Since treaties in the 19th century, the federal government has provided educational aid to American Indians. These days, the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) owns about 180 Indian schools, which have about 41,000 students in Arizona, New Mexico, South Dakota, North Dakota, and other states.

I examined Indian schools in this study at Downsizing Government. The schools have long failed Indian children and seem to waste a great deal of money.

The Washington Post reported similar findings:

The U.S. Bureau of Indian Education spends nearly 56 percent more money than American public schools on each student, but many Native Americans learn in facilities that are languishing in poor condition, according to federal auditors.

A report this week from the Government Accountability Office said the agency has struggled to staff, manage and repair its schools, largely because of a broken bureaucracy.

… The bureau also suffers from high leadership turnover, inconsistent accountability, poor communication between offices, a lack of strategic planning and a dearth of financial experts to manage spending, auditors said. The “systemic management challenges,” as the report described them, have hindered the agency’s efforts to improve student achievement and sustain key initiatives, according to the report.

The problems have persisted for years, despite the bureau spending significantly more than U.S. public schools in general. A 2014 GAO analysis found that the agency spends an estimated $15,000 per pupil on average, while public schools nationwide spend an estimated average of about $9,900.

… Indian Education spokeswoman Nedra Darling said Thursday that the bureau is “deep into the process of fixing the problems that the GAO highlighted.”

… “The president has asked Congress for significant increases in the budget to accomplish many of these goals and to increase staff available to serve tribal schools and BIE-run schools,” Darling said.

The last two sentences are classic: Agency leaders using their own failings as an excuse to demand more taxpayer money.

A better reform would be for Congress to advance Indian self-determination by ending the federal ownership and operation of schools and converting BIE funding to block grants. Tribal governments could then use the block grants to either competitively source school management or to pass through the funds to Indian parents in the form of school vouchers.

The important thing is to get Washington out of the business of running schools because decades of experience reveal that it is not very good at it.