Education has been a controversial topic for many years now, and will continue to be so in the years to come. Modern American society is best defined by its education. Much of the average person's life is spent in school, going to school, and paying for college. However, while education is obviously very important, many groups in the United States face challenges. Native Americans are the key group that suffered the most. The biggest obstacle they face is the lack of proper education. Standard educational practices used to educate Native American peoples are not effective. This obstacle has many elements and many solutions. This can be corrected by having more culturally aware teachers and parents and teaching the general population more about Native American cultures. The main solution here is to understand both valuable cultures and modern society. Many Native Americans do not complete high school. “15.5 percent of Native Americans ages sixteen to twenty-four dropped out of high school, trailing only young Hispanic adults at 22.8 percent” (Doak 31). There are many reasons for this, many risk factors. One risk factor is poverty. Poverty rates on Native American reservations are much higher than they should be. These adolescents are the ones who drop out of school the most. It is this lack of comprehensive education that is the root cause of this poverty, and which in turn pushes more Native American children into poverty. “Children who are severely economically and socially disadvantaged often lag behind their peers. Statistically, they start preschool education later or miss it altogether and are therefore less ready to start school. T...... middle of paper ......hooling too.Works CitedDoak, Melissa J. “Minorities: Race and Ethnicity in America.” Information Plus reference series. 2009. Farmington Hills, MI. Erdoes, Richard. “Native American Myths and Legends.” Library of fairy tales and folklore of the Pantheon. Books of the Pantheon. 1984. New York. Giuliano, Gina. “Education: in the image of our society? The series of information on current topics. Thompson Gale. 2004. Farmington Hills, MI. Nerburn, Kent. “Native American Wisdom.” Classical Wisdom: New World Library. 1991. San Rafael, California. Reyhner, Jon. “Out-of-School American Indians: An Examination of School-Based Causes and Solutions.” Journal of American Indian Education. Netrekker. 1992. http://jaie.asu.edu/v31/v3153ind.htm Thompson, William N. “Native American Problems.” A reference manual. Problems of the contemporary world. ABC-CLEO, 1996. Santa Barbara, California.