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LUCHA™ News

Project LUCHA™ Online at the TX ELL Portal April 2011

Information about Project LUCHA™, including a 30-minute informational Webinar video, is now available on TEA’s new Texas English Language Learners Portal: http://www.elltx.org

To find Project LUCHA™, click on “Instructional Environment,” under Resources, click on “Secondary,” and scroll down.

Project LUCHA™ and Project Share
March 8-10, 2011

Project LUCHA™ field trainers were fortunate to attend the Project Share conference hosted by SXSWedu in Austin in March. Project Share is a new TEA initiative that will provide professional development to educators in Texas through an innovative online environment. Presenters and panelists for the three-day event included educational leaders and organizations, school district staff and administrators, Educational Service Center staff and TEA. To learn more about Project Share, visit: http://www.projectsharetexas.org/

LUCHA™ Receives LEP SSI Funding
October 2010

The LUCHA™ program was awarded TEA’s Limited English Proficient Student Success Initiative (LEP SSI) grant in October. The grant funding will allow LUCHA™ to provide transcript services and online courses in Spanish and English to secondary campuses in 26 school districts in Texas that also received LEP SSI grant funding. The grant also provides for LUCHA™ to create resources for parents and educators in both Spanish and English. These resources will assist Spanish-speaking parents become more involved in their child’s education in Texas. The grant period is from October 2010 through February 2013. The LUCHA™ program is extremely excited about this new partnership with TEA because more students will now benefit from the LUCHA™ services. LUCHA™ is also very thankful to TEA for endorsing its efforts. All training, services and resources related to the grant initiative will be entitled “Project LUCHA™.” Visit our Web site for updates: http://www.utk16.org/projectlucha

LUCHA™ Symposium a Success!
May 11, 2010

More than 40 educators from school districts around the state of Texas traveled to Austin on May 11th to attend the LUCHA™ program’s informational symposium. The LUCHA™ Symposium was held at the Thompson Conference Center on the campus of The University of Texas. The day-long event featured guest speaker Dr. Alba Ortiz, professor of special education and director of the Office of Bilingual Education at the university. The symposium also welcomed presentations by Brownsville ISD and Pasadena ISD, who shared implementation strategies, program designs, successes, and lessons learned. The LUCHA™ team members provided a program services overview. The symposium ended with a panel discussion in which guests were able to engage in dialogue with all presenters and ask questions. The event proved to be a rewarding and informative experience for everyone.

FCC Press Conference Highlights UT K16 Education Center’s LUCHA™, Migrant, and UTOHS Programs

On Monday, September 21, 2009, Continuing and Innovative Education (CIE) hosted a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) press conference on the importance of broadband Internet technology for distance learning. Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker of the FCC spoke at the event as part of a “first stop” on a nationwide tour by the FCC to promote broadband use in education. The focus of the event was on high school students preparing for graduation and higher education. For more information: http://www.utexas.edu/cie/FCC-press-conference/

A Fighting Chance

Lucha program helps immigrant students beat challenges of new land and language

Ryan Holeywell / The Monitor February 25, 2008 - 12:33AM

Donna High School senior Sergio Barrientos knew almost no English when he moved here from Reynosa two years ago.

But this spring, he’ll graduate from high school and join the U.S. Navy.

District officials point to Barrientos as an example of the power of Lucha, a new online program that caters to recent immigrant students and is making waves across the state.
“With the help of Lucha, I’m a senior,” Barrientos said.

The program allows recent students who have emigrated from Mexico to take online courses in their native language and earn high school credit in Texas.

Proponents of Lucha, which means fight, hope the program will help address the struggle immigrant students face when they are forced to try to understand classes taught in a language they barely understand.

“The challenge of these students was a double whammy,” said Felipe Alanis, a former Texas Education Agency chief who pioneered the program two years ago. “You not only have to learn the language, you have to learn the content.”

Generally, bilingual education is not required in Texas secondary schools. Students are instead placed in English as a Second Language programs in which the classes are taught in English.

Lucha is a supplement to ESL, not a replacement, and students using the software continue to receive classroom instruction in English, Alanis said.

Barrientos, who took a Spanish Lucha class in economics last year, said that back then there is no way he could have understood the course if it had been taught in English.

“What was happening is these children did not speak English and they were being placed in content area courses — science and math — in English,” said Ofelia Gaona, bilingual director at Donna school district, which implemented Lucha last year.

“They were not successful.”

Underserved population

The program was initially developed by the Mexican government under President Vicente Fox as a way to help that country’s adult population earn high school degrees online.

But Alanis, associate dean of the K-16 Education Center at University of Texas at Austin, said he realized the program could be useful in Texas, where districts struggle to find ways to better serve the growing immigrant population.

There are about 732,000 Texas students with limited English proficiency in Texas, Alanis said. About 90 percent of those students, known as LEPs, are primarily Spanish speakers. Nationwide, there are about 5 million students with limited English skills, said Stanford University education professor Claude Goldenberg.

LEP students are not performing nearly as well as their peers. According to the TEA, 84 percent of the state’s students in the class of 2007 passed their exit-level standardized TAKS tests. LEPs passed at less than half that rate.

The graduation rate is also low for LEPs. Statewide, more than 80 percent of students in the class of 2006 graduated. Less than 50 percent of LEP students did.

Frustration

Experts partially attribute those figures to a long-standing policy that places most high school-aged immigrants in ninth grade, regardless of how much schooling they’ve had in Mexico.

“They feel even though (they) still have had high school in Mexico, it’s going to take (them) another four years to get through high school here,” said Marcia Niemann, an ESL teacher at Adamson High School in Dallas, where Lucha was implemented a few weeks ago. “They find it frustrating and leave.”

Now, as part of Lucha, Alanis’ staff locates and analyzes students’ transcripts from their original Mexican high schools to determine whether they can get Texas credit for courses they’ve taken back home.

“We didn’t know their system,” said Alanis, a native of the Rio Grande Valley. “We generally didn’t give them much credit for whatever they brought with them.”

Donna implemented the program midway through last school year. It was initially funded with grant money, which also paid for laptops with Sprint wireless cards so students could even do Lucha work online from home.

This year, the district enrolls about 150 students in Lucha at a cost of $100,000. More than half the district’s students have limited English skills.

The program is already used in 17 Texas school districts, including Edcouch-Elsa and PSJA. Brownsville schools got the program last month, the San Benito district a few weeks ago and Roma administrators are considering adding it.

Alanis said there have been different attempts at programs similar to Lucha in Oregon and Washington, but those have been at a smaller scale.

Debate

Critics of bilingual education argue that by continuing to teach immigrants in their native tongue, schools foster a cycle of dependency on Spanish that ultimately inhibits progress at English proficiency.

Peter Duignan, a fellow at the Hoover Institution, a public policy research center, maintains that bilingual education programs have proven to fail and slow assimilation into American society.

Other researchers disagree.

“There’s a lot of reason to believe using the primary language (Spanish) is not only beneficial for maintaining the primary language — but beyond that — promoting academic skills in the second language,” Goldenberg said.

Alanis said Lucha does not replace English education but helps ease the transition.
Most students don’t take more than two Lucha courses and few stay on Lucha for more than a year. Like their peers, Lucha students must pass the state’s TAKS tests, which are administered in English, to graduate.

Boston University professor Christine Rossell, who studies bilingual education, said she doesn’t think Lucha will work, especially since the students will take tests in English.
“They’re going to have to eventually teach them English… why not do it from the get-go?” Rossell said. “Even though it’s initially harder in English, it’s worth it.”

She said Lucha students may be inclined to “tune out” English instruction if they know they can rely on Lucha Spanish courses. She also disagreed with the theory that content learned in one language can easily be translated into another.

“This is one of the most confused thoughts that the supporters of bilingual education have,” Rossell said.

Alanis said he is aware the program may have its critics.

But, he said, even though the students are learning in Spanish, the goal is to teach them English as quickly as possible.

“On the surface level, (Lucha) sounds counterintuitive. If I’m taking a class in Spanish, how will I ever learn English?” he said. “But the stronger the vocabulary in the Spanish language, the faster they’re able to transition to a second language.”

Cost

Alanis said despite the program’s costs — about $400 to $500 per student — it saves districts money in the long run by not forcing them to use school resources on courses already taken in Mexico. Alanis said that totals $1,100 in savings to districts for each Mexican school credit Lucha administrators approve.

As for concerns about Texas students using resources developed in concert with Mexico, Alanis said the courses have been aligned to meet Texas standards.

Alanis said he doesn’t have the data yet to determine the extent of the program’s success, but a Houston firm is in the process of analyzing Lucha to determine exactly that. Gaona said in Donna, 55 of 61 high school students on Lucha passed their end-of-course tests last semester. Before Lucha, that would have been unheard.

“What we’re finding is a lot of the children have more interest in school and better self-esteem because they are successful,” Gaona said.

Alanis said that, in his mind, Lucha is a no-brainer.

“For all intents and purposes, I’d rather have a student that is bi-literate than a dropout.”
____
Ryan Holeywell covers PSJA and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4446.

DISD tries online courses for students deficient in English

Immigrant secondary students will learn subjects in Spanish

08:12 AM CST on Wednesday, December 26, 2007 By STELLA M. CHÁVEZ / The Dallas Morning News

When Rogelio Teran’s English as a Second Language teacher asks her class if dinosaurs are extinct, he is stumped at first.

Is it, he asks in Spanish, the same as extinción?

New to this country, Rogelio, 15, is like many newly arrived immigrants. He struggles to understand basic concepts presented to him in English.

But what if those concepts were taught in Spanish?

Beginning in January, Rogelio and other students in the Dallas Independent School District will be able to take courses such as algebra, biology, geometry, chemistry and world history online and in Spanish.

The approach is unlike anything tried before in Texas school districts, which traditionally teach older immigrant students in English. Bilingual education and the use of Spanish has long been the practice in elementary schools, but the dearth of qualified bilingual teachers has made it nearly impossible to replicate those efforts at the secondary level.

The problem with the current system, some educators say, is that students aren’t learning new material quickly enough—if at all—because they don’t understand English, the instructional language. The result: Students fall behind or drop out.

“They’ve had nothing like this before,” said Felipe Alanis, associate dean for the division of continuing education at The University of Texas at Austin, which is spearheading this initiative dubbed LUCHA, the Spanish word for fight. “It’s either sink or swim, so it’s very difficult” for immigrant students.

Exams in English

Students will continue to learn the material in English and eventually must take exams on the courses in English.

“You can kind of think of LUCHA as an online tutoring class,” said Marianne Martin, director for secondary English as a second language programs in DISD.

Angel Noe Gonzalez, a bilingual education expert, said the concept sounds promising and historic” but he is concerned about how and when students would be tested. He is in favor of students learning in their native language. Otherwise, they sit lost in class, he said.

But he argues that students won’t do well on the English version of an exam soon after having learned the material in Spanish.

“It doesn’t make sense to be taught in Spanish and then take an exam in English,” he said. “All of the research I have ever read or understand is that it takes five to seven years to gain proficiency enough to learn English.”

Ms. Martin said that the district is still hammering out details and that adjustments likely will occur along the way.

So far, about 10 Texas school districts, including Houston and Austin, have signed up to participate in LUCHA. Oregon, Washington, California and other states have implemented similar efforts under a partnership with Mexico’s Colegio de Bachilleres and National Institute for Adult Education.

Educators around the country are struggling to come up with new and innovative ways to address the growing dropout rate among Latino immigrant students. According to a 2003 Pew Hispanic Center study about dropout rates among Hispanic youths, about 20 percent of Mexican immigrant students educated in U.S. schools drop out. A lack of English-language skills is a prime characteristic of Latino dropouts.

Tim King, director of Clackamas Web Academy and Clackamas Middle College in Oregon, said he is not convinced that offering courses in Spanish is enough to keep immigrant students in school. So his school supplements the Spanish online instruction with English-language learning software and programs that teach core courses such as math and science in English.

The Web academy launched its pilot program in the fall for 27 students who had either dropped out or not enrolled in school.

“It is pretty early [to know the results], but one thing that is clear to us is that we have groups of young people—all of whom were not in school before—who appear to be excited. They appear to be motivated,” he said. “They’re completing a significant amount of work.”

Mixed reaction

Reaction to Oregon’s pilot program has been mixed. Critics, including numerous bloggers, have blasted it for catering to immigrants, arguing that students should learn only in English.

Mr. King disagrees.

“The problem with that particular argument … is that it’s already been tried with these kids and that’s what failed the first time,” he said.

Ms. Martin said she believes students will eventually have a better grasp of English.

“The goal of our program is to help these students transition into our general ed classes, and I think this will expedite this process,” Ms. Martin said. “In my opinion this is going to make a big difference in their English acquisition.”

DISD has selected 10 schools that have a high percentage of limited-English proficient students to participate in LUCHA.

In the 2006-2007 school year, DISD had 49,503 students who were classified as limited English proficient, or about 31.2 percent of the district’s entire student body. While that number includes students from various countries, the majority of students are Spanish-speaking.

UT-Austin is offering different components of the program and districts can elect to participate in one or all of them. For example, Dr. Alanis’ staff will coordinate with districts to administer diagnostic tests to students who are planning to take the online courses. The tests will help determine the academic level of a student.

In addition, the university will help districts obtain and interpret transcripts from a student’s school in Mexico in order to place students in the appropriate grade level.

The program is not cheap. It can cost a district anywhere from $30 to $500 per student, depending on the services.

DISD has designated $175,000 for the pilot project. The money will come from Title III funds, which are dollars allocated for limited English proficient students.

Sonya Gilb, ESL department chair for DISD, said she’s excited about trying something new with her students, many of whom have difficulty with math or science.

“We have them in an algebra class where they don’t really understand what is going on and the teacher is doing his best to modify [instruction] so they can understand,” she said. “I feel so sorry for them. It’s not that they’re not smart. They are smart. It’s just the language barrier.”

After class, Rogelio explains he’s eager to learn English so he can move on to more advanced classes.

“Everything that I’m learning, I learned in Mexico,” he said. “I need to learn English more quickly.”

The LUCHA Program: Fighting to Learn

What: Beginning in January, DISD students identified as limited English proficient will be eligible to take classes such as algebra and biology both online and in Spanish. Students will continue to learn the material in English and must eventually takes exams in English.

Who: Ten schools and about 200 students will participate in the pilot program called LUCHA, which means “fight” in Spanish. It’s also an acronym, Language Learners at the University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Hispanic Achievement.

Why: The idea is that recent immigrant students will learn concepts more easily and not fall behind if taught in their native language.

How: The University of Texas at Austin is administering the program under a partnership with Mexico’s education agencies. Similar efforts are underway in other Texas school districts, Oregon, Washington and California.

New LUCHA™ Program Partnership With AISD

April 13, 2007, Joy Díaz, KUT 90.5 — For the first time this school year, the Austin Independent School District has begun a relationship with Mexico’s Secretary of Education.

The relationship started in part because the district has seen continuous growth of its Mexican student population.

Audio Clip - 01:43

Educating America’s Immigrant Children

Policies, Challenges and Answers
Josie Danini Cortez, M.A.

The Challenge

This country’s challenge is not, as some believe, that we have too many immigrant children in our schools. Our challenge is that many of our schools do not know how to best educate immigrant children.

In the United States today, there are more than 5.1 million children under the age of six whose parents are undocumented. One in five children is enrolled in K-12 schools, and it is expected that they will represent 25 percent of the K-12 student population four years from now. Most school-age children of immigrants are highly concentrated in six states (California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Texas). In 2000, almost half (47 percent) of California’s school-age children were children of immigrants (Fix and Capps, 2005).

Over the last 10 years, four cities—Atlanta, Charlotte, Las Vegas and Omaha—have had more immigrant children enroll in their schools than any other city. These and other schools find themselves with administrators and teachers unable to serve the 7 million Spanish-speaking and 1.5 million Asian-language-speaking children and families.

These immigrant families are no different than most of this country’s immigrants throughout our history. They are mostly poor, have few English language skills and are unfamiliar with our school system.

And like immigrants before them, our recent immigrants are often subjected to discrimination and injustice. Whether it has been the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II or Irish children laboring in New York sweatshops, immigrant families often have had to overcome significant barriers.

In today’s schools, most English language learners find themselves in large urban schools, linguistically and culturally isolated, with principals and teachers lacking the skills and experience to help them achieve. This lack of preparation and support is most evident in schools with high concentrations of English language learners. Most are failing their students academically.

And like immigrants before them, our recent immigrants bring immeasurable contributions to this country. When schools embrace and nurture the language and culture of immigrant children, the country reaps the benefits of diversity. Sixty percent of U.S. top science students and 65 percent of the top mathematics students are the children of immigrants. Stuart Anderson in The Multiplier Effect (2004) found that half of the 2004 U.S. Math Olympiad top scorers, one third of the U.S. Physics Team, and one quarter of the Intel Science Talent Search finalists were all children of immigrants.

How do school administrators and teachers, most of whom were children of immigrants themselves, do what is right and what is needed for immigrant children?

The Answer

Part of the answer lies in states and schools following this country’s federal laws. Children of undocumented immigrants have a right to a free public education and cannot be discriminated against for the color of their skin or the language they speak.

Twenty-five years ago, in Plyler vs. Doe (457 U.S. 202, 1982), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that “aliens” are recognized as persons and guaranteed due process by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments: “He…is entitled to the equal protection of the laws that a State may choose to establish.”

In Lau vs. Nichols, the courts ruled that providing the same all-English educational programs to children who were not fluent in English was unlawful. As a result, public schools must provide an education to all children, including undocumented immigrant children. Dr. José A. Cárdenas (IDRA founder and director emeritus) and IDRA played a critical role in this and other court decisions, providing expert testimony and key resources.

Reflecting on this work, Dr. Cárdenas wrote: “I consider my participation in the undocumented immigrant children litigation as one of the most satisfying educational experiences of my life. It exemplifies the altruistic nature of IDRA and its staff. I was asked frequently what hidden strategy underlined our participation in the suits, and how such participation related to some master plan. There was no hidden strategy; there was no master plan. The undocumented children were being abused by the educational system of Texas, and as advocates for children we came to their aid.” (1995)

The court decisions led state education agencies and schools to change the way they served undocumented children. Schools had to identify English language learners and evaluate a student’s language skills and academic achievement in both languages, providing them with an education that would enable them to achieve academic success.

While this is the law of the land, some states have passed policies that make it difficult, if not impossible, to follow Plyler vs. Doe. Six years ago, Arizona passed the nation’s strictest English-only instruction policy. Proposition 203 imposed restrictions on the use of immigrant children’s first language in the classroom. One out of five children could not speak their home language in classrooms, nor were they provided comprehensible instruction. Arizona children had to sink or swim, and most sunk.

A study by Jeff McSwan at Arizona State University found that 89 percent of immigrant children who scored non-proficient in 2003 were still not proficient in English a year later. Here is state policy that results in an 89 percent failure rate. As McSwan points out, state policies that restrict “teachers’ use of immigrant children’s first language as an instructional resource are rooted in politics and ideology” (2006).

Solving a school’s failure rate must begin with a clear understanding of the law and with policies that are crafted in the best interest of all children. The proof this effort works will ultimately lie in change — a change in state policies, a change in classrooms with better prepared and supported teachers, a change in immigrant children’s life chances.

This is a particularly polarizing, divisive time in U.S. history. Amazingly, despite the fact that this country was founded by immigrants, despite the fact that “we are all immigrants…Some of us just got here sooner” (2006), despite all that we know, we find ourselves defending rights that were long ago fought for and established.

Immigrant children have rights, and if we are not vigilant, those rights will be denied, and we will all pay the price for the loss.

We are paying for it now, with unskilled workers, with poverty increasing while a few get richer, with words and acts that dehumanize people.

Perhaps Bishop Thomas Wenski said it best: “When we consider a human being as a problem, we depersonalize him, we offend his human dignity. When we allow any class of human beings to be categorized as a problem, then we give ourselves permission to look for solutions. And as the history of the 20th Century has proven, sometimes we look for final solutions.” (2006-07)

If we begin with the youngest and the most vulnerable, our immigrant children, and give them the education they need to succeed, then this country stands a chance. For our power has always come from our diversity and the innovation, pride and strength that it brings.

Resources

Anderson, S. “The Multiplier Effect,” International Educator (2004).

Cárdenas, J.A. Multicultural Education: A Generation of Advocacy (Needham Heights, Mass.: Simon and Schuster Custom Publishing, 1995) pg. 248.

Fix, M., and R. Capps. “Immigrant Children, Urban Schools, and the No Child Left Behind Act,” Migration Information Source (November 1, 2005).
http://www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?id=347

Kammer, J. “American Dreamers,” Notre Dame Magazine (Winter 2006-07, Vo. 35, No. 4).

McSwan, J. “Policies Fail State’s Growing English-Learner Population,” Arizona Republic (May. 21, 2006).
www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/viewpoints/articles/
0521macswan0521.html

Quindlen, A. “Undocumented, Indispensable,” Newsweek (May 15, 2006).

Josie Danini Cortez, M.A. is a senior education associate in IDRA Field Services. Comments and questions may be directed to her via e-mail at feedback@idra.org.

[©2007, IDRA. The following article originally appeared in the IDRA Newsletter by the Intercultural Development Research Association. Every effort has been made to maintain the content in its original form. However, accompanying charts and graphs may not be provided here. To receive a copy of the original article by mail or fax, please fill out our information request and feedback form. Permission to reproduce this article is granted provided the article is reprinted in its entirety and proper credit is given to IDRA and the author.]

Reprinted with permission; Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

Texas schools increasingly recruit in Mexico, other nations to meet language demands

By CYNTHIA LEONOR GARZA

Feb. 21, 2007, MONTERREY, MEXICO — At the onset, there’s a mad rush to be the first in line to talk to the school recruiters. Within seconds, the candidates, looking more like bankers in their suits than elementary educators, anxiously await their turn.

Tables with pencils and stress balls from school districts across Texas flank the walls of the hotel ballroom in Monterrey, and maps show where the districts are located.

Location doesn’t matter much to the 225 lawyers, doctors, engineers, architects and teachers who have been preparing online and in classrooms throughout Mexico to become bilingual teachers in Texas. Most say they’ll work for whichever district north of the Rio Grande hires them.

With the number of Texas students requiring bilingual education at an all-time high, school districts in the state are increasingly attending job fairs like this one in Monterrey to recruit from Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries.

Liliana Gonzalez is confident as she works the room. She’s fluent in English, having studied in the United States and Canada, and she has passed the required Texas certification exam, perhaps the hurdle consuming most of these candidates.

During her minute-long chat with each recruiter, Gonzalez talks about how her marketing degree and experience working for the automotive industry in her hometown of Saltillo will translate to a Texas classroom. The Bastrop, Giddings and Conroe school districts invite her to a full interview the next day.

”I’m taking advantage of the fact that I’m bilingual and the opportunity in the United States is to grow in your quality of life but also contribute to the quality of life of the Hispanics that are there,” says Gonzalez, who accepts an offer to teach in Conroe next fall.

She’s just one of 162 applicants hired by the 20-plus Texas school districts and charter schools at the fair.

The scene in Monterrey is a far cry from what Texas public school recruiters face at state job fairs.

Despite offers of stipends, signing bonuses and tuition reimbursement to recruits from the U.S., districts struggle to fill bilingual teacher vacancies largely because of too few qualified applicants, they say.

During the 2005-06 school year, 711,237 students in Texas were classified as having limited English-speaking skills.

”We are finding ourselves having to go beyond our walls and come internationally,” said Brenda Lozano, the Cypress-Fairbanks school district’s assistant director of professional staffing. She hired 10 bilingual teachers at the Monterrey job fair this month.

Lozano said her district only recruits internationally from this program, run by the Region IV Education Service Center, which serves 54 school districts in the greater Houston area. Lozano said 86 percent of the 43 teachers hired in recent years are still there.

”It’s hard when I go to El Paso or down to the Valley because (certified bilingual teachers) want to stay there,” said Henry Espinosa, a recruiter for the Galena Park school district. “When we can go toMonterrey, our chances for hiring have increased because they’re wanting to come here.”

Once hired, the candidates apply for a temporary work visa for professionals. Many later apply for residency, a process that can take years. Some districts, including Alief, entice recruits by offering to sponsor their residency application.

The transition can be tough as they must assimilate to a new country and education system quickly, Espinosa said. Moving expenses are high, and then there’s the $4,600 the candidates pay for their alternative certification training and visa preparation.

But recruiting internationally gives districts another option for hiring bilingual teachers — and helps get the best teachers, recruiters said.

”We all know that in the United States the Hispanic population is increasing, so the critical shortage for bilingual teachers will be there,” said Arnold Zuazua, head of bilingual teacher recruitment for the Houston Independent School District — which has recruited 47 teachers from the Mexico program in the past decade.

‘Very high pay increase’ It was a year ago that 27-year-old Carlos Antonio Sanchez first heard a radio ad in Puebla, Mexico, announcing that Texas public schools were looking for professionals willing to become bilingual teachers.

Sanchez, an architect with a wife and a toddler, had never considered moving to the United States, but he liked the idea of helping children from his country by teaching them in U.S. schools, he said. Money was also a factor.

It’s “a very high pay increase, because as you know, here in Mexico economic conditions are hard,” said Sanchez, who landed a job with Spring Branch.

The Mexico recruiting initiative started in 1992 as a small program with a handful of candidates in Guadalajara, but over the last decade interest has spread throughout Mexico and Texas, simultaneously. Preparation classes are available in at least 15 cities in Mexico, including Monterrey, Guadalajara, Mexico City, Puebla, Tampico, Morelia, Tijuana and Veracruz. There are plans to expand next year.

Ads for the program appear throughout Mexico in newspapers and are broadcast on television and radio.

The certification requirements are the same as for anyone who goes through a U.S.-based teacher certification program.

Cecilia Cerdan, the 2006 national Bilingual Teacher of the Year who was hired by Alief through the Region IV program in 1998, said having a common culture — and connection — with the students they’re teaching can have a major impact on student performance.

”As a bilingual teacher you welcome them to the new language and to the new country because you share the same culture, the same language and you need to address first their physical and emotional needs in order for them to be prepared for the academics,” said Cerdan, who is a reading interventionist at Youens Elementary in Alief.

What the law says State law mandates that Texas public schools with 20 or more non-English-speaking students at the same grade level across the district must offer bilingual education.

There are 16,322 certified bilingual educators in the state, but Texas Education Agency officials have no data to show how many teachers in bilingual classrooms lack certification.

Some districts, including Cypress-Fairbanks and Alief, only recruit internationally through Mexico’s program, while others cast a wider net.

The Houston ISD has recruited about 330 teachers during the last nine years from Spain, Mexico, Puerto Rico, China and the Philippines, among others, to fill vacancies in the bilingual program and in other areas where there are critical shortages, such as science, math and special education.

Bilingual teachers hired by HISD get a $3,000 stipend, and in the past, certified bilingual hires received $6,000 sign-on bonuses.

Houston ISD has recruited 47 teachers from Region IV’s Mexico program during the past six years but did not attend this year’s fair. Thirty-three are still with the district.

HISD’s payroll has 2,110 bilingual certified teachers.

Recruiting abroad has its own challenges. In the mid-1990s, HISD’s alternative certification program for bilingual teachers came under fire when a report found that several teachers recruited from Mexico had fraudulent transcripts, with some speaking little or no English.

That program has since undergone a leadership and policy overhaul. Prospective teachers are interviewed “strictly in English,” Zuazua said.

”We want to hear what their English skills are like,” Zuazua said. “If their proficiency is not there, our principals are not going to hire them.”

cynthia.garza@chron.com

U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings announced final regulations for Limited English Proficiency (LEP) students.

September 13, 2006, WASHINGTON DC—The new Title I Regulation is intended to help recently arrived Limited English Proficiency (LEP) students learn English and other subjects while giving states and local school districts greater flexibility on assessment while continuing to hold them accountable under No Child Left Behind.

“Our schools must be prepared to measure what English language learners know and to teach them effectively, with proven instructional methods,” said SecretarySpellings. “No Child Left Behind has put the needs of English Language Learners front and center and we must continue that momentum of success. These regulations will ensure states and schools are held accountable for helping children learn English but will also provide them with flexibility in meeting the goal of every child reading and doing math at grade level by 2014.”

The final regulations reflect the following major policies:

  • Define a recently arrived LEP student as an LEP student who has attended schools in the United States for less than 12 months.
  • Permit a State to exempt recently arrived LEP students from one administration of the State’s reading/language arts assessment.
  • Require a State to include recently arrived LEP students in State mathematics assessments, and beginning in 2007–2008, State science assessments.
  • Recently arrived LEP students must take the State’s mathematics assessment, with accommodations as necessary, but States are not required to include the results in AYP determinations.
  • Permit a State to not count in AYP determinations the scores of recently arrived LEP students on State mathematics and/or reading/language arts (if taken) assessments.
  • Require States that exempt recently arrived LEP students from the reading/language arts assessment to publicly report the number of students exempted for this reason.
  • Make clear that Local Educational Agencies (LEA) are still responsible for providing appropriate instruction to recently arrived LEP students.
  • Permit a State to include “former LEP” students within the LEP category in making AYP determinations for up to two years after they no longer meet the State’s definition for limited English proficient.
  • Clarify reporting requirements concerning former LEP students on report cards.

The Department of Education also is preparing a series of reports, by leading education researcher David Francis, focused on supporting the academic achievement of English Language Learners (ELLs). The three reports will provide guidance to practitioners for successful teaching methods and appropriate accommodations for assessment inclusion for ELL students.

For more information please visit: http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/account/lepfactsheet.html or http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/finrule/2006-3/091306a.html.

Contact: Katherine McLane or Trey Ditto (202) 401-1576

English Language Learners In the News

Educational compact with Mexico signed by The University of Texas at Austin

May 23, 2006, AUSTIN, Texas—An educational compact has been signed between Mexico and The University of Texas at Austin to help Hispanic English language learners in grades 9 through 12 transition to Texas schools as they become proficient in English, improve academic achievement and reduce the state’s K-12 dropout rate.

A Hispanic English Language Learner under this program, which begins services in fall 2006, would most often be an immigrant child but others could be American citizens raised in homes where the primary spoken and written language is Spanish.

LUCHA signing

Antonio O. Garza Jr., the United States ambassador to Mexico, joined William Powers Jr., president of The University of Texas at Austin, in the signing ceremony Friday, May 19, in the Life Sciences Library of the University’s Main Building. The compact for the Language Learners at the University’s Center for Hispanic Achievement Program (LUCHA) is between The University of Texas at Austin and the Mexican federal education agencies, Colegio de Bachilleres and the National Institute for Adult Education.

"The ceremonial signing marks the first time that education officials from The University of Texas at Austin and Mexico will collaborate to align the high school standards from their respective curricula," said Dr. Felipe Alanis, associate dean of the Division of Continuing Education at The University of Texas at Austin.

Powers signed the document on behalf of The University of Texas at Austin. Mexican officials signing the document were Jorge Gonzalez Teyssier, director general of the Colegio de Bachilleres, and C.P. Ciro Adolfo Suarez Martinez, director general of the National Institute for Adult Education (INEA). Garza was among the honorary witnesses.

LUCHA signing

As a result of these agreements, Hispanic English language learners in Texas high schools will be working with online resources from Mexico that will be aligned to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills and the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills.

The resources and services from The University of Texas at Austin and Mexico will help Hispanic English language learners complete their secondary education with content that meets college-level rigor. The University of Texas at Austin and federal education agencies from Mexico will work together to improve academic achievement, reduce the dropout rate, increase community and parental involvement, and increase graduation rates.

These services, which include online courses and transcript analysis, will be available to all Texas schools through The K-16 Education Center under the Division of Continuing Education at The University of Texas at Austin beginning in fall 2006.

For more information, contact Dr. Felipe Alanis at 512-471-8203.

Reprinted with permission from the October 2006 issue of TEXAS MONTHLY.

Patricia Kilday Hart

Why Juan Can’t Read

All across Texas, bilingual education programs are failing to teach English to Hispanic children. A promising "dual language" approach delivers much better results.

TWO YEARS AGO, MORE than eight out of ten seventh- and eighth-graders with limited English skills failed the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test. Ninth- and tenth-graders did even worse. These depressing results occurred despite extensive bilingual and English as a second language (ESL) programs and come at a time when the number of students with limited English skills—some 15.5 percent of the total public school enrollment—has doubled in the past two decades. And yet these students drop out of high school at twice the rate of their counterparts. This is a catastrophe in the making: the noneducation of tomorrow’s Texas workforce.

I would like to be able to report that state education officials are on top of this crisis and studying ways to fix it, but it should come as no surprise that this is not the case. In February the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) filed a motion contending that the state had failed to live up to agreements it made as a result of a 1981 federal lawsuit that accused Texas of failing to provide Spanish-speaking students equal educational opportunities. In that case, brought before U.S. district judge William Wayne Justice, the state agreed to provide bilingual classes in elementary schools, where academic material would be taught primarily in Spanish, in every school district with at least twenty students in the same grade who had limited English skills. In grades nine through twelve, students who were still identified as having limited English skills were to attend regular classes taught in English and receive special instruction in English as a second language only during a separate class period. Chief among MALDEF’s current complaints is that budget cuts have forced the Texas Education Agency to all but halt on-site monitoring of bilingual programs to determine whether they are effective. Since 2003, MALDEF argues, the TEA hasn’t properly audited those programs, neglecting to determine, for instance, how bilingual ed students (who, after starting with Spanish instruction, are supposed to be increasingly taught in English) are identified as ready to move into classes taught entirely in English. Meanwhile, critics contend that overreliance on Spanish in bilingual programs actually slows the learning of English by Spanish-speaking students. In June the state Republican party adopted a platform plank calling for an end to all bilingual education in public schools.

Why is it that after all these years, Texas schools still have not found an effective way to teach Spanish-speaking students the English language? A major obstacle is a shortage of qualified elementary school bilingual education and ESL teachers, calculated at 2,900 by Texas A&M University researchers in 2002. This shortfall is occurring at the same time that the Spanish-speaking population is exploding. Districts are forced to look for teachers far beyond Texas; Dallas school officials send teams of recruiters to Puerto Rico and Mexico to hire teachers. The lack of teachers has the effect of forcing districts to prematurely push students out of bilingual programs and into English-only classes to make room for newcomers. Critics of bilingual education argue that English-immersion classes—the sooner the better—would be more effective, but the Houston Independent School District recently completed a three-year study whose results suggest the opposite: that bilingual students who are kept in the program until they are ready to graduate into English-only classes actually beat the district’s average for all students on standardized tests and performed much better than students who received ESL instruction.

"The later the better" is also the premise for what I believe is the most promising approach to bilingual education in Texas, an intensive program known as dual language. The idea behind dual language is that non-Spanish-speaking students and non-English-speaking students are put together in the same classroom and taught academic subjects in either all Spanish or all English. The classroom teaching is reinforced by the opportunity for children who speak different languages to rely on one another for help.

Perhaps the best example of a successful dual language program is at Del Valle High School, in the Ysleta Independent School District, in El Paso. Looking for information about dual language online, I came across the YISD’s ambitious vision statement, which boldly claims that all of its students will "graduate from high school fluent in two or more languages, prepared and inspired to continue their education in a four-year college, university, or institution of higher education." And so, in May, I visited Del Valle on the giddy day the seniors gathered to practice for graduation. The school’s "brag sheet"—listing the college scholarships landed by its graduates—matched up well against those of private schools: a number of students heading for the University of Texas at Austin and others bound for prestigious private colleges like Grinnell, in Iowa. One student had nailed the grand slam of American academic accomplishments: a full-ride scholarship to Harvard University.

This is occurring in a school district that is located on the "wrong" (east) side of El Paso and serves a student population that is 88.1 percent Hispanic and 73.4 percent economically disadvantaged. Dual language has helped liberate its students from the grim statistical reality that half of the Hispanic students in Texas will become dropouts: Ysleta boasts a graduation rate of 84 percent, well above both the Dallas and Houston school districts. A pioneer in dual language, Del Valle in 2005 graduated the first class to begin the program in elementary school. Instead of leaving Spanish behind for all-English classes, students were taught core subjects like algebra and world history in both Spanish and English.

Awaiting me in the library was Cindy Sizemore, the coordinator of the dual language program, and about two dozen seniors, as well as a few recent graduates. They represented a cross section of interests—football to student council—and, Sizemore confided, a range of academic abilities. Most, she said, came from poor families. The sons and daughters of teachers were considered affluent.

Benito Rodriguez, the student heading to Harvard, told me he had no doubt that the dual language program made the difference in his college application. The son of a self-employed businessman who deals in secondhand tools, Benito said he began losing his fluency in Spanish in first grade when he attended a traditional public school classroom. "I could complain about chores at home, but that was about it," he laughed. After switching to the dual language program in fourth grade, he became fully bilingual in English and Spanish and later studied Japanese. Another student, Rudy Garcia, was about to enter UT classified as a sophomore, thanks to the 21 hours of Spanish credits he earned by taking advanced placement classes.

Some of the kids reported hour-long bus rides to get to Del Valle, a magnet school that is one of four high schools in the YISD offering dual language (several elementary and middle schools do as well). Parents and administrators faced another hurdle: In the early years of dual language, students do not score well on standardized tests. Absorbing two languages takes up brainpower and class time that would ordinarily be spent on other subjects. Many parents, fearful that their children are falling behind, pull their students out of dual language in elementary school.

Hortencia Pina, who oversees the dual language program for the Ysleta district, couldn’t be more sympathetic: One of her own daughters, a dual language student, stumbled on early grade-school achievement tests. "I can really see where the parents are coming from," she says. "Even if you know the research, you still panic as a parent. You start questioning yourself." (It wasn’t until the sixth grade that her daughter passed all the portions of the required tests.) In the beginning it is an adjustment, Pina says, but in time dual language students will surpass kids pushed into a regular classroom too early.

Dual language programs have been blooming across the state, with promising results reported by the Houston, Aldine, Bryan, and San Antonio school districts, to name a few; in all, according to the most recent data available, there are 238 such programs around the state. Rafael Lara-Alecio, a Texas A&M professor of educational psychology who maintains a Web site devoted to the dual language movement (texastwoway.org), says teachers and parents—both Anglo and Hispanic—are beginning to demand them.

The fate of bilingual education, including dual language, will ultimately be determined in the political system. When the Legislature meets again, in January, lawmakers will review formulas that determine how much money school districts get for students who come from impoverished or non-English-speaking backgrounds. For proponents of bilingual education, the debate could hardly come at a worse time. The rancorous opposition to illegal immigration was likely sparked, in part, by voter resentment of escalating school district costs attributable to the children of illegal immigrants. Since Texas already provides extra funding for students with limited English skills, Republican politicians may well balk at giving schools more money for a system that is producing poor results.

El Paso’s Democratic state senator, Eliot Shapleigh, wants the dual language immersion pilot program to be expanded into all Texas schools. That’s not going to happen, even if he comes armed with an eighteen-year study by professors Wayne P. Thomas and Virginia P. Collier, of George Mason University, in Virginia, titled "The Astounding Effectiveness of Dual Language Education for All." In this political climate, a Republican legislature is not going to mandate that Anglo kids have to enter a bilingual program. Dual language is, and can only be, an elective program that requires parental support, good teachers, and a supply of English-speaking kids, who may not be available in some school districts. At the very least, however, legislators should restore funding to allow the TEA to conduct meaningful oversight of the bilingual programs already in place.

Republican state senator Florence Shapiro, of Plano, the chair of the Senate Education Committee, admits to being "frustrated" by the lack of hard data showing which programs work best in Texas and is "very disappointed" in how little the TEA has contributed. "There is no good solid data we can work off of," she laments. But she isn’t inclined to throw more money at a program that’s not working, as it would only give schools a financial incentive to keep students "wallowing" in bilingual classes they would no longer need if the program were working. David Hinojosa, a MALDEF staff attorney, has a different perspective. He argues that fiscal conservatives want to push students into classes taught in English so the state will no longer have to pay school districts their bilingual stipend. "We think the state should do what it said it was going to do: truly implement a bilingual program," Hinojosa says.

Even if anti-immigration sentiment forestalls bilingual education reform in 2007, it cannot change the reality of Texas’s future. The projections of state demographer Steve Murdock, which are widely known around the Capitol, show that the Texas population will be majority Hispanic in twenty to thirty years. If bilingual education continues to fail and Hispanics continue to drop out of school at a rate of 50 percent, what then? Which employers will entrust their bottom line to an uneducated workforce? Who will pay taxes? This is a high-stakes issue, and Texas can either get it right—which means dual language—or get it disastrously wrong.

UT, Mexican Educators Aim To Remove Language Barrier
Online program will be rolled out this fall in 2 Hidalgo County school districts

SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS, Wednesday, May 31, 2006
ASSOCIATED PRESS

AUSTIN—Spanish-speaking students in South Texas will have the opportunity to take Mexican high school courses on-line under a program devised by the University of Texas and Mexican education agencies.

The program will be piloted this fall in the Donna and Edcouch-Elsa school districts in Hidalgo County. It will enable students to use computers to study math and science courses in Spanish while they learn English and social studies in their Texas schools.

Proponents say the program could help reduce the dropout rate among high school students who become frustrated with the language barrier.

"Generally they drop out because they can’t pass courses and get frustrated not knowing the language and sitting in classrooms. This is an incentive for them to at least see something they’re passing," said Felipe Alanis, an associate dean of UT’s Division of Continuing Education and former Texas education commissioner.

The students will be able to use the Spanish-language curriculum to supplement courses they are taking in English or even to complete a course, although they must take the final exam in English to receive Texas credit.

Students could potentially receive their diplomas from Mexico, which would allow them to attend a community college in Texas.

Organizers say participating students could include immigrants, students whose families are migrant workers or American students from Spanish-speaking homes.

Williams Powers, Jr., president of UT-Austin, signed the educational agreement this month with Mexican education officials, including the director of a high school program offering online courses and a top administrator of adult education.

The agreement also will help Texas educators place older students in the proper grade by considering their transcripts from Mexico. Alanis said high school-age immigrant students are routinely placed in the ninth grade regardless of their academic standing.

Alanis said the program is the result of "nine months of intensive talks," including work to align Texas and Mexican curriculum in math and science.

As part of the pilot program, the participating school districts each received a $500,000 federal grant to buy computers, pay for the online programs and train teachers.

Educators in South Texas said the language barrier can be particularly difficult for older students.

"This program will give them access to the translation of the language," said Minerva Guerra-Gonzalez, special populations director for Edcouch-Elsa. "The barrier of the language is what keeps them behind sometimes."

Alanis said it’s a coincidence that the program is beginning during a national debate over immigration policy.

"This is not to encourage immigration," he said, "These kids are in our schools now, and schools are needing help with this populations."

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