Mexico's Schools Can't Keep Up (with explosive growth)

[KamaAina]

?Como se dice en espanol "No Child Left Behind"?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&ncid=2026&e=1&u=/latimests/20040921/ts_latimes/mexicosschoolscantkeepup

Jorge's neighborhood is at ground zero of an educational crisis that is tearing at Mexico's social fabric and economy. Dire shortages of schools, teachers and government funds, especially acute in Tijuana and other fast-growing border cities, have left Mexico lagging behind much of the developed world in learning and are contributing to plagues such as drug addiction and crime.

The crisis also has implications for Southern California and the rest of the United States; illegal immigration is at least partly driven by parents' desire to give their children better educational opportunities....

As in Tijuana, parents in even the poorest neighborhoods of Ciudad Juarez typically raise their own funds for all public school improvements and maintenance. Parents at Escuela Manuel Ramos Arispe somehow manage to raise $10,000 a year to keep it maintained and equipped in a neighborhood riven by vandalism and gang violence, principal Andres Hernandez said.

In Ciudad Juarez's Anapra suburb, a colonia of 25,000 people that has materialized in the high desert almost overnight, parents built an elementary school using two abandoned buses for classrooms.

Rod Paige: (smacks forehead) "Abandoned buses! Why didn't we think of that?"

[TA]

1. I spend a lot of time in Mexico and there are some horribly poor

areas. It's surprising how they will make due with so little and always have the greatest attitude. They may be poor in material things but not at all in their family beliefs. The kids in Mexico are very well behaved. You never see the smart-aleck type behaviors of many kids here in the US. We Americans could learn a lot from them.

[Pikku]

2. Very true article & verrrrry long rant

The crisis also has implications for Southern California and the rest of the United States; illegal immigration is at least partly driven by parents' desire to give their children better educational opportunities.

I just wanted to re-quote this for emphasis. I teach in El Paso, across the border from Cd. Juárez. We see kids move back and forth across the border every day. People will move here, live in crowded trailers with relatives in substandard colonias, to send their kids to school here. The kids struggle here, but it's better than what they came from. There are developments like Anapra in Juárez that are built on top of dumps. The kids kick garbage out of the way to play soccer, and the adults find a way to plant flourishing rose gardens. A first-grade class may have 40 or more kids in it. No books. No crayons. No blocks. No electricity. No plumbing.

So they come. Some stay an entire year. Many move back and forth across the border, as family and immigration demand. They may spend 3 months, 6 months or an entire year with me. Mostly, they move. The first 6 weeks of this school year, I've gained 4 students and lost 2 others. They go back to Juárez, they go to Phoenix, they go to other schools in town, or they just disappear and never leave a forwarding address.

As a bilingual teacher who teaches some kids that probably are not legal immigrants, I've faced many freeper attacks (not a few from family members), but I'm still proud of what I do. I've seen some of these kids turn out to be the brightest and most motivated kids I've ever taught.

NCLB is going to be very, very hard on my school. The law gives us one year to get the student on grade level academically. After that, they have to take the high-stakes tests, just like everyone else. Imagine coming from a school bus classroom in Juárez and being tested in an academic area a year later.

Elementary kids have it a bit easier, since at least they get to take Spanish-language tests after that year. Secondary kids get a year to learn English AND be on level in the content areas, before being given tests in English in science, social studies, English and algebra that are required for graduation.

I just don't know what to think. I feel like I should tell parents to not waste their time, since their child (no matter how bright) can't hope to graduate on time, if ever, if they enter a US high school with no English and a minimal education at age 16. But, maybe they could graduate. Maybe even for some people, graduation isn't important. Maybe just being here 1-2 years is better than being in the school bus school back home for 3-4.

I don't know. I really don't. I've been told too many times that I shouldn't be teaching "those people." There's the standard freeper argument "blah blah parasite, blah, blah, taxes, blah blah welfare... Blah blah more offensive rhetoric." NCLB also makes me want to tell them to stay in the dump, in the schoolbus school, since the "immigrant's friend" GWB has made it all but impossible for them to succeed and obtain a diploma from a school here.

But I don't. I can't. I won't. I teach all comers. I hope for the best from all of them. Some of them do great things, sometimes. Others disappear and I never hear about them again. Have I done anything for them? I don't know.