U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) introduced two bills this week in the House to modernize the Bureau of Indian Education’s Equalization Formula and potentially bring higher teacher salaries, and more federal funding for tribal schools.
The Indigenous Students Excel through Parity Act and its supporting Act II bill would create a study under the Department of Interior to recommend reforms that could increase teacher pay, and provide more educational opportunities.
The bill is co-sponsored by U.S. Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.). An identical bill is sponsored in the Senate by U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY).
The Interior Department administers the Bureau of Indian Education, which funds 183 schools across the country. New Mexico has one of the highest concentrations of BIE-funded schools with 44.
Stansbury said BIE schools have traditionally been underfunded, but they are competing with state-funded schools to recruit teachers.
“So what this bill would do is study the current formula funds that are allocated per student to these tribally controlled schools to evaluate how to increase funding per student, how to address increasing teacher and staff pay, and how to make sure that those schools who have extra costs and needs can have their needs met,” she said.
Stansbury said the goal of the bills is to bring teacher salaries in tribal schools up to the same level as those in state-funded schools.
“If you're a teacher and you really want to work in a tribal community, whether you are a Native person yourself or not, and you're looking at the difference of getting paid, let's say, $50,000 by the federal government versus going and teaching in APS and making $60,000 – you're going to have to make that economic decision for yourself and your family,” Stansbury said. “So we don't want teachers to have to make that decision. We want teachers to be teaching in the schools they want to.”
The proposed bill does not have a cost included with it, but if the study recommendations are enacted, the BIE would have to boost funding for tribal schools.
In 2025, the Medill School of Journalism reported tribal education leaders told the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations that BIE-funded schools face crumbling infrastructure and get less than half the per-student funding of other federally operated schools.
Support for this coverage comes from the Thornburg Foundation.
