For Minnesota's estimated 19,000 American Indian school students, many growing up in communities plagued by poverty and crime, education is the best hope for a brighter future. Graduating high school with strong fundamental skills can be a generational game-changer, one that not only improves the individual student's life, but those of children to come. Prosperous families, in turn, create prosperous communities.

Sadly, for more than a decade the state has neglected the alarming achievement gaps suffered by students descended from Minnesota's first citizens. Unacceptably, the graduation rate for the state's Indian students has been among the lowest in the nation.

But thanks to strong advocacy from DFL Gov. Mark Dayton, Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius and state Sen. Terri Bonoff, DFL-Minnetonka, Minnesota is now poised to make a historic investment in Indian education.

In a policy world where too often educational disparities are lamented rather than tackled, nearly $18 million in new funding for targeted Indian K-12 education initiatives over the next two years is action where action is desperately needed. The bolstered sum is in the renegotiated education bill. Dayton had vetoed the original legislation in part because of meager Indian education funding.

The strengthened programs unfortunately will not result in a new building for the Leech Lake Indian Reservation's dilapidated Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig High School, featured in a 2014 Star Tribune editorial series documenting unsafe, falling-down facilities in the federal Bureau of Indian Education system (BIE). Minnesota has four BIE schools, which serve 800 to 900 students and weave Native culture into traditional subjects to help keep kids in class. Many BIE students have left traditional public schools.

Still, the new state support is a critical boost needed to improve outcomes. Much of the new funding will expand a proven program known as "Success for the Future" to every school serving 20 or more Indian students. The program was formerly a grant, meaning many schools were not served because of limited funding or because they didn't have resources to apply. In schools that received the grants, the program's targeted help for Indian students decreased dropout rates and boosted achievement.

Thanks to Dayton and Cassellius' leadership, a cap on per-student funding in Minnesota's unique state aid program for the grossly underfunded federal BIE schools has also been lifted. This will provide an additional $5 million for staffing, textbooks and classroom equipment while Congress weighs fixes for this mismanaged K-12 system. Bonoff championed an additional $800,000 for American Indian higher education scholarships, bringing total investment to $7 million over the biennium.

Members of Minnesota's congressional delegation have become conscientious champions for building new BIE schools. State lawmakers have done admirable work this year on other important needs to help Indian children achieve their potential. But Bonoff is right that further state action is warranted if the Bug school isn't rebuilt. "If the federal government does not fix this in short order,'' Bonoff said, "we have to come back next session and provide the resources to build a school worthy of our children.''