Schools & College

The schools — Navajo kids attend a patchwork: Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) schools, grant/638 (tribally-run) schools, public schools, and charters. The quality and resources differ a lot between them. The colleges — the Nation has its own: Diné College and Navajo Technical University — plus scholarships that often send students to off-reservation universities. Title 10 — the part of the Navajo Nation Code that governs education; whether it’s outdated is a question the interviews put to candidates. Go deeper: Education 101 — the background, history, and how the school types differ.

Here’s a question worth knowing the answer to: when a school or college claims to be good, who actually checks? That’s where accreditation comes in.

Accreditation is an independent seal that says a school or college truly meets real standards — in its teaching, its money, its operations. It’s the outside referee. Accreditation is rarely revoked outright — so the warning signs short of losing it (citations, findings, probation) usually tell you more than the seal itself. Still, it has teeth: a school that loses accreditation can lose funding, lose students, even lose the ability to grant real degrees. So accreditation is one of the biggest accountability levers there is — and most people have never had it explained.

A candidate should understand who regulates our schools and what happens when standards slip. Same idea applies to hospitals — see how 638 hospitals are regulated.

Learn what accreditation means: Education 101  ·  how boards & standards work

Here’s the heart of it, and candidates named it directly: scholarship money mostly flows to schools off the Nation — which, as one candidate put it, can end up “training our students to leave.”

It’s not that education is bad — it’s that we invest in our young people and then have nowhere for them to come home to. That ties schools straight to jobs and the economy: you can’t ask graduates to return if there’s no work waiting. Education and economic development are the same conversation.

Accreditation — the independent stamp that says a school or hospital meets real standards. It’s rarely revoked outright — so watch for issues short of losing it: citations, findings, probation. BIA school — run by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. Grant / 638 school — a school the Nation or a community runs itself (same self-determination law as the 638 hospitals). Service commitment — scholarship help that comes with a promise to return and work on the Nation. Title 10 — the Nation’s education law.

Before asking what’s broken, it helps to know who’s even supposed to be in charge. Here’s the map for education — the at-a-glance version of who keeps schools honest. Why this matters →

What’s the law?Title 10 of the Navajo Nation Code governs education — several candidates call it outdated. Federal education law also applies.

Education 101 → — Who regulates it? (the outside referee)Accreditation bodies certify that schools and colleges actually meet standards — the outside referee with real teeth (funding, students, the ability to grant degrees). See the fuller explainer above.

What accreditation means → — Who oversees it? (the inside watchers)Local school boards, the Council’s Education Committee, and the Department of Diné Education.

How boards work → — What’s broken — and what candidates would fixOn this page: the gaps in oversight and the leaving problem — plus how candidates answered, summarized from their interviews.

A starting map — confirm current laws and body names against the Nation’s official resources. General civic information, not legal advice.

• Unequal schools. Big gaps between BIA, grant, and public schools — in resources, broadband, and outcomes.
• Scholarships as a right. Scholarship money flows off-reservation, and graduates don’t come back — because there’s little to come back to.
• An aging law. Title 10 dates back decades — whether it has kept up is a question candidates answered on the record.
• Culture and language at risk. When schooling pulls kids away, the language and teachings can go with them.

What this costs: the Nation pays to raise and educate its brightest young people, then loses them — their skills, their families, their future — to the border towns and the cities. The cost of failure here is the next generation, gone.

Read down the list and see for yourself. Where a candidate didn’t speak to this, we say so plainly — a blank is just a blank, not a mark against anyone.

Melinda Arviso-Ciocco Scholarships as a right · Cal asked: Why does scholarship money leave the Nation?Pushed back on the host’s framing that scholarship money sent off-Nation is “lost” — “we’re not losing money when it comes to scholarships… we’re giving them the opportunity as a human right” — while proposing Diné College and NTU grow into master’s/graduate-degree institutions.

Shaquille Begay — Service commitment · Cal asked: Would you support free college for Navajo students?Rather than free tuition, favors service-commitment agreements — help with school in exchange for coming back to work.

J. Kaibah Begay — Modernize Title 10Cal asked: Is there adequate oversight, why are there so many school systems, and how do you fix top-heavy boards?Education is her deepest area — calls for updating Title 10 and the outdated education code, with specifics.

Debbie Nez-Manuel — Close the gaps · Cal asked: How do you unify a fractured education system?Would address disparities among BIA, grant, and public schools — including through broadband. Marcella Yazzie638 schools · Cal asked: Should the different school types be consolidated?Explained tribally-controlled (638) and charter schools, and how she’d support them.

Eugene Badonie — Personal responsibility · Cal asked: What's your view on education?Stresses personal responsibility — that students who fail often didn’t do the work.

(Each name jumps to that candidate’s answer. Other candidates’ views are on their own pages; where someone didn’t speak to schools, their page notes “did not provide an answer” on this.)

Donovan Begay · Cal asked: Should scholarship money stay on the Nation to grow our two colleges?Framed scholarships as preparing students for the wider world rather than as a tool to make them return; shared his own repeatedly-denied-scholarship story; pledged to fund a scholarship for every college student he can.

The gaps in our schools aren’t an education-only story. They’re one face of a pattern that runs under every topic: no one truly watching whether the people in charge are qualified and doing the job.

In schools: no one reliably watching accreditation → standards slip, futures lost. In 638 health care: the same root → weak oversight, exposure to fraud. See it → In the enterprises: a yearly allowance instead of growth.

It’s often one problem in seven places. See the root — Accountability & Justice →

How should schools balance keeping long-term teachers with filling empty classrooms right now?

Take the workforce survey →

Where the community stands: collecting — tallies and best ideas publish with the weekly findings.

A plan only matters if you can tell whether it’s working. Here are specific things to watch on this topic — so “we fixed it” means the numbers moved, not just that a law passed.

What to measure

• Graduation rates by school type (BIA, grant, public)
• Share of graduates who return to work on the Nation
• Broadband access by school
• Whether each school/college holds current accreditation

How to gather the data
Gather from school boards, the education department, and accreditation bodies — reported per chapter so gaps are visible. What success looks like
Smaller gaps between schools, more graduates coming home, full broadband, and no accreditation in jeopardy.

Ask any candidate: how would you measure whether this is working? A real leader can name the number.

• How do we keep our graduates from leaving for good?
• Who regulates our schools — and what happens when one slips below standard?
• What would you change in Title 10, specifically?
• How do Diné language and teachings fit into schooling?

• Education 101 — the full background, including accreditation.
• Economic Development — the jobs graduates would come home to.
• Healthcare & 638 — the same regulation question, for hospitals.
• Glossary.
• Watch the interviews.

• Candidate profiles
• Full interview write-ups
• Watch the interviews

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Reading is step one. Here’s a concrete move on this topic: Attend (or run for) your local school board, and ask candidates who checks whether your schools meet standards.

See your full part — the To-Do List for the Nation →

You help decide what gets explored next — who Cal interviews, what questions get asked, what topics we dig into.

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