Native American Press / Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 2006-04-21

              INDEX
NEWS AROUND INDIAN COUNTRY 2
NEWS BRIEFS 3
COMMENTARY/EDITORIALS 4
CLASSIFIEDS 7
Ojibwe Professor
wins U of MN
Teaching Award
page 4
Leech Lake Politics
page 4
Concerned about
editorials allowed
page 4
Windigoo spirit into
White Earth Twin
Cities Community
Council
page 4
What do you know
about corruption?
page 4
Red Lake school lockdown for April 20
By Bill Lawrence
We have learned that gang
activity resulted in a lockdown
yesterday at a Red Lake school.
One juvenile is said to have been
arrested because of threats to
'bump some people off.' The disturbance is thought to have been
the result of continuing neo-nazi
activity at the school and inspired
by the anniversary date of Adolph
Hitler's birthday. Red Lake school
shooter Jeff Weise was reported to
have had neo-nazi beliefs.
Weise took his own life 3/21/05
after a shooting spree at Red Lake
High School that resulted in the
deaths of nine others.
Red Lake Voters Forum to be   .
held in Minneapolis Saturday
Red Lake voters are invited Avenue South in Minneapolis,
to attend a Voters Forum Satur- The forum will begin at 8:30
day, 4/22/06 at the South High a.m. with a continental breakfast
School, located at 3131 19th and continue until all the candi
dates have had an opportunity to
speak and answer questions. All
46 certified candidates for Red
Lake tribal offices have been
invited to attend. A feast will be
served from 1:30-2:30 pm. For
more information contact Jessica
Rock, at 888-439-6788.
White Earth financial statements
reveal tribe struggling with debt
By Diane White
CASS LAKE, MN—Under
the Freedom of Information Act,
Press/ON requested from the
United States Department of the
Interior (DOI) the most recent
audited financial statements from
all Minnesota Indian tribes. The
White Earth Band of Ojibwe's
most recent submitted financial
statements are from fiscal year
2003, which covers the time
period October 1, 2002 to September 30,2003. The White Earth
Tribal Council is responsible for
the management of the Band's
finances.
At the time of these financial statements the Tribal Council members were: Chairman
Doyle Turner, Secretary/Treasurer Franklin Heisler, District I
Representative Irene Auginaush,
District II Representative Tony
Wadena, District HI Representative Kenneth Bevins.
EideBailly audited the Band's
financial statements of the governmental activities, the business-
type activities, each major fund
and the aggregate remaining fund
information. EideBailly indicated
the Band did present their financial statement in accordance with
the new Government Accounting
Standards Board (GASB) Statement #34 (GASB #34) which applies to all governments, including tribes. EideBailly believes
the Band's financial statements
present fairly in all material respects the financial position of
the Band.
From a reader of financial statements perspective, the White
Earth financials are very nicely
presented. They are informative
and include gaming and other
business enterprise numbers.
These financial statements give
explanation of how funds and
revenues are received. There is
also a comparison to fiscal year
2002, which informs the reader
of how and why the fund balances
have changed.
The Tribal Council provided
Management's Discussion and
Analysis, which set forth business objectives they followed
throughout the year. They set a
budget in which they adhered
to. They explained large changes
in spending streams. They were
open about the long-term debt
the Band owes, including interest rate, year the debt ends, and
current balance.
Government & Special Revenue
The government operations
includes the following programs:
Health Services, Education, PubUc Safety, Conservation of Natural
Resources, Roads, Economic Development, Culture/Recreation,
Community Services and Pubhc
Works. Also included are General
Government, Human Resources
and Gaming (however, Gaming
expenses are extremely small
compared to other programs).
The Band noted a 21 % increase
in Health related expenses, mostly
due to the Home Health Agency.
Community Services expenses
were 5 times higher this fiscal
year due to the Rice Lake Community Center development.
Road projects also more than
doubled due to additional road
projects.
Overall the General Fund had
a deficit, but it was a lot less than
the previous fiscal year. The Band
financial managers reported budget increase projections attributable to modest cost of living and
merit increases for government
staff.
In reviewing Capital Assets
which include Land and Improvements, Leasehold improvements,
Buildings, Equipment, Automobiles and the Water System
Network, showed a large decrease
in Automobiles and Machinery.
This decrease can be attributed
to a disposal of equipment, which
could have been a sale.
In reviewing the current debt
to current asset ratio, it appears
the Special Revenue Funds have
an average 10% debt to asset
ratio, meaning they could pay off
their current debts without any
problems. In the General Fund
and Other Sources on the Balance
Sheet reflects a serious problem
with ability to pay current debt.
Current debt is any debt that must
be paid within the next 12 months
or sooner. The General Fund has
Accounts Receivable, however,
it appears 81% of those receives
will not be paid back, leaving the
Band with a large write off of
bad loans.
Business Enterprise Analysis
The Business Enterprises consist of the Shooting Star Casino,
Eagle Crest Apartments, Ojibwa
Building Supplies, Tribal College,
Water System, and other Non-
major Proprietary Funds. There
were three statements provided:
The Statement of Net Assets,
Statement of Cash Flows, and the
DEBT to page 5
Wind's sentencing postponed until June 28
By Bill Lawrence
According to information obtained from the Cass County
Attorney's office, based on a
request by the defendant, the sentencing of Alvin John Wind was
postponed from 4/10 to 6/28/06.
The reason given for the change
was to accommodate Wind's desire to have Judge John Roue of
Crookston, who agreed to the plea
bargain, also set the sentence.
Wind, Assistant Pohce Chief at
Leech Lake, accepted the Alford
plea in February of this year. This
plea allows an individual to claim
innocence, while at the same time
acknowledging there is sufficient
evidence to bring in a guilty verdict. The plaintiff was required to
agree to the arrangement.
After many postponements, and
a year long wait for a trial, the plea
bargain allowed Wind to avoid a
trial in February 2006. During
that entire time he was permitted
to retain his gun, his badge and
all the privileges of service on
the tribal police force despite a
memo to the Department, from
the tribal executive director, that'
advised that Mr. Wind should not
be permitted to work in any "administrative role or in a capacity
in which he is a representative
of the Leech Lake Tribal Police
Force."
In January 2005, a complaint
filed in Cass Lake stated that
Wind, the defendant, "did engage
in non-consensual sexual contact." The complaint charged him
with 4th and 5th Degree Criminal
Sexual Assault.
From what we have been able
to learn about the case, Wind's
plea agreement will eliminate any
jail time for him.
The Pohce Officer's Standards
& Testing Board (POST) will
review Wind's right to carry a
fire arm and his status as a pohce
officer after the sentencing.
Senator Expects 7 Lawmakers To Go To Jail
U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn isn't
naming names, but he expects six
congressmen and a fellow senator
will go to jail.
That's because he thinks they'll be
facing corruption charges following
investigations involving lobbyist
Jack Abramoff and others.
Speaking at a town hall meeting in Wagoner, Okla., Coburn
said that "if you've been keeping
up with things, you've got a pretty
good idea" of who the seven lawmakers are.
The Oklahoma Republican
says members of both parties
have been involved in questionable dealings.
The remarks were made in
relation to his attempts to curb
"earmarking," which is the practice of inserting appropriations
for specific projects into unrelated
bills.
Tests should be culturally relevant to Indian students
Associated Press
' WHITE EARTH, Minn. - Social studies teacher Paul Backman
isn't sure that standardized tests
are a good measure of American
Indian students in White Earth.
It's difficult to focus on tests,
he said, when often the greatest
challenge is getting kids to show
up for class.
"So you're putting all this pressure on testing and test scores in
every situation ... It's one size
fits all ... which is kind of short
sighted and I think it's unrealistic,"
said Backman, a teacher at the
Circle of Life school in White
Earth.
Backman said attendance at
Circle of Life improved after the
school started paying students $5
a week if they attend school every
day.
He said he teaches to state education standards, but tests sometimes have cultural references
that students don't understand and
reservation schools should be able
to adjust questions to make them
relevant.
"If we're going to have a test
that's such a high value test that
impacts so many things about
the school and the student, we
better make sure those tests are
valid and culturally appropriate,"
Backman told Minnesota Pubhc
Radio News.
Circle of Life students said they
try to pass the standardized tests
_ most are motivated by the $25
they earn for a passing score.
Circle of Life Superintendent
and Principal Mitch Vogt said the
school is making some progress.
The graduation rate is over 80
percent, compared to less than
60 percent five years ago. Smdent
attendance is up this year and Vogt
thinks that's an indirect result of
education reform.
"I don't think the No Child Left
Behind legislation motivates smdents directly," said Vogt. "I think
(it motivates them) indirectly
because the school becomes more
motivated to motivate smdents.
So, indirectly. No Child Left
Behind is impacting smdent attendance."
Vogt is concerned that No Child
Left Behind doesn't provide resources for social issues like broken families, poverty and alcohol
abuse that affects many American
Indian kids. He said a proposal to
develop tests for American Indian
smdents has been shelved by the
Bureau of Indian Affairs because
of a lack of funding.
Vogt said the school is doing
whatever it takes to meet education standards. He said that means
making the school a safe place
where kids want to be, rewarding
them for corning to school, and
teaching to the tests.
But the focus on tests is hurting
American Indian smdents, said
David Beaulieu, director of the
Center for Indian Education at
Arizona State University.
Beaulieu said as schools become more focused on tests, the
American Indian dropout rate is
increasing. He said reservation
schools need to focus on more
than academic performance.
"The issues that face young
people outside of the school, we
have to pay attention to them. I
suppose that's another aspect of
culturally based education, understanding what the heck is going
on and engaging them beyond the
school wall," said Beaulieu.
Beaulieu said reservation
schools need to create schools
where kids are valued and given a
reason to stay in school. American
TESTS to page 6
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A weekly publication.  Copyright, Native American Press, 2006
Founded in 1988
Volume 18 Issue 43
April 21, 2006
Bob Larsen, a member of the Lower Sioux Tribe, looks out on the course at the Dacotah
Ridge Golf Club from the deck of the clubhouse April 14, 2006 in Morton, Minn. The
tribal-owned course is part of the Jackpot Junction casino complex. In Minnesota and
elsewhere, American Indian tribes that mastered the casino gambling trade are increasingly venturing into the golf course business. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)
Many minority
test scores not
counted in
Washington
By Donna Gordon Blankinship
Associated Press
MILTON, Wash. - Brittany Vigoreaux is a statistical
anomaly in the world of educational testing and the federal
No Child Left Behind law.
As one of a dozen American
Indian students at Fife High
School, the 15-year-old's test
scores are not reported to the
federal government to illustrate
whether her school is making
adequate yearly progress.
Every state in the nation
takes advantage of a loophole
in the law's requirement that
smdents of all races must show
progress. In Washington, if
your school has fewer than 30
smdents in any ethnic group,
their scores are not reported
separately, but just rolled into
the school's average.
But in Brittany's case, Fife
High School would probably
rather hang a banner showing her attractive face and her
straight-A report card than
hide her score on the 10th
grade Washington Assessment of Student Learning. But
schools can't pick which scores
they highlight and which they
don't.
Nationwide, nearly half of
the 153,000 American Indian
test scores aren't reported at a
school level, the most left out
among any racial group. This
helps many schools, since
Indians traditionally haven't
performed as well on standardized tests as whites. Even if
one small group doesn't make
adequate progress, an entire
school can face penalties ranging from a revised curriculum
to outright closure.
In Washington, nearly two-
thirds of Indian scores aren't
reported at the school level.
Under the law championed
by President Bush, all smdents
must achieve proficiency in
reading and math by 2014.
Schools receiving federal aid
also must demonstrate that
smdents in all racial categories
are meeting performance goals
or risk penalties.
SCORES to page 2
Evil Anishinabe Godfather in
South Mpis: The Windigoo
By Vincent Hill
The traditional Ojibwe of 'Olden Time' were very superstitious,
according to white Christian missionaries, during first Christian
contact by white Europeans. The
large Ojibwe tribe, along with
cousin Algonquin tribes, occupied the northeastern Seaboard,
including the Great Lakes region,
both in the United States and
Canada.
Before white European contact
in the 1400s, I estimate our Algonquin Anishinabeg population
to have been around 2 million
souls; the Algonquin stock of
Indians, even, extended down to
Florida, and into the Caribbean
islands. The root word caribe
in Spanish, comes from Carib
'Galibe' the Caribs and; fascinatingly, caribe (kareba) refers to the
piranha fish ('caribe' cannibal);
Caribou, of course, is well known
to be Canadian French, derived
from Algonkian 'xalibu' meaning
pawer, the habit of the animal
pawing snow to find it' s food,
or grass.
The Carib language family
extended into northeastern South
America: Guiana, northern Brazil, Venezuela, parts of Columbia
and Peru; also found in Central
South America and the West
Indies. While the Woodland Anishinabeg religion in the eyes of
white Europeans was devoid of
an abstract God, yet the midewiwin religion known, as the Grand
Medicine, or Secret Society, was
highly developed. The 'savages'
even dealt with separation of
church & government ( state )
issues. The Anishinabeg truly
knew and practiced democratic
forms of government, in contrast
to bureaucracies, possibly, good
for immediate progress, but creating a disconnect with people!
No religion in this world is
perfect, of course; the problem
with Anishinabeg, and other
indigenous religions is that,
emphasis, often, was on the dark
side of what they knew of the
spirit world. The WINDIGOO is
a mythical cannibal giant of the
Ojibwe. The Canadians have a
psychiatric classification called
the WINDIGOO psychosis.
I some times wonder, if the
'you know Anishinabe Godfather' character present in every
profit and nonprofit meeting in
Mpis, pertaining to funding for
Anishinabeg, is the WINDIGOO
incarnate, or at least, in spirit.
This evil man continues to control directly, or indirectly, any
and all funding for Anishinabeg,
at the Little Earth Housing complex, and surrounding neighborhoods irt South Mpis. He instills
WINDIGOO to page 3
Minnesota schools say they're not
leaving children behind
By Steve Kamowski
Associated Press
SHAKOPEE, Minn. - Like
hundreds of other smdents at Shakopee Senior High, Mary Faith is
always nervous about the battery
of tests that make up such a big
part of school life these days.
"You don't know what you're
going to get in the test," said
Mary, a 15-year-old junior. "As
an individual you always want to
score higher."
Schools have as much anxiety
as their smdents, since they can
be penalized if collective scores
fall below certain levels. But an
exemption in the federal No Child
Left Behind Act means they don't
always have to worry about Mary,
an immigrant from Kenya, and
nearly 2 million more students
like her.
The exemption, intended to
protect student privacy and ensure meaningful assessments
for specific races of smdents, is
complicated.
Under the law championed by
President Bush, all smdents must
achieve proficiency in reading and
math by 2014. No students' stores
can be excluded from a school's
overall score, but schools also
report by categories such as race,
poverty, migrant status, English
proficiency and special education.
If students in one category fail,
the entire school is deemed to be
failing.
When racial groups are too
small to be statistically signifi-
SCHOOLS to page 3