Mexico Sending Books, Teachers to L.A. Schools

In an unprecedented exchange, the Mexican government has donated 40,000 new Spanish textbooks and is sending 20 bilingual teachers this fall to the Los Angeles Unified School District to aid students who speak little or no English.

The textbook donation, valued at about $500,000, is particularly prized by local bilingual educators, who have a limited supply of Spanish-language books for elementary school children. And the gift comes at a time when the cash-strapped school district has frozen some textbook funds.

“The signing of this agreement sets a new precedent for a working relationship with Mexico,” said school board President Leticia Quezada. “It is clear that the country is concerned about the needs of students of Mexican ancestry and officials want to contribute to their education.”

Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon, Mexico’s secretary of education, said that Mexican teachers who come to Los Angeles for two years will study the district’s reform plan and American education practices and take on leadership roles when they return to their schools in Mexico.

Quezada said the textbook donation will have an “incredible immediate benefit” for Spanish-speaking students. She said there is a limited selection of Spanish-language textbooks from American publishers, making it difficult for the district to purchase large quantities in a number of subjects.

In Mexico, the federal government publishes and owns all schoolbooks. Until now, bureaucratic red tape has made it impossible to obtain texts from Mexico, Quezada said. Last March, Quezada, who immigrated to the United States from Mexico when she was 13, traveled to Mexico, in part to seek access to books and bilingual teachers.

Quezada and Zedillo said they hope the agreement, signed at a Monday morning ceremony in Los Angeles, will be expanded to bring more Mexican teachers to the district and open a student exchange program.

“The concern of the Mexican government in the area of education encompasses all Mexican children, including migrant children,” Zedillo said. “Certainly, the action taken today is quite modest, but undoubtedly it will encourage greater efforts.”

He said the books Mexico is sending are designed to improve Spanish reading and writing skills and are basic primers in math, science and ecology. Some series emphasize the history, geography and customs of Mexico.

“We hope these collections will . . . instill greater pride on the part of the Mexican-American community, and the Hispanic community in general, (in) their origins and culture,” Zedillo said.

About 65% of Los Angeles schoolchildren are Latino. Nearly 280,000 students have limited English skills, with the vast majority being Spanish speakers. The school district’s bilingual education policy calls for students to be taught core courses such as math and science in their native language until they become proficient enough in English to succeed in regular classrooms.

But there is a severe shortage of Spanish-speaking teachers in Los Angeles, prompting the district to pay bilingual instructors an annual bonus of about $3,000. The Mexican teachers are experienced instructors who are fluent in English and passed a condensed version of the California Basic Education Skills Test--which all public school teachers are required to take--and must pass the full test within a year. Most will be assigned to elementary schools.

Currently, there are 2,500 positions available for Spanish-speaking teachers. Most of those slots are held by bilingual teachers with emergency credentials or monolingual teachers who have Spanish-speaking aides, district officials said.

In the mid- and late 1980s, the school district recruited about 25 teachers from Mexico and Spain. But the programs ended when the Spanish teachers returned home and the Mexican government did not renew the ties.

United Teachers-Los Angeles President Helen Bernstein applauded the textbook donation but said recruiting a handful of Mexican teachers is not the best use of district resources.

Instead, she said, the district should invest in teaching American teachers Spanish. One idea is to give teachers time off from the classroom to enroll in an intensive Spanish class. She also suggested developing a program in which bilingual Los Angeles students can be reimbursed for college tuition if they agree to teach after graduation.

“If we need thousands of teachers, why aren’t we looking for real-life solutions?” Bernstein said. “The Mexican teachers don’t have a vested interest in our system and in our country. . . . They are not part of the culture of this city.”

The issue of whether students should be taught in their native language has engendered highly emotional debate locally and nationally. Opponents argue that such practices cost too much and slow students’ acquisition of English. Supporters say that teaching youths in their native language ensures that such students keep pace academically with English-speaking classmates.

Sally Petersen, a Los Angeles teacher and president of an organization that advocates teaching children only in English, said recruiting Mexican teachers is “the wrong way to spend taxpayer money.”

She said the need for such drastic recruitment points to what she thinks is a major problem with the district’s bilingual policy. “If they need 2,000 bilingual teachers, they are pushing a program that they don’t have the resources to implement.”