From the Green Bay Press-Gazette:
“Here are five takeaways from the address. 1. Give nurse practitioners more autonomy. 2. Crack down on illegal gambling. 3. Focus on protecting the environment. 4. Expand Act 31 and ban race-based mascots. 5. Allow tribal police a state pension.” Watch here or read here.
Additional context from IRG Senior Research Director Quinton Klabon:
- Wisconsinites often forget that Indigenous students have horrible outcomes in Wisconsin. Our Indigenous students rank 7th out of 15 nationally in reading, Menominee “Indian” is the lowest-performing district in Wisconsin, and Wisconsin has the nation’s 4th highest Indigenous incarceration rate.
- We could do more for Native students. Cultural immersion schools like the Ojibwe Akii-gikinoo’amaading Charter School and Menominee Kaehkēnawapahtāēq Charter School are great starts, but are tiny. The same high-performing charters that operate in urban areas could start up in our smaller, rural cities.
- Moreover, while changing mascots is an understandable priority, reading reforms would give our tribes autonomy over their future. Years of shoddy research have destroyed literacy in these communities, and partnership in literacy improvement could restore what was lost.