Indian Education Act (1992)

The Indian Education Act of 1992 may be cited as the Native American Languages Act of 1992 or Public Law 102–524, with the exception of section three, relating to grants. Throughout history, there have been five major phases of federal policies regarding American Indian educational reform. The final phase of reform, including the Indian Education Act of 1992, promotes the idea of self-determination where tribal sovereignty and American Indian activism have increased. In the early 1990s, there was a resurgence of interest in Indian education that paralleled the interest exhibited in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Between 1970 and 1990, the U.S. Census Bureau reported a doubling of the American Indian and Alaskan Native populations. Three specific events indicate that the policy of self-determination was moving forward: signing of the Native American Languages Act of 1990, the U.S. Secretary of Education's Indian Nations At Risk Task Force Report in 1991, and the first-ever White House Conference on Indian Education in 1992, which eventually led to the establishment of the Indian Education Act of 1992.

In the 1990s, about 40,000 native students (10 percent of the total) attended some 170 Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) funded schools, about 10,000 (3 percent) attended private schools, and over 300,000 (87 percent) attended public schools. In these schools, a disproportionate number of native students achieve below national averages. Indian students have a higher dropout rate than all student populations. This prompted a need for a federal task force. The Indian Nations At-Risk Task Force found that schools that respect and support a student's language and culture are significantly more successful in educating those students. In the process of gathering information, the task force learned that there is a direct relationship between students’ understanding of their culture and role in society, and their ability to function and achieve academic success. When students’ relationships with the larger society are strained, their chances for academic success appear to diminish.