The Tribal Education Departments National Assembly (TEDNA) was founded in 2003 by contract funding from the U.S. Department of Education to NARF to start a new, first-of-its-kind national membership organization for Tribal Education Departments (TEDs), also known as Tribal Education Agencies (TEAs). With NARF’s assistance, TEDNA has become a leading Indian education organization that focuses on tribal governance through TEDs or TEAs over K-12 education provided by state, federal, and tribal schools. Learn more at www.tedna.org.
NARF continues to represent TEDNA primarily on national legislative and administrative matters, including direct federal appropriations for TEDs, substantive provisions in legislation and regulations, and negotiations for other instruments and documents.
For example, in the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Congress added an important new tribal consultation requirement. States must consult with tribes located within their states when the states apply for ESSA Title I Improving Basic Programs grants. Thirty-five states have tribes located within their states, but very few, if any, states are complying with the Title I tribal consultation requirement and the U.S. Department of Education is not monitoring or enforcing compliance with the requirement.
NARF prepared a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request which TEDNA submitted to the U.S. Department of Education requesting copies of the state Title I plans or portions thereof, which are required to be submitted annually to the Department, showing their compliance or non-compliance with the tribal consultation requirement.
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