The most comprehensive effort to date to study Indian education policies, the report categorizes the Indian education policies of the five Northwest Region states based on 13 key policies identified in the literature and describes the legal methods used to adopt them.

The task of this report is to review the research literature to determine whether there is a direct relationship between a culturally based education curriculum and improved academic performance among Native American students.

The research team conducted a review of extant research on the impact of culturally based education on the school performance of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian students, to identify research studies in which the researcher has some control over the assignment of subjects to treatment conditions, using experimental or quasi-experimental designs.