Districts Adopt Mexican Curriculum to Help Hispanic Students
Several school districts in the South and West that serve large populations of Spanish-speaking immigrant students are moving to align their middle- and high-school curriculae with what is being taught in Mexico.
November 6th, 2007 at 1:33 am
One of the bad aspects of articles such as this are the generalization taken as fact; ” Alanis said that even if a student has successfully completed a few years of high school in Mexico, Texas automatically places them in the 9th grade if the student doesn’t speak English.” — It si amazing that the good professor would state something as ignorant as that comment while serving in a positional authority at eh P16 program.
Not every school district automatically places any student form Mexico in the 9th grade. The current district I work for and the one previously - with heavy Hispanic influx of students from outside the USA — neither automatically places students from Mexico in the 9th grade. How many credits does the student have that will transfer to eTxas TEKS based courses? How many will have to be local credits [which only count for graduation up to2 credits] on the minimum graduation plan.
Do all professors involved think as Dr Alanis? I hope not. I have spent days researching non-USA courses trying to match student learning outcomes with Texas TEKS based courses. TAKS is probably where the professor’s statement comes from. A non-English speaking student will normally be assigned to ESL 1 & ESL 2 courses [which by the way are not just for Spanish speakers] as a means to assist the student in developing English capabilities. Most of the students in ESL 1 & 2 will be 9th and 10th grades so maybe that is where the professor gets his inaccurate information — he failed to follow through and ask the questions — but that is what graduate students are instructed to do.
Do the follow-up before you make statements that blast a system that is trying to assist all students.
November 6th, 2007 at 1:34 am
One of the bad aspects of articles such as this are the generalization taken as fact; ” Alanis said that even if a student has successfully completed a few years of high school in Mexico, Texas automatically places them in the 9th grade if the student doesn’t speak English.” — It si amazing that the good professor would state something as ignorant as that comment while serving in a positional authority at eh P16 program.
Not every school district automatically places any student form Mexico in the 9th grade. The current district I work for and the one previously - with heavy Hispanic influx of students from outside the USA — neither automatically places students from Mexico in the 9th grade. How many credits does the student have that will transfer to eTxas TEKS based courses? How many will have to be local credits [which only count for graduation up to2 credits] on the minimum graduation plan.
Do all professors involved think as Dr Alanis? I hope not. I have spent days researching non-USA courses trying to match student learning outcomes with Texas TEKS based courses. TAKS is probably where the professor’s statement comes from. A non-English speaking student will normally be assigned to ESL 1 & ESL 2 courses [which by the way are not just for Spanish speakers] as a means to assist the student in developing English capabilities. Most of the students in ESL 1 & 2 will be 9th and 10th grades so maybe that is where the professor gets his inaccurate information — he failed to follow through and ask the questions — but that is what graduate students are instructed to do.
Do the follow-up before you make statements that blast a system that is trying to assist all students.
November 6th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Mexican immigrants often cite a better education for their children as a key reason for coming to the US. Is this move to give Mexican students a Mexican curriculum a way of taking away this incentive or is it another attempt to erode the assimilation process? I’m not optimistic that this move by educators really has the best interest of students in mind and believe that it is a move by anti-American leftists to further weaken the nation through isolating ethnic groups.