Bureau of Indian Education
The Bureau of Indian Education for short (BIE) is an agency of the United States Department of the Interior . It was founded on August 29, 2006. The agency's predecessor was the Office of Indian Education Programs , which was subordinate to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The BIE operates or looks after schools in 64 Indian reservations in 25 states. Around 42,000 students visit the BIE facilities. The BIE runs 58 schools itself, another 125 schools are run by the Indian tribes themselves, but financed by the BIE. The BIE also supports students who attend public schools outside of the reservation. The BIE financially supports 26 Indian tribal- owned colleges, technical colleges and universities and operates two facilities of its own, the Haskell Indian Nations University (HINU) in Lawrence , Kansas and the Southwest Indian Polytechnic Institute (SIPI) in Albuquerque , New Mexico .
history
After the formation of the United States, the Department of Defense, and later the Department of the Interior, signed a number of treaties with the Indian tribes. Most of the time, the tribes ceded considerable areas of their territory to the United States. These contracts were negotiated by Indian agents of the BIA and ratified by Congress. Most of the time, the Indian tribes reserved their own area for their use. This is how the so-called Indian reservations came into being. In addition to payments, the contracts often included free health care, home programs, grocery deliveries, and other services that the United States had to provide to the tribes, often for all time. These agreements still apply today, which oblige the United States to provide free educational facilities for the recognized tribes and indigenous people. The tribes often insist on keeping the contracts.