lilian sparks serves as the national director of the national indian education association which was founded in 1970 to give american indians, alaskan natives and native hawaiians access to improve in their educational opportunities. in october, president obama nominated her to be commissioner of administration for native americans which is part of the department of health and human services, and she is awaiting senate confirmation. lily eccleson is the vice president of the national education association. she is one of the highest ranking labor leaders in the country and one of the most influential hispanic educators. after teaching for only nine years, she was named utah teacher of the year in 1989, and she used that title as a platform to speak out against the dismal funding of utah schools. sharon lewis is the senior disability policy adviser for the u.s. house of representatives, education and labor committee under the chairmanship of congressman george miller, which she handles issues involving disability policy. she originally came to washington, d.c., from portland, oregon, t

lilian sparks serves as the national director of the national indian education association which wasunded in 1970 to give american indians, alaskan natives and native hawaiians access to improve in their educational opportunities. in october, president obama nominated her to be commissioner of administration for native americans which is part of the department of health and human services, and she is awaiting senate confirmation. lily eccleson is the vice president of the national education association. she is one of the highest ranking labor leaders in the country and one of the most influential hispanic educators. after teaching for only nine years, she was named utah teacher of the year in 1989, and she used that title as a platform to speak out against the dismal funding of utah schools. sharon lewis is the senior disability policy adviser for the u.s. house of representatives, education and labor committee under the chairmanship of congressman george miller, which she handles issues involving disability policy. she originally came to washington, d.c., from portland, oregon, to w

we are looking for lilian sparks, executive director of the national indication education association. however, she could not get out of jury duty and so she is, in her stead, carrie venegas, the house school policy director for the national indian education policy association. >> thank you very much for having us here and lilian sparks does apologize, but she's doing her civic duty. one thing i would just like to open with on behalf of native communities is to, first of all, say thank you for the opportunity to speak for native communities here and also to thank everyone sitting on this panel who we consider a native communities to be all of our relatives because all kids are our kids in our communities, and we have an skwl responsibility for ensuring every child has a good education, a good future and is healthy. and with that being said, iing one of the most important points from a native community standpoint is that our students experience some of the highest rates of poverty, suicide, incarceration, learning challenges and the lowest of graduation rates. the most recent numbers p