EO 13592, “Improving American Indian and Alaska Native Educational Opportunities and Strengthening Tribal Colleges and Universities” (December 2, 2011)

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Executive Order 13592 of December 2, 2011

Improving American Indian and Alaska Native Educational
Opportunities and Strengthening Tribal Colleges and Universities
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the
laws of the United States of America, I hereby order as follows:
Section 1. Policy. The United States has a unique political and legal relationship with the federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/
AN) tribes across the country, as set forth in the Constitution of the United
States, treaties, Executive Orders, and court decisions. For centuries, the
Federal Government’s relationship with these tribes has been guided by
a trust responsibility—a long-standing commitment on the part of our Government to protect the unique rights and ensure the well-being of our Nation’s
tribes, while respecting their tribal sovereignty. In recognition of that special
commitment—and in fulfillment of the solemn obligations it entails—Federal
agencies must help improve educational opportunities provided to all AI/
AN students, including students attending public schools in cities and in
rural areas, students attending schools operated and funded by the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Education (BIE), and students attending postsecondary institutions, including Tribal Colleges and Universities
(TCUs). This is an urgent need. Recent studies show that AI/AN students
are dropping out of school at an alarming rate, that our Nation has made
little or no progress in closing the achievement gap between AI/AN students
and their non-AI/AN student counterparts, and that many Native languages
are on the verge of extinction.
It is the policy of my Administration to support activities that will strengthen
the Nation by expanding educational opportunities and improving educational outcomes for all AI/AN students in order to fulfill our commitment
to furthering tribal self-determination and to help ensure that AI/AN students
have an opportunity to learn their Native languages and histories and receive
complete and competitive educations that prepare them for college, careers,
and productive and satisfying lives.

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My Administration is also committed to improving educational opportunities
for students attending TCUs. TCUs maintain, preserve, and restore Native
languages and cultural traditions; offer a high-quality college education;
provide career and technical education, job training, and other career-building
programs; and often serve as anchors in some of the country’s poorest
and most remote areas.
Sec. 2. Definitions. (a) ‘‘Agency’’ means any executive department or agency
designated by the Secretary of Education and the Secretary of the Interior
to participate in this order.
(b) ‘‘Indian tribe’’ means an Indian or Alaska Native tribe, band, nation,
pueblo, village, or community that the Secretary of the Interior acknowledges
to exist as an Indian tribe pursuant to the Federally Recognized Indian
Tribe List Act of 1994, 25 U.S.C. 479a.
(c) ‘‘American Indian and Alaska Native’’ means a member of an Indian
tribe, as membership is defined by the tribe.
(d) ‘‘Public school’’ means a Head Start center or a pre-kindergarten,
elementary, or secondary school that is predominantly funded by public
means through the Federal Government, a State, a local educational agency,

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or an Indian tribal government, including a school operated directly by
or through contract or grant with the BIE, an Indian tribe, or a State,
county, or local government.
(e) ‘‘Tribal Colleges and Universities’’ are those institutions that are chartered by their respective Indian tribes through the sovereign authority of
the tribes or by the Federal Government, and defined in section 316 of
the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1059c).
Sec. 3. White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education.
(a) Establishment. There is hereby established the White House Initiative
on American Indian and Alaska Native Education (Initiative). The Secretary
of Education and the Secretary of the Interior will co-chair the Initiative.
The Secretary of Education shall appoint an Executive Director who shall
be responsible for overseeing implementation of the Initiative. This individual
shall be a senior-level, Department of Education official who shall serve
as the Secretary of Education’s senior policy advisor on Federal policies
affecting AI/AN education.
The Executive Director shall work closely with the BIE Director and shall
provide periodic reports to the Secretaries of Education and the Interior
regarding progress achieved under the Initiative. The Executive Director
shall coordinate frequent consultations with tribal officials and shall provide
staff support for the National Advisory Council on Indian Education (NACIE),
authorized by section 7141 of the Elementary and Secondary Education
Act of 1965 (ESEA) (20 U.S.C. 7471).
(b) Mission and Functions. (1) The Initiative shall help expand educational
opportunities and improve educational outcomes for all AI/AN students,
including opportunities to learn their Native languages, cultures, and histories
and receive complete and competitive educations that prepare them for
college, careers, and productive and satisfying lives, by:
(i) working closely with the Executive Office of the President to help
ensure AI/AN participation in the development and implementation of key
Administration priorities;
(ii) strengthening the relationship between the Department of Education,
which has substantial expertise and resources to help improve Indian education, and the Department of the Interior and its BIE, which directly operates
or provides grants to tribes to operate an extensive primary, secondary,
and college level school system for AI/AN children and young adults;
(iii) coordinating, in consultation with the Department of Education’s Director of Indian Education, programs administered by the Department of Education and other executive branch agencies regarding AI/AN education;
(iv) serving as a liaison with other executive branch agencies on AI/
AN issues and advising those agencies on how they might help to promote
AI/AN educational opportunities;
(v) reporting on the development, implementation, and coordination of
education policy and programs that affect AI/AN students;

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(vi) furthering tribal sovereignty by supporting efforts, consistent with
applicable law, to build the capacity of tribal educational agencies and
TCUs to provide high-quality education services to AI/AN children;
(vii) developing in partnership with tribal educational agencies a more
routine and streamlined process for entering into agreements for educational
studies conducted on tribal lands;
(viii) developing sufficient data resources to inform progress on Federal
performance indicators, in close collaboration with the Department of Education’s National Center for Educational Statistics;
(ix) encouraging and coordinating Federal partnerships with public, private,
philanthropic, and nonprofit entities to help increase the readiness of AI/
AN students for school, college, and careers, and to help increase the number
and percentage of AI/AN students completing college; and

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(x) developing a national network of individuals, organizations, and communities to share best practices in AI/AN education and encouraging them
to implement these practices.
(2) In order to help expand educational opportunities and improve education outcomes for AI/AN students, the Initiative shall promote, encourage, and undertake efforts, consistent with applicable law, to meet the
following objectives:
(i) increasing the number and percentage of AI/AN children who enter
kindergarten ready for success through improved access to high-quality early
learning programs and services, including Native language immersion programs, that encourage the learning and development of AI/AN children
from birth through age five;
(ii) supporting the expanded implementation of education reform strategies
that have shown evidence of success in enabling AI/AN students to acquire
a rigorous and well-rounded education and increasing their access to the
support services that prepare them for college, careers, and civic involvement;
(iii) increasing the number and percentage of AI/AN students who have
access to excellent teachers and school leaders, including effective science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), language, and special
education teachers, in part by supporting efforts to improve the recruitment,
development, and retention of effective AI/AN teachers and other effective
teachers and school leaders, particularly through TCUs;
(iv) reducing the AI/AN student dropout rate and helping a greater number
and percentage of those students who stay in high school to be ready
for college and careers by the time of their graduation and college completion,
in part by promoting a positive school climate and supporting successful
and innovative dropout-prevention and recovery strategies that better engage
AI/AN youths in their learning and help them catch up academically;
(v) providing pathways that enable those who have dropped out to reenter
educational or training programs and acquire degrees, certificates, or industryrecognized credentials and obtain quality jobs, and expanding access to
high-quality education programs leading to career advancement, especially
in the STEM fields, by supporting adult, career, and technical education;
(vi) increasing college access and completion for AI/AN students through
strategies to strengthen the capacity of postsecondary institutions, particularly
TCUs; and

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(vii) helping to ensure that the unique cultural, educational, and language
needs of AI/AN students are met.
(3) To facilitate a new partnership between the Department of Education
and the Department of the Interior, to improve AI/AN education, the
Executive Director shall work with the BIE Director and develop a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the two Departments that will
take advantage of both Departments’ expertise, resources, and facilities.
The MOU shall be completed within 120 days of the date of this order.
Among other things, the MOU shall address how the Departments will
collaborate in carrying out the policy set out in section 1 of this order.
(c) Funding and Administrative Support. Subject to the availability of
appropriations, the Department of Education shall fund the Initiative, including NACIE. The Department shall also provide administrative support for
the Initiative to the extent permitted by law and within existing appropriations.
(d) Interagency Working Group. There is established the Interagency Working Group on AI/AN education and TCUs, which shall be convened by
the Initiative’s Executive Director. The Working Group shall consist of senior
officials from the Department of Education and the Department of the Interior
and officials from the Departments of Justice, Agriculture, Labor, Health
and Human Services, and Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency,
and the White House Domestic Policy Council, as well as such additional
agencies and offices as the Secretaries of Education and the Interior may

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designate. Senior officials shall be designated by the heads of their respective
agencies and offices. The Secretaries of Education and the Interior shall
serve as the co-chairs of the Interagency Working Group.
(e) Federal Agency Plans. (1) Each agency designated by the co-chairs
as a member of the Interagency Working Group shall develop and implement
a two-part, 4-year plan of the agency’s efforts to fulfill the purposes of
this order, with part one of the plan focusing on all AI/AN students except
for those attending TCUs, and part two focusing on AI/AN students attending
TCUs. Each agency plan shall include:
(i) annual performance indicators and appropriate measurable objectives
with which the agency will measure its success in meeting the goals of
this order;
(ii) information on how the agency intends to increase the capacity of
educational agencies and institutions, including our Nation’s public schools
and TCUs, to deliver high-quality education and related social services to
all AI/AN students; and
(iii) agency efforts to enhance the ability of these educational agencies
and institutions serving AI/AN students to compete effectively for grants,
contracts, cooperative agreements, and other Federal resources with which
to serve the education needs of AI/AN students, and to encourage eligible
schools and colleges serving those students to apply for Federal grants
and participate in Federal education programs, as appropriate. Agency plans
may also emphasize access to high-quality educational opportunities for
AI/AN students, consistent with requirements of the ESEA, the Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act, and other applicable Federal education statutes; the preservation and revitalization of tribal languages and cultural
traditions; and innovative approaches to more seamlessly align early learning,
elementary, and secondary education programs with the work of TCUs.
(2) Submission. Each agency shall submit its plan to the Initiative by
a deadline established by the co-chairs. In consultation with NACIE, the
Initiative shall then review agency plans and develop, for submission
to the President, a synthesized interagency plan to achieve the aims of
this order.
(3) Annual Performance Reports. Each agency shall submit to the Initiative
an Annual Performance Report that measures the agency’s performance
against the objectives set forth in its plan. In consultation with NACIE,
the Initiative shall review and combine Annual Performance Reports from
the various agencies into one annual report, which shall be submitted
to the Secretaries of Education and the Interior for review.
(f) Private Sector. In consultation with NACIE, and consistent with applicable law, the Interagency Working Group, led by the Executive Director,
shall encourage the private sector to assist State- and locally-operated public
schools that serve large numbers of AI/AN students, including those attending
our Nation’s public schools, publicly-funded preschools, and TCUs, through
increased use of such strategies as:
(1) Providing funds to support the preservation and revitalization of Native
languages and cultures;

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(2) Providing funds to support increased institutional endowments;
(3) Helping these schools develop expertise in financial and facilities
management, information systems, and curricula; and
(4) Providing resources for the hiring and training of effective teachers
and administrators.
Sec. 4. Study. In carrying out this order, the Secretaries of Education and
the Interior shall study and collect information on the education of AI/
AN students.
Sec. 5. General Provisions. (a) NACIE shall serve as the Initiative’s advisory
committee.

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(b) Insofar as the Federal Advisory Committee Act, as amended (5 U.S.C.
App.), may apply to the Initiative, any functions of the President under
that Act, except for those of reporting to the Congress, shall be performed
by the Secretary of Education, in consultation with the Secretary of the
Interior, in accordance with the guidelines issued by the Administrator
of General Services.
(c) This order revokes Executive Order 13270 of July 3, 2002, Executive
Order 13336 of April 30, 2004, and section 1(n) of Executive Order 13585
of September 30, 2011.
(d) The heads of agencies shall assist and provide such information to
the Initiative as may be necessary to carry out its functions, consistent
with applicable law.
(e) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(1) authority granted by law to an executive department, agency, or the
head thereof; or
(2) functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget
relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(f) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit,
substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party
against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers,
employees, or agents, or any other person.

THE WHITE HOUSE,
December 2, 2011.
[FR Doc. 2011–31624
Filed 12–7–11; 8:45 am]

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