
And then this particular task force also has public members who have been invited to serve with the task force; and I see a couple of them here: Mike Williams from Akiak, Ray Barnhardt is with the University of Alaska Fairbanks; and is there anybody else? Nettie Peratrovich has been around -- I've seen her earlier. She may show up; and, by the way, you guys are invited to share the table if you want.
The way we'll be conducting it today is the Commissioners will invite you up, and any of these seats along in here when you're giving your testimony. We ask that you try and keep your testimony to about five to seven minutes oral, and we can take as much for the public record written as you want; and one of the reasons for asking you to be as concise as possible is it allows our Commissioners to be able to draw more information from you by asking that are particular -- in areas that are of particular concern to them and what they are really looking for to build the public record here.
I would -- and I've asked the Commission
members to be sure and remind you also throughout the session
that if it looks like we're going to start going long, we have
some things that we can do. There are those who have already
asked to be heard; and we'll try to get through everyone this
afternoon. And others will, no doubt, throughout the afternoon,
come in and sign in, and we do have a signup back there for
anybody who would wish to testify. But when we start getting
close to 5 o’clock, we pretty much have to start shutting down, because we're moving over to the Hilton for an evening session; and although that will be a general Commission session, anybody who isn't heard in this hear -- wanted to be heard in this particular one, can either reschedule for the evening one or for Saturday morning. We're going to have a special session from about 9:00 to 12:00 Saturday morning to accommodate those who couldn't be heard. And if that's a real inconvenience m you, I’ll
be around, staff will be around, and just go ahead and talk
with me; and we'll see if we can't fit you in somewhere.
So, with that I'd like to turn the floor over to our Commission members; and Beverly has been out traveling around and -- all over the NANA Region here recently and got a cold and lost her voice. And (laughing) so I guess I'll turn duties, until Dr. Soboleff gets here, over to Sam, and you guys can just go for it. Let me get you the list that we have so far.
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Thanks, Mike, and welcome to the Education Task Force Commission hearings. This is our first hearing as a -- the Education Commission. We have been meeting as a task force for about three or four times; and I'm hoping that you have a copy of the write-up that was written up on education. I believe there may be copies in the back. If there isn't, we'll try to get some.
The -- I want to recognize a couple of other people. Some Commission members that are here right now, I see Father Sebesta - - Jim Sebesta. Raise your - - right here; Mr. Frank Pagano right here; and Mr. Martin Moore from Emmonak. Also, I'd like to recognize a person that's not here who's really been helping us, Sally Kookesh. She has also been invited to serve on our task force. That was the remaining person.
The -- Beverly, who just lost her voice, reminds me of those debates that are going on (laughing).
COMMISSIONER MASEK: I can still talk though (laughing).
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Also,
the baseball announcer who lost his voice not too long ago.
This is the fall season.
COMMISSIONER MASEK: Well, I'd just like to say good afternoon, to everybody; and I sure appreciate all of you taking the time to come down here and give us your testimony; and it's really important that, you know) you speak to us, and tell us, and give us some concrete answers -- or not answers, but solutions on, you know, the education problem in Alaska; and especially out in the rural villages. I think it's really, really crucial that you come and tell us, you know, what you think need to be changed; and, you know, why it's so import-ant for the younger generation to get a good education. And I can still talk, so (laughing). . .
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: I'm going to ask that the two Commission
-- the two task force members come up here and listen with us, too: Mike Williams
and Ray Barnhardt. There's a couple of seats here. We'll get started. Dr. Soboleff
is here in town; we just don't know where he is right
now.
I have a sign-- in sheet that was received. There might be another one in the back. Is there one there?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible -- away from microphone).
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Okay, there's another one in the back. I'll start the testimony off; and, basically, what we want you to do is use either one of these two microphones and then we can be able to hear you, and then respond and ask questions. First to speak today would be Harry R. Lang.
(Pause.)
The name sounds familiar. Is there a Herb Lang that's related? No?
MR. LANG: No, Roger -- Roger Lang.
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Okay, that's who --
MR. LANG: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: -- okay.
MR. LANG: When Mike spoke just when he opened the meeting, he said would we restrict it to about five or seven minutes. I couldn't do what I want to say in five to seven minutes. This morning they were talking for an hour and a half; so I thought that's what I'd let us do. So I'll simply introduce what I have, and maybe the questions; but I'll have to turn it in as a written statement to your Commission, rather than trying to explain the whole thing now, 'cause it's three pages long.
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: We'll be sure to add it to the record.
MR. LANG: Yeah.
(TESTIMONY
OF MR. LANG ATTACHED AS EXHIBIT #5)
MR. LANG: So, with that, I have a lot more, too; but I'll run on for another hour if I do that (laughing), so I thought I won't do that. And -- but this is the basic reason I'm here is to put this into the record, and I will enter it into the record as a written statement to the recorder.
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Okay, I had one question
on the Mt. Edgecumbe-type school. What were your thoughts about
a location for it, or if. . .
MR. LANG: Yes, we have talked
about this. The -- when the BIA decided to close Mt Edgecumbe,
they didn’t decide in a cut-and-dried manner
that it was going to close and that was it. They threw that
out to see what we would do; and, unfortunately, the state
and us didn't fight hard enough for it. They wouldn't have
closed it if we would have fought for it, the state. When they
do -- wanted to close Chemewa, Oregon fought. And they actually
built them a new school -- a whole new sc -- complete new school.
And Oklahoma fought Kansas fought. The states that fought,
got new schools. Instead of closing schools, they built them
new ones; and we had thought, in talking -- in just general
talk of the elders, say, a school in Kenai, on the Peninsula
-- not exactly in Kenai, but on the Peninsula; maybe a school
in Southeast, and a school in the Northern District. You know,
that type, instead of one major school, maybe have three; that
type of thing, and. . .
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Thanks, Harry.
MR. LANG: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER MASEK: I had one question, too why is it, do you think, that the Molly Hootch Act is not good; 'cause I've heard many people you know, crying out to keep the children, you know, in the villages; and why do you think that system --
MR. LANG: Why --
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: -- is not --
MR. LANG: -- for the very reason I mentioned before. Why -- it -- the unreasonable, to me, reason for wanting to keep the people in the villages. We never did. I'm a product of the Sheldon Jackson. I left home when I was 12, and it didn't hurt us. I still talk my language. I -- it -- we never abandoned our village simply because we went to school somewhere else. We had a better school system. And the villages -- the dropout rate is horrendous, so that's that is my basic point is the fact that we can get a better finishing rate -- better school finishing rate than we have now.
COMMISSIONER MASEK: And you think the cause of it is from this Molly Hootch Act is why there's so many kids dropping out in the villages?
MR. LANG: I really do. Metlakatla, which is my own home town, has one of the high school systems in the state. They have a whole bunch of students, and very few of them finish school. They -- because they -- when they want to quit school, their parents just say:
"Okay, ifs all right. You're home; it's fine."
It's kind of discouraging when you see how it starts out with 300 in a class, finish with 15. It would -- other type school, we didn't do that. You kind of wanted to finish with your class. You had a school spirit that seemed to work.
COMMISSIONER MASEK: So do you think the current system isn't good enough in standards to bring, you know, the children the right -- or good education to bring them into the mainstream -- or I shouldn't say mainstream, but, you know, like going from a rural village into a big-city type of education, or --
MR. LANG: Yeah, I really do, for the simple reason that you lose touch. Like I say, you get educated up north; but if you have to come down here, you don't really know anybody. But with the other type schools, the communication is there. You know everybody. You know people from Southeast; you know people from the Aleutians; you know people from the Barrow District. You all know each other. There is no separate -- you don't have to be introduced, or somebody has to look up your record to see how you did in school, or anything like -- you already know that. It's communication -- the communication line is better for the whole system. It's worked with us, that's -- and I don't see it working now.
I -- in other words, what we have coming up that's going to replace the CEOs that we have now? Bright people, bright - - I've seen bright students here in the youth conference -- just exceptionally bright; but you'll never see them again until the next youth conference. They won't see each other again until the next youth conference.
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Thank you, Harry.
MR. LANG: They go their separate way.
COMMISSIONER MASEK: Thank you.
MR. LANG: Okay.
This document was ocr scanned. We have made every
attempt to keep the online document the same as the original,
including the recorder's original misspellings or typos.
