Frontera  NorteSur Oct - Dec 2009

EDUCATION

Flames or Frost?

Parents of school children in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez face a quandary: Should their young ones shiver in classrooms or risk injury and possible death from a cheap, makeshift heater?

As winter weather approaches, some parents criticize the lack of heating in 37 portable classrooms set up in the rapidly-growing southern section of the city. Each portable unit serves between 35-40 elementary students. Eleven schools that were supposed to be finished at the start of the fall semester are not completed, said Alejandro Mendoza Vasquez, chief of educational services for the Chihuahua state department of education’s northern zone.

Resident Rigoberto Espinoza contended that cold classroom conditions caused his first-grade son to fall ill and “make all of us sick.” A neighboring parent, Angel Trujillo, shared Espinoza’s concerns, adding that his daughter and her two friends also got sick from a chilly room.

But Dora Armendariz, mother of two students, said it was better to wait until a new school with an adequate heating system is finished. Installing a temporary heater in a portable classroom is risky business, Armendariz asserted.

Guillermo Narro Garza, general director of the state education department’s northern zone, seconded Armendariz’s stance. A fire could rapidly engulf a portable classroom in flames, he said.

Every year, malfunctioning portable heaters cause numerous injuries and deaths in Ciudad Juarez. Last winter, 102 people in the city were poisoned from carbon monoxide fumes, according to the Chihuahua State Civil Protection Department.

According to Angel Trujillo, local students have had a rough time this school year-even having to sit on the ground because of an initial shortage of seats and tables when school got underway.

No certified teachers were available to teach the children at the beginning of the school year, Trujillo complained, forcing local mothers to act as substitutes.

New schools with modern heating and air conditioning systems are expected to be up and running within the next few months, but parents in at least one school have been asked to donate about $20 each to help finish the state-sponsored project, Espinoza added.

Last week, Ciudad Juarez was hit with an early blast of winter-like weather as snow dusted the high desert ground. For the next several days at least, the city should get a break from the chills. Temperatures through next Monday are forecast to range from lows in the 40s and 50s to highs in the upper 60s and mid 70s. Homero Navarro Fraye, Chihuahua state coordinator of civil protection, predicted a cold winter in store for Ciudad Juarez, with at least 60 cold fronts expected to descend on the borderland.

Sources: El Diario de Juarez, November 2 and 4, 2009. Articles by Guadalupe Felix. Norte, November 4, 2009. Article by Salvador Castro. wunderground.org, November 3, 2009.

FNS Special Report: The Battle of Santa Fe

On a beautiful fall day before the cold weather set in, Santa Fe high school student David Dean wasn’t goofing off with his buddies. Standing in front of the New Mexico State Capitol building with a picket sign, Dean had words for lawmakers who will gather for an emergency session dedicated to a state budget deficit next weekend: “Cut Dropout Rates, Not Budget,” Dean’s sign read.

The 15-year-old Dean told Frontera NorteSur that a tight budget was already making study hard at the Monte Del Sol Charter School he attends. Class sizes have increased over last year, Dean said, forcing him to stand up in English class. Talk among students of quitting has been on the rise, he added.

“You know, we’re probably going to have a lot more dropouts if the budget gets cut,” Dean predicted. “I know I’m not going to sit in a roomful of 40 people.”

On Friday, October 9, the Santa Fe teenager joined about 1,000 other people in the opening salvo of a battle over New Mexico’s budget crisis. Organized by the American Federation of Teachers, the Better Choices New Mexico coalition and others, the rally urged lawmakers to spare education and other vital public services from the budget axe.

A crowd that included many youths like Dean chanted “Save Our Schools,” and ringed the Roundhouse with giant facsimiles of memos strung on a cord and addressed to absent legislators. “We need a edumucation,” satirized one message, while another simply stated, “You will be known as the legislature that changed our state motto from Land of Enchantment to ‘49 in Everything’.’”

But a ballooning budget deficit variously estimated to range from $444 million to more than $650 million has leading lawmakers, both Democrat and Republican, imploring the state to swallow the bitter medicine of budget cuts.

Organizers of the Santa Fe protest favor raising new revenues for schools and services like Medicaid.

Sara Attleson, political action committee chair for the Albuquerque Teachers Federation and a librarian at Kennedy Middle School, said that the union and its allies have come up with an alternative plan to repeal 2003 state income tax cuts on people making more than $200,000 annually and begin collecting state corporate income taxes on Wal-Mart, Target and other out-of-state companies which currently do not pay such levies. “The profits do not stay in the state,” Attleson contended. “They make them off the backs of the people and take them out.”

Education advocates like Attleson maintain that coming on top of a 9 percent education spending cut and a 1.5 percent cut in the pay of state workers this year, slimmer budgets will further cut into the exposed bone of public education and its workforce.

The proposals for education cuts come hot on the heels of news that barely six of ten New Mexico high school students graduate in four years, a percentage well below the national average of roughly seven in ten students.

A 30-year veteran educator and librarian who describes herself as a “keeper of the first amendment,” Attleson said that Kennedy Middle School is already witnessing the consequences of fiscal restraint.

This year, Attleson said, she teaches an elective course at the expense of her librarian duties in order to relieve scheduling pressures from teachers who have not been replaced. In the Digital Age, the school’s computer teacher instructs 30 students with 20 computers; no new textbooks were on hand for students, according to Attleson. “I’d like lawmakers to see what shape our textbooks are in,” she added. “I would say it’s comparable to the Third World.”

The Border Bears the Brunt

Interviewed at the Santa Fe rally, state Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino (D-Albuquerque), said that additional, across-the-board education cuts could disproportionately impact smaller districts in the southern counties of Dona Ana, Luna and Hidalgo along the Mexican border. The region is already characterized by high rates of poverty, unemployment and underdevelopment. For instance, the 2009 Kids Count New Mexico report, sponsored by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and New Mexico Voices for Children, found that all three counties had child poverty rates exceeding the state average of 24 percent last year, even before the economic crisis struck New Mexico.

“(Border districts) are running very, very scared, because what was a budget cut was exacerbated by the reduced number of students in those schools.” Ortiz y Pino said. “A lot of the rural schools are losing population, and since the funding formula is based on the number of students a lot of those districts are taking major cuts.”

According to the Kids Count report, Latino students made up between 71 and 90 percent of all students in the major school districts of the three border counties in 2008.

Ortiz y Pino said that residents from the south are searching for jobs in the Albuquerque area precisely at a time when New Mexico is witnessing its worst unemployment crisis since 1944. Statewide, an estimated 30,900 jobs have been lost since last year, with 14,500 of them in Albuquerque.

Even the help wanted signs at fast food restaurants that attracted so many immigrant and youthful workers a couple years ago are long gone.
Conversely, enrollment at the state’s colleges and universities is way up, again at a moment when budget cuts for higher education are also on the table.

Ortiz y Pino argued that it did not make sense to create more joblessness and slash services such as Medicaid, which attracts federal dollars, at a time when tax revenues, based in part on consumer spending and sales taxes, are plummeting.

“When times are tough like this, we don’t need to be laying people off and reducing reimbursements,” Ortiz y Pino asserted. “We need to be increasing these so people can get through the slow-down.”

Currently, New Mexico has the second highest rate of medically uninsured in the nation, with 23.1 percent of the state’s residents lacking coverage in 2008 (up nearly two points from 2005-2006), according to US Census Bureau numbers which were compiled before the spike in unemployment. And again, Dona Ana County and other southern counties traditionally have proportionally greater numbers of uninsured residents than many other parts of the state.

In 2004, when the economy was better, the New Mexico Primary Care/Rural Health Bureau calculated that approximately 33 percent of Dona Ana County’s residents were medically indigent.

Sharpening Battle Swords

New Mexico lawmakers will mull different budget fixes when they meet this month. Overall spending cuts could range from 3.5 percent to as high as 16 percent, while salaries for state workers, which were already trimmed back 1.5 percent this year to replenish a retirement fund drained of more than $100 million lost in bad investments, could see another 2.5 hacked off from the total.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson supports protecting public schools and Medicaid but leaves the door open to slashing spending in the three percent range for other state programs including colleges and universities.

Richardson has reportedly worked out an agreement with some legislative leaders to keep tax increases off the agenda of the special session. According to the governor’s office, budget holes can be filled by using cash reserves, reprogramming spending and selling bonds.

Leading Democrats and Republicans favor cutting the budget instead of raising revenue from tax increases. Senate President Pro Tem Tim Jennings of Roswell and House Speaker Ben Lujan of Santa Fe, both Democrats, lean toward this camp. Republican House Minority Whip Keith Gardner, also from Roswell, likewise argues cuts are in order.

“The realists in the education community understand there is room (for cuts) without affecting classrooms,” Gardner told the Albuquerque Journal.

Democratic state Senator John Arthur Smith, who chairs the State Senate Finance Committee, recently met with New Mexico school superintendents to warn schools to be prepared for ten percent cuts.

Representing two of New Mexico’s three border counties, Smith cautioned that state finances could be in a worse position come January if legislators don’t make painful decisions now. “We don’t want a 10 percent cut, but the idea is to wake them up,” Smith was recently quoted. “We can’t hold education harmless.”

K-12 and higher education spending together account for approximately 60 percent of the state’s budget expenses.

Representing the state’s major companies, the Association of Commerce and Industry of New Mexico is against reversing tax cuts to bolster the state budget. According to Association President Beverlee McClure, repealing tax cut repeals would hurt businesses which have already grappled with downsizing in the three to five percent range this year.

Reported in the Albuquerque Journal, a telephone poll of 402 registered voters last month found that 58 percent of respondents preferred cutting spending over raising taxes; the survey question did not specify which taxes should be raised or which programs might be cut.

Is Another Budget Possible?

Lined up against budget cuts is a growing movement that encompasses public sector unions, child advocacy organizations, students, economists, and religious organizations. In a message against cuts, the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops cited a pastoral letter on Catholic social teaching and the US economy. The bishops asserted that charity can only go so far and it is up to government to adequately fund basic public services and “ensure fair business and wage practices and much more.” Las Cruces Bishop Ricardo Ramirez and other church leaders endorsed a rollback of the 2003 tax cuts.

The budget drama unfolding in New Mexico is, of course, a small part of the larger crisis rippling across the country and in the Americas. In the US, at least 25 states have cut K-12 spending while another 34 have dug into higher education outlays, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

On the same day of the Santa Fe protest, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman published an editorial blasting education cuts. Noting that 143,000 jobs were lost in the US education sector during the last five months, Krugman contended that decades of educational underfunding had left the US lagging behind other developed nations. Criticizing the “penny-wise, pound-foolish behavior” of “centrist” leaders of the US Congress for leaving out sufficient aid to the states in last February’s stimulus package, the Princeton professor called on Washington to step up to the plate and take a swing for education.

“We don’t have to call it stimulus, but it would be a very effective way to create or save thousands of jobs,” Krugman wrote. “And it would, at the same time, be an investment in our future.”

In New Mexico, meanwhile, the state’s political actors are readying for a historic meeting that will shape the future of the state.

Anti-budget cut activists plan to be on hand for the special legislative session. John Ingram, political action director for the American Federation of Teachers in New Mexico, vowed that his organization would support primary challengers against any politician who votes for education cuts. Santa Fe high school student David Dean said that he would also remember lawmakers’ votes when he reaches his 18th birthday and is eligible to cast a ballot.

Albuquerque Democrat Jerry Ortiz y Pino predicted that the atmosphere at the budget crisis session will be “ugly.”

The action begins Saturday, October 17, at the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.

Additional sources: National Public Radio, October 11, 2009. Story by Claudio Sanchez. Santa Fe New Mexican.com October 9, 2009. Article by Kate Nash. Las Cruces Sun-News.com October 9, 2009. Commondreams.org/New York Times, October 9, 2009. Article by Paul Krugman. Article by Barry Massey/Associated Press.

New Mexico Independent, September 28, 2009 and October 8, 2009. Articles by Trip Jennings and Marjorie Childress. Albuquerque Journal, September 11, 17 and 24, 2009; October 5, 7 and 10, 2009. Articles by Dan Boyd, Olivier Uyttebrouck, the Associated Press, and editorial staff. Deming Headlight, October 6, 2009. Article by Kevin Buey.

An Austere School Year

If school officials were to pick the winning word for the next grand spelling bee, the noun austerity might be their best choice. On both sides of the US-Mexico border, the ongoing economic crisis promises lean times and more out-of-pocket expenses for many parents, students and teachers.

In the violence-torn and economically-devastated Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, missing classrooms, teacher shortages and too few buses greeted thousands of students as the new school year kicked off this week. A Chihuahua state program that provided grants of up to approximately $150 every year for students between the third and sixth grades was cut back, with academic performance levels increased in order to reduce the number of beneficiaries.

“When the check arrives, it is motivation for the children,” said Ciudad Juarez parent Pablo Alvarez Alberto.

School problems are greatest in the fast-growing southeastern section of the city, where upwards of 5000 students could go without certified teachers during the first days of the calendar year. Chihuahua state education officials blamed the teacher shortage on the late announcement of test results needed to certify educators. As a stop-gap measure, officials dispatched 76 teachers previously assigned to administrative positions to cover classrooms.

Nationwide, three-fourths of prospective Mexican teachers flunked a certification exam this summer.

As plans for the construction of 12 new schools are being finalized, many students are being taught in 70 portable units that have up to 30 elementary students in each classroom. According to a report in a local newspaper, many of the portables lack air conditioning in a city where high seasonal temperatures generally persist for weeks yet.

But some parents reported not being able to find a school for their children at all. Ciudad Juarez parent Rosa Guerra spent Monday, August 24, fruitlessly searching for a school that would admit her five-year-old daughter Itzel.

“It’s always the same thing,” Guerra complained. “There is no school, or there are no teachers or space.”

Mexico has long maintained a two-tier education system: a public one for the working class and a private one for more affluent sectors of the population. This year, however, even the private sector is feeling the bite of the economic crisis. According to Ruben Villalobos Ortiz, president of the Ciudad Juarez Federation of Private Schools, enrollment in at least 96 private schools has dipped by 3,000 students. Villalobos said offers of payment plans and discounts were not enough to halt the
drop-off.

In preparation for a financially-trying year, thousands of Juarenses endured border crossing times as long as three hours last weekend to search for school supply bargains in neighboring El Paso, Texas. The mother of two teenage daughters entering high school, Maricruz Mariel de Escobar shopped for a calculator and dictionary. Mariel told a local reporter she had been buying school supplies valued at about $160 in increments over the summer, since her husband’s remittances from working in the United States did not allow the family to purchase supplies at one time.

In the United States, meanwhile, the educational system increasingly resembles Mexico’s two-tier system. Like Mexico, free basic public education has been traditionally regarded as a right in the US.

But as in Mexico, where parents are typically charged “voluntary” fees at registration time, more and more US parents are reaching deeper into their pockets just to keep schools functioning. In Tacoma, Washington, parents raised money this year to save three educational assistant positions at a local school. According to an estimate by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, states are expected to cut $350 billion from education spending during the next two years.

Perhaps the budget crisis is no more glaring than in California, once regarded as the educational leader of the United States.

At the higher education level, pay-cuts for faculty and staff, course cancellations, reduced work-study jobs, and less services are the order of the day. In a life-changing shock that is familiar to many Mexican youths who are routinely rejected by universities, thousands of freshmen are unable to enter San Jose State University this year.

The debt-ridden Golden State will grapple with two-billion dollar cuts to higher education this year, spending $8.7 billion on colleges and universities, or 17 percent less, than two years ago.

In response, protests are beginning to take shape. On Monday, August 24, workers and students at the University of California’s Berkeley campus rallied against budget cuts and tuition increases as well as against bonuses and pay raises this year for some administrators. One employee contended that university administrators were transforming the institution of higher learning, which still possesses financial reserves, into a“private corporation.”

California’s public schools are also slammed by the budget crisis. In Contra Costa County near San Francisco, teachers voted August 20 to authorize a strike. Already working without a contact for the past year, teachers were recently informed that the school district would stop paying health insurance for dependents. As the money well dries up, class sizes are going up in a school district that serves low-income African-American and immigrant students.

In a radio interview, Pixie Hayward Schickele, president of the United Teachers of Richmond, said caps have been removed on kindergarten and third grade class sizes, and as many as 40-45 students have been crammed into high school classrooms. The overcrowding could especially hurt English language learners, Schickele said.

The teacher union leader voiced deep concern that the budget crisis would impact the overall quality of education. “People are worried about safety issues,” Schickele said. “It’s going to be an issue of crowd control rather than teaching.”

Sources: Norte, August 23, 24 and 25, 2009. Articles by Pablo Hernandez Batista. El Diario de Juarez, August 23, 24 and 25, 2009. Articles by Guadalupe Felix, Araly Castanon and Gabriela Minjares. Proceso/Apro, August 24, 2009. KTVU (Oakland), August 23, 2009. KPFA (Berkeley), August 24 and 25, 2009. Associated Press, July 24, 2009. Article by Donna Gordon Blankenship.

Chihuahua Students Stiffed

In Ciudad Juarez and the state of Chihuahua, education has emerged as another casualty of the H1N1 flu. The federal Secretariat of Public Education (SEP) has given state schools the go-ahead to end the school year as originally planned on July 3, without necessarily making up class time that was lost when schools were closed due to the health emergency decreed by the flu outbreak. The unanticipated school closures came shortly after students had returned from the two-week Holy week/Easter holiday, and contributed to the loss of valuable momentum and curricular block-building in public schools.

High schools shut down April 27 and didn’t renew classes until May 7, while elementary and middle schools went quiet from April 27 to May 11. Victor Manuel Salas Diaz, president of the Regional Parents Association of Ciudad Juarez, criticized the SEP’s decision for not considering the opinions of parents. Instead of recuperating lost instruction time, Salas complained that various schools chose instead to celebrate Children's Day, Teacher’s Day and Mother’s Day.

Quoted in El Diario de Juarez, unidentified officials with the Chihuahua state public education system said intense summer temperatures and the lack of air conditioning in school buildings force institutions to shut down by July 3. In the Chihuahua borderlands, basic school infrastructure combined with high energy costs remains a big problem.

In Mexico, students are required to receive 200 days of instruction. Most states have extended their public school calendars to make up for the lost time accrued from the H1N1 emergency. For example, the northern border states of Baja California, Coahuila and Tamaulipas won’t end the school year until July 10. In the capital of Mexico City, schools have extended classes by one half-hour each day to make up for the swine flu losses.

Plans to extend the school year encountered opposition by representatives of Mexico’s economically ailing tourism industry, which is dependent on vacationing Mexican families.

The 2009-2010 academic year is scheduled to begin August 24.

Sources: El Diario de Juarez, May 25, 2009. Article by Guadalupe Felix. El Universal, May 24, 2009. Article by Noemi Gutierrez.

Protesting Mexico’s No Child Left Behind

In many respects, Mexico’s Alliance for Educational Quality (ACE) could be compared with the United States’ No Child Left Behind law. Like No Child Left Behind, ACE proposes raising the professional bar of teachers and the learning expectations of students. And like the fiercely-debated legislation north of the border, ACE is generating tons of controversy in Mexico.

For starters, Mexican teachers affiliated with the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) are intensifying protests against ACE. At a recent meeting, teachers from Baja California, Mexico City, Michoacan, and other states agreed to demonstrate outside the Mexican Senate March 5 in an effort to block constitutional modifications that would institutionalize ACE and, according to critics, make teaching to the test more of the norm inside classrooms.

Although controversial national teachers’ union leader Elba Esther Gordillo and the Calderon administration are backing ACE, many rank-amd-file educators say the proposed reforms would further pry open the door to the privatization of education, which has been on the upswing in recent years, and legally recognize “voluntary” contributions and other fees routinely asked of parents to help support a struggling, underfunded education system.

Jorge Garcia Hernandez, a member of the political commission of the CETEG teacher group in the state of Guerrero, maintained teachers are not against “quality in education,” but he disqualified ACE as a “neo-liberal” project that amounts to an assault on the free, lay basic education guaranteed by the Mexican Constitution.

Gordillo and her allies view education as “an opportunity and not a right, a right which was legitimately gained by long and broad struggles that come from the pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary eras,” Garcia said in an interview with Frontera NorteSur.

On February 16, Garcia and several thousand other teachers and supporters held a protest march along Acapulco’s Costera main drag in opposition to ACE and changes made two years ago to Mexico’s ISSSTE social security system.

Garcia blasted the ISSSTE reforms for extending teacher retirement eligibility requirements as well as slashing guaranteed pension benefits from 4 to 2.5 minimum wage salaries, or from about $15 to less than $10 daily. If allowed to stand, the ISSSTE reform will leave retired teachers in the “beggar house,” Garcia contended.

Locally, the Acapulco march was convened to protest lack of progress in an agreement reached last fall between CETEG and the administration of Guerrero Governor Zeferino Torreblanca Galindo. According to Garcia, the two sides agreed to suspend the implementation of ACE in Guerrero while making sure recent teacher college graduates got jobs.

In response to this week’s protest, Torreblanca said teachers’ demands are unfulfilled “not because of lack of will, but because of lack of money.” In reference to the massive traffic tie-up on the Costera resulting from Monday’s march, Torreblanca appealed to teachers to respect the rights of others who are not part of demonstrations.

For the moment, teachers have called a time-out on their demonstrations but could resume protests if expected negotiations with the state government do not bear fruit. A sticking point could be teacher demands that Guerrero State Education Secretary Jose Luis Gonzalez step down from his post.

The Acapulco march was supported by other social movements, including a group of residents from Puerto Marquez near Acapulco. The group is locked
in a land-dispute over a zone that could be a prime tourist development in the future. The residents’ leader, Daniel Morales, was jailed last November on charges connected to the conflict. He remains in a prison outside Acapulco.

“We are in the same circumstances of government officials trying to affect (people),” said Puerto Marquez spokesman Carlos Salgado. “We stand in solidarity with (teachers).”

Conversely, an important segment of Mexican society rejects teacher protests against ACE and other government policies. An Acapulco taxi driver, who ironically works in an economic sector which is well-known for blocking roads to press its demands, expressed outrage at sight of the teachers blocking the Costera.

In a verbal exchange that illustrated prevailing social divisions, the driver called teachers “lazybones” while the educators called the cabbie a“pirate.”Watching the march from the sidelines, Acapulco resident Jorge Olivar also criticized the teachers. Contending teachers are “first-class” workers who have privileged benefits like three-month bonuses that he and other workers do not enjoy, Olivar said he saw no good reason for teachers to be out on the streets. “The government is giving them a fair shake,” the hotel industry worker insisted.

Nationally, the recent comments of a Chihuahua senator have stirred more controversy. Senator Maria Teresa Ortuno proposed that Mexican soldiers be used as substitute teachers so students don’t miss class time in the event of a work stoppage.

“The important priority should be the one who is getting educated, not the educated one,” Senator Ortuno affirmed.CETEG’s Jorge Garcia dismissed the senator’s remarks as hailing from the “hard-core reactionary sector of the National Action Party that governs our country.” Using soldiers as strike-breakers would only lead to “bigger confrontations,” Garcia warned.

In today’s Mexico, teachers constitute the best-organized, militant section of the working-class. The repression of a 2006 teacher strike in Oaxaca led to a popular uprising that was suppressed by federal forces.

According to Garcia, the anti-ACE movement is preparing an alternative education plan. CETEG and its allies plan to gather teachers, academics, parents, housewives and others in Acapulco next June to draft an educational reform proposal that comes “from below and not from above,” Garcia added.

Additional sources: El Universal, February 16, 2009. Article by Nurit Martinez. El Sur/Agencia Reforma, February 16, 2009. Article by Claudia Guerrero. Televisa (Acapulco), February 17, 2009. El Sur, February 17, 2009. Articles by Berenice Reyes, Zacarias Cervantes and Karina Contreras.

Vouchers in Mexico?

A prominent Mexican educator is advocating a voucher-like system to serve the needs of hundreds of thousands of rejected university applicants. Dr. Alejandro Gertz Manero, rector of the privately-owned University of the Americas, made the remarks in an interview with La Jornada daily about the state of higher education in Mexico.

Gertz Manero, who was recently appointed president of the National Center for the Evaluation of Higher Education, said private universities could help absorb the many students who are refused admission to public schools which have limited resources. In Mexico, tests are largely used to determine who gets to study at a university. For the coming 2008-2009 school year, an estimated 363,161 prospective students were denied admission to the country’s 12 largest public universities.

According to Gertz Manero, the Mexican state should come to the “rescue” of frustrated students by providing public money to subsidize studies at a university of their choosing. When pressed by a reporter if his proposal meant tax money should support private schools, Gertz Manero responded that the question should be looked at in a different way.

“No, the state should finance students,” Gertz Manero said.

The rector, who served as Mexico’s public safety chief during the early years of the Fox administration, added the federal Secretariat of Public Education is examining a funding scheme that would help support students attend private universities. He did not mention whether foreign-run institutions of higher learning, which have increased their presence in Mexico in recent years, would also be part of a “rescue”
plan.

On a related note, Gertz Manero said Mexico needed to “remake” higher education, and was in need of a new national evaluation system overseen by “civil society and academia.”

The longtime public figure criticized the so-called “patito” schools, or privately-run, low-quality institutions, that began spreading in the 1960s but proliferated during the Fox administration. The decentralization of education in 1992, which gave state governments more responsibility for regulating schools, was a key factor in the growth of the “patito phenomenon,” according to Gertz Manero.

“Now (authorities) are trying to put some order in them,” he said. “Let’s see if they can.”

Sources: La Jornada, July 23 and 24, 2008. Articles by Karina Aviles and Laura Poy.

Tomato Pickers Demand Bilingual Education

Migrant Mixtec tomato harvesters and their allies staged a Baja California protest June 30 in support of bilingual education. Gathered in the state capital of Mexicali, the indigenous farmworkers   demanded the continuation of a Spanish-Mixtec bilingual school in the San Quintin Valley on the Baja Peninsula.

Joined by teachers from the school, about 100 protestors complained that a behind-the-scenes deal between the National Education Workers union led by Elba Esther Gordillo and the new Baja California state administration of Jose Guadalupe Osuna Millan seeks to transform the Luis Rodriguez Avina bilingual school into a regular school without indigenous language instruction.

“(Authorities) never took into account that putting in a regular school means the loss of traditions, customs, identity and the attachment of the children to their language and culture,” said teacher and protest leader Claudio Cuevas Luna.

Cuevas and other demonstrators charged that abandoning the bilingual mission of the school would violate an agreement with the previous Baja California state administration headed by former Governor Eugenio Elorduy.  Both the current and previous Baja California state governments have been run by the center-right National Action Party of President Felipe Calderon.

Part of the migrant wave of indigenous Mixtecs from southern Mexico who’ve relocated to Baja California to work in export-oriented agriculture, the San Quintin tomato pickers now reside in the community of Santa Maria Los Pinos. There the migrants labor on a tomato farm owned by Antonio Rodriguez, Baja California’s current secretary of agricultural promotion.

Mixtec leader Benito Garcia Garcia said living and working conditions for his community members have improved, but that indigenous agricultural workers still lack social security coverage in spite of the export of tomatoes to the United States and Europe.

Mexico Plans Expansion of Migrant Education in US and Canada

Building on a cross-border educational initiative, Mexico's federal government plans to expand educational and vocational training programs for Mexican migrants in the United States. Speaking at an educational and economic development conference in Mexico last week, Mexican Education Minister Josefina Vazquez Mota said the administration of President Felipe Calderon plans to open an additional 100 community education centers to serve the migrant population in the US. The functionary also announced that Mexico will open a similar educational facility in Canada for the first time.

The purpose of the centers is two-fold. Besides providing basic and secondary education skills, the programs aim to professionalize the work skills of migrants. Certification programs will be made available for Las Vegas gardeners, New York restaurant industry employees, California cosmetologists and Wisconsin dairy workers, Vazquez said, adding that better education and economic competitiveness are linked together by the ties between the three member states of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

"(Workers) will have certainty and labor mobility," Vazquez contended. "Their labor competencies will be recognized." For businessmen, the programs will provide "much more competitive, committed and cohesive personnel," she added.  In the academic realm, the new community education centers will initially focus on teaching English to migrants. 

According to Vazquez, the international program will be managed by Mexico's National College of Professional and Technical Education (Conalep), which will celebrate its 30th anniversary later this year. The educational institution is in the process of expanding its curricula to encompass robotics, informatics, alternative energy, tourism and health, among other subjects.

Source: La Jornada, March 6, 2008. Article by Emir Olivares Alonso.

Test Anxiety Grips a Border School

Nervous Ciudad Juarez families await the results of a high-stakes test that will decide which students enter the next freshman class of the city's prestigious Central
Preparatory. Enjoying a reputation as perhaps the city’s top-notch high school, the educational institution advertised 160 available slots for next year's freshman class. Early on the morning of May 26, family members of 350 prospective students waited long hours outside the school for the admissions exam to begin. Only the highest-scoring 160 test takers will get the chance of attending Central Preparatory.

"We came at 7 in the morning. We already have 4 hours here, but it's worth the wait for those of us who want our children to improve," said parent Cecilia Olivares, who saved a place in line for her 15-year-old son. "They are all superior students here," Olivares affirmed. "This is the best school of all, and it gathers together all the
best students. They are all brains. The son of one of my friends left here and is now studying in Canada on a full scholarship."

A privately-run school that is financed by subsidies from the state and municipal governments as well as from private sector donations, Central Preparatory emphasizes math, science and English studies. The majority of the school’s graduates go on to study at the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez, the University of Texas at El Paso and other colleges.

Parent Francisco Cervantes said that better-off families shell out about $50 in monthly tuition fees, but that scholarships are available to academically-excellent, low-
income students. Angel Hidalgo, assistant academic director of the school, said that books and instruction are provided to financially needy students as long as they maintain grade point averages of B plus or above.

Kenia Cervantes, a 17-year-old student, characterized Central Preparatory as an extremely challenging but ultimately rewarding educational experience.

"It's difficult enough, and the classes are complicated," Cervantes said. "Sometimes I go to the bathroom and find someone crying who wants to quit, but they endure it
because they know this is a good school and don't want to lose the opportunity to continue here."

Toting a guitar, Cervantes challenged the popular notion that Central Preparatory is only for bookish bores. "There is a lot of pressure here at times, but it very cool to be here," Cervantes beamed. "It's not true that it's all nerds. We also have a lot of fun here. After all, we are young people."

Source: El Diario de Juarez, May 27, 2007

Private Schools Surge

More privately-owned schools are slated to open in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, for the upcoming 2007-2008 school year. At least 57 new private schools are expected to be up and running when students start classes next August. Concentrated in newer sections of the sprawling border city, the new schools will serve the pre-school, primary and middle school student populations. In addition to the ongoing shortage of public schools, the boom is attributed to the availability of popular English classes in the private schools.

Ruben Villalobos Ortiz, the president of the Federation of Private Schools of Ciudad Juarez, said the demand for English-speaking employees in the maquiladora export industry is encouraging many parents to enroll their children in private schools that emphasize learning English. 

Ciudad Juarez's upsurge in private schools reflects a national trend in Mexico. A recent study by Mexico's National Institute for Educational Evaluation (INEE) reveals that the number of private pre-schools in Mexico jumped 116 percent from 2000 to 2005, while the number of private elementary schools increased 15 percent during the same time period. Conversely, the number of public primary schools (and teaching staff) decreased nationwide by 2 percent from 2000 to 2005, according to the INEE.

In some regions, closures of public preschools and reductions in their teaching staff were even more dramatic. In Guanajuato state, for instance, the number of public pre-schools and teachers that served indigenous communities dropped 67 percent and 44 percent, respectively, from 2000-2005. However, overall student enrollment in Guanajuato's indigenous pre-schools increased by 1 percent during the five-year period examined.

The 5-year period studied by the INEE covers most of the years of the administration of former President Vicente Fox, who promised an "educational revolution" when he took office. Four of the states that registered a heavy loss in public schools during the Fox administration were Jalisco, Yucatan, Morelos, and Guanajuato, all of which were ruled by governors from Fox's center-right National Action Party (PAN) during the time period
considered in the INEE study. Governed by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Mexico state also experienced a decrease in public schools during 2000-2005. At the state level, Chihuahua was also administered by successive PRI governments from 2000-2005. 
 

Sources: La Jornada, March 8, 2007. Article by Karina Aviles. El Diario de Juarez, February 28, 2007. Article by Guadalupe Felix. 

The Winds of Oaxaca

A conflict over the management of a Ciudad Juarez technical college is set to enter its second week. Professors and students at the federally-operated Technological Institute of Ciudad Juarez (ITCJ) halted classes and briefly took over the school's administration offices to protest the sudden sacking of Director Angel Rafael Quevedo Camacho and his replacement by Jesus Armando Logoria Gandara last week. Angered by the removal of an administrator widely regarded as competent and progressive, some protestors warned that "another Oaxaca " could result from the conflict.

As the week wore on, protestors were removed from administration offices, allegedly by pro-administration students organized by Longoria, who nevertheless offered an olive's branch to his opponents.

"I will continue respecting the right to demonstrate freedom of expression, but always as it conforms to the law," Longoria said. "I am convinced that we all want the best for the Tech.” In the hot seat, Longoria pledged to relay campus grievances to Mexico City .

At the beginning of the protest, pro-Quevedo staff and students said they did not have anything personally against Longoria, a native of Delicias , Chihuahua , who worked as a professor for many years at the federal technological college in the Torreon , Coahuila, area. Initially numbering in the hundreds, protestors were upset at the top-down removal of former Director Quevedo, whom they praised for putting "lazy" teachers to work and bringing under control the so-called "aviadores (flyers)," or teachers who collect paychecks but do not work.

Although Longoria appeared to have consolidated his appointment by week's end, some teachers and students vowed to press forward with their movement. Another round of class boycotts could happen on Monday, November 13.

Jorge Gonzalez Rodriguez, spokesman for the ITCJ's strike committee, said protestors will maintain a "permanent assembly" and push for campus autonomy in decision-making authority.

"We believe that we are in the right, that (the movement) is for the institution," Gonzalez added. "We're subject to scrutiny, public opinion, criticism, and also the actions the administration and authorities, but this is the risk one runs when deciding to participate in these types of conflicts."

An institution that's in high demand among prospective students, the ITCJ is part of a federal Public Education Ministry system that trains students in accounting, computer, engineering and other professional careers.

While conflict raged at the ITJC campus in Ciudad Juarez last week, labor-management discord also disrupted another segment of the national education system. Originally walking out on October 23, an estimated 20,000 striking teachers from the National Bachelor's Colleges (Cobach) in 13 states escalated their protests for higher pay. In some cases supported by students and their parents, the Cobach teachers conducted vocal protests in Tijuana , Mexicali , Mexico City and elsewhere.

Unlike the Oaxaca teacher's strike, which the outgoing Fox Administration argued was the responsibility of a state government to settle, the Cobach strike involves issues that are squarely in the federal government's corner. Similar to Oaxaca, however, the Cobach struggle has acquired international dimensions. In Mexicali , Baja California , more than 100 Cobach teachers held a demonstration November 8 at an international crossing with Calexico , California . Contending that the Mexican government does not respect labor agreements, Cobach teachers staged protests outside Canadian and US diplomatic quarters in Mexico City last week.

In the northern border state of Tamaulipas, meanwhile, Governor Eugenio Hernandez Flores rejected suggestions that political winds blowing north from Oaxaca state were reaching the entity. Gov. Hernandez said the state administration has good relations with teachers, and that Tamaulipas maintains quality public schools. "Tamaulipas is not anything like Oaxaca ," remarked the PRI governor.

Messages in support of the Popular Assembly of the Oaxacan People (APPO) have been spray painted in Tamaulipas, and a pro-APPO demonstration on November 4 drew about 100 people, including foreign nationals, to an international bridge between Matamoros and Brownsville , Texas . In addition to shouting slogans against the Mexican Federal Preventive Police, which stormed Oaxaca City last month, and Oaxaca Governor Ulises Ruiz, demonstrators protested the Bush Administration's immigration policies and called for the return of the borderlands ceded to the US more than 150 years ago.

Souces: Norte, November 9, 11 and 12, 2006. Articles by Pablo Hernandez Batista and Salvador Castro. Diario de Juarez, November 7 and 11, 2006. Articles by Rocio Gallegos. Proceso/Apro, November 10, 2006. Article by Gabriela Hernandez. Frontera, November 10, 2006. Article by Fausto Ovalle. La Jornada, November 9 and 10, 2006. Articles by Carolina Gomez Mena and Jose Antonio Roman. Lapolaka.com, November 7, 8 and 12, 2006. Enlineadirecta.info, November 4, 2006. Article by Federico Zuniga Garcia.

Coping with the High Cost of Public Education

Under the Mexican Constitution, children are guaranteed a free, lay public education through middle school. In practice, however, more and more parents are digging deeper into their pockets to keep their young ones in the classroom. As school children flock back to schools in Mexican border and other cities, stationery stores, clothing outlets and street vendors are doing a brisk business with customers like Rosa Velia Perez. A mother of three school-age children, the Ciudad Juarez resident said that on a recent shopping day that she had spent $50 dollars even before making the most expensive purchases.

The back-to-school shopping season is a busy time for merchants like Ciudad Juarez stationery store owner Manuel Robles, who was recently forced to have customers form lines in order to serve them, but the start of the school year can translate into bouts of economic anxiety for factory and other low-income workers, especially those with more than one child in school.

A pre-school year survey by the Diario de Juarez newspaper estimated that public school parents in the Chihuahua state border city could spend up to $350 dollars per child during the 2006-2007 academic year for a variety of school-related costs including registration fees, uniforms, clothing, supplies and year-round transportation. The estimate doesn't include monthly tuition costs and other "voluntary" donations sometimes solicited throughout the school year.

Across the border region, parent complaints are widespread about having to fork out their hard-earned pesos to pay for a “free” public education. Some Mexican immigrants in the United States cite high educational costs in their home country as a motive for moving north.

Parent advocates charge that families are frequently pressured to pay registration fees and tuition. "The main problem we have is that (school) directors meddle in the affairs of the boards of directors of the parents' groups to force non-mandatory tuition payments," contended Marco Antonio Elejarza, the president of the Tamaulipas State Association of Parents.

Elejarza's complaint is a familiar one on the other side of border region in Baja California . In the first few weeks after registration got underway for the 2006-2007 school year, the Baja California Office of the Attorney General for Human Rights (PDH) accepted 54 complaints about illegal, mandatory tuition charges in public schools. Tijuana registered the majority of cases, with 36 separate complaints filed by early August.

Parents' organizations, elected officials and state authorities are tackling the problem of education costs in different ways. In Baja California , for instance, the PDH has launched a publicity campaign to inform parents where they can denounce legal violations. The official state human rights agency is also organizing a network of school-based parents' groups to monitor their schools' compliance with the law.

"Counting on this network of school observers, the PDH calls on the citizenry and mothers and fathers to join in and denounce improper charges, obligatory acquisitions of uniforms in certain businesses and mandatory retentions of documents during the start of classes," said Francisco Javier Sanchez Corona, Baja California's state human rights ombudsman.

Legislative action to bring educational costs in public schools under control has been under consideration in both Baja California and Chihuahua . This summer, the educational and scientific commission of the Chihuahua State Legislature discussed a proposal to establish an emergency fund so schools can assist needy families with uniforms, books and other supplies. A commission of the Tijuana city council recently passed a proposal urging the Baja California State Legislature to pass a law that sanctions schools for forcing parents to pay registration and other fees.

"The purpose of this (resolution) is to avoid the excesses, the abuses and the violations of rights that the directors of many schools in this city and state commit in collusion with members of parents' associations, in flagrant violation of Article 3 of the Constitution," said Carlos Mejia Lopez, a city councilman for the PRD party.

At the federal level, the Federal Office of the Attorney General for Consumer Protection (PROFECO) helped organize back-to-school fairs in Tijuana and other cities where shoppers were offered opportunities to purchase necessary school supplies from private businesses for discount prices of up to 50 percent. Children were also offered haircuts and physical exams for half the normal prices. Meanwhile, the PROFECO office in Tamaulipas state announced it was conducting store inspections to make sure businesses are complying with price norms for school-related articles and not gouging customers.

Sources: Diario de Juarez, July 26, August 2 and August 20, 2006 . Articles by Guadalupe Felix and Ramon Chaparro. Frontera, August 2, 8, 11 and 19, 2006. Articles by Ana Cecilia Ramirez, Manuel Villegas, Fausto Ovalle, and Norma Valenzuela. Enlineadirecta.info, July 27 and August 11, 2006 .

Articles by Hugo Reyna and Gaston Monge. Norte, July 27 and August 6, 2006. Articles by Hugo Hernandez Jauregui and Moises Tabares.

Sonora Governor Censors Textbook

Characterizing passages from a new textbook as not suitable for young eyes, Sonora Governor Eduardo Bours has ordered the reediting of the biology text. Carrying the stamp of approval of the federal Health Ministry, 40,000 copies of the book were slated for distribution to 636 public middle schools in Sonora . But Gov. Bours, who is a member of the Institutional Party of the Revolution, said sections of the controversial book that discusses human sexuality were objectionable.

"I don't have anything against anybody, (people) can do whatever they want," said Gov. Bours, commenting on supposed references in the book to homosexuality. "But for the love of God, it seems to me that certain things have to be undertaken with care, especially when it comes to a child of 11 or 12 years of age."

Anticipating public heat from his decision, Gov. Bours added that the book discusses reproduction outside the context of couples and family. "They can accuse me of whatever they like," he said, "but that book, that section, is not going to go out in Sonora ."

Horacio Soria , Sonora Secretary of Education, backed up Gov. Bours' decision. The border state education czar contended that the book contained "inappropriate" references to masturbation and homosexuality. According to Soria, the Sonora state government will spend about $140,000 dollars to have the biology book reedited before the acceptable version is sent to schools.

Sonora Archbishop Jose Ulises Macias Salcedo praised Gov. Bours' stance. "It's good that our rulers saw the opportunity and took the decision, which was risky and costly, to weigh in more on the side of principles and education," Archbishop Macias said. The Roman Catholic Church leader charged that the book presents the issue of sexuality in a difficult, coldly scientific manner without proper treatment of values.

The embattled biology textbook is part of a series of new texts that are generating cultural fights reminiscent of similar conflicts in the United States . In Mexico , opposition to the textbook series is being organized by the Catholic Church and conservative parents' groups. The Baja California state government, which is governed by the National Action Party, has also rejected use of at least one of the textbooks in its public middle schools.

Representing Catholic bishops, the Mexican Episcopal Conference, recently called upon the Public Education Ministry (SEP) to withdraw the disputed textbooks. An August 9 statement from the bishops upheld the family as the proper place for sex education. "School has a secondary function in this regard, and in education in general," the bishops said. In remarks last week, the SEP the textbooks would not be pulled from the schools.

Charged with approving and disseminating the new texts as part of a national middle school reform program, federal officials express puzzlement and frustration over the mounting controversy. Jorge Velasco y Felix, chief of the National Free Textbook Commission, disagreed with contentions that new text books are slipping through without proper reviews of their contents.

Contending that Mexico has real problems with life-threatening pregnancies and sexually-transmitted diseases in minors, Velasco y Felix said many families drop the ball when its come to educating their children about sex. Some even prefer to introduce male adolescents to the world of sex by dragging the youths into whorehouses, Velasco y Felix said.

While maintaining that he was respectful of all opinions, Health Minister Julio Frenk said the state has an obligation to give priority to scientific evidence. Frenk said, "It is well demonstrated that sex education based in the science of experts, as is done by the SEP, and with well-evaluated texts, is an essential tool for struggling against sexually-transmitted diseases and giving the youth and adolescents of Mexico a better preparation for their development."

Sources: Cambio Sonora , August 14, 2006 . La Jornada, August 9, 10 , 11, 12, 14, 2006. Articles by Angelica Enciso, Emir Olivares Alonso, Cristobal Garcia Bernal, Karina Aviles, and editorial staff.

The Privatization Boom in Post-Secondary Education

A recent controversy that involved a dispute over the academic credentials of a Chihuahua City branch of the CNCI University spotlighted the growing spread of privately-owned institutions of post-secondary education in Mexico . At the beginning of the 1980s, Mexico counted 87 privately-owned post-secondary schools. By May 2003, the number had soared to nearly 1,000 institutions nationwide. According to Mexico 's National Association of Universities and Institutions of Higher Education, 33 percent of Mexican students enrolled in bachelor-level programs attended private schools during the 2003-2004 school year. Chihuahua City alone counts at least one dozen, privately-owned schools of higher education.

Varying considerably, the educational quality of private schools ranges from the deliverance of world-class, cutting-edge curriculum to classroom instruction of a dubious character. Many schools focus on preparing students for one or two professional careers. The federal Ministry of Public Education (SEP) officially recognizes studies in schools that can demonstrate the existence of a rigorous, high-quality educational program. But in Chihuahua City and other parts of Mexico , students have sometimes charged that they were duped into believing their studies had SEP recognition. According to the SEP, only 2,947 out of the 7,845 private, post-secondary educational study programs in the country had the federal agency's accreditation in July 2003.

Critics of the privatization boom trace the phenomenon to the economic crisis of the 1980s, when pressures from the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and other international institutions encouraged the Mexican government to restrict public spending. Educational decentralization, in which state education agencies assumed more authority from the federal government, is another factor in the proliferation of private schools. Schools that do have SEP recognition might, nonetheless, operate with the approval or knowledge of local officials.

Since the privatization shift, the non-public educational sector has become a new industry. Ironically, some of the private schools have received government subsidies to pay students' tuition. Helping fuel the boom is the inability of existing public institutions to accept all applicants. One estimate calculated that about 1.5 million youths were rejected admission to universities during the first five years of the Fox Administration

For the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, a country is competitive when between 40-50 percent of young people in the post-secondary education age bracket are enrolled in a program of higher learning. In Mexico , only 24 percent of youth in the same category attended a post-secondary school in 2004. What's more, many students in post-secondary schools drop out during the course of their studies. In Baja California , for instance, an estimated 60 percent of higher education students leave school prematurely. Attributed to economic reasons, the drop-out rate is especially pronounced for students in social sciences programs. "This is worrisome," said Oscar Ortega Velez, Baja California 's assistant secretary of higher education.

Sources: El Diario de Chihuahua, May 7, 2006 . Article by Erika Perea. Frontera, March 17, 2006 . Article by Manuel Villegas. La Jornada, March 30 and July 28, 2003 ; December 13, 2004 ; May 5, 2005 . Articles by Jose Galan, Jesus Saavadera Lezama, Karen Aviles, and editorial staff.

Two Worlds Divide School Drop-Outs

A recent study of high school drop-outs in the United States cast additional light on the reasons students abandon school early while, unintentionally, contrasting the economic, educational and public policy gaps that persist on both sides of the US-Mexco border. In a study of 467 high school drop-outs conducted by Peter Hart Research Associates for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, nearly half of all young people pointed to boredom as the principal reason for leaving the classroom without first graduating.

New Mexico Education Secretary Veronica Garcia said the study coincided with anecdotal evidence about the motivations for New Mexico high school drop-outs, who include large percentages of both Latino and Native American students. "I think it fits in with what I've been hearing from kids." Garcia said.

Youth interviewed in the Gates Foundation study gave other reasons for dropping out, including having babies, needing to work and falling behind in school work.

Across the state line in Chihuahua , Mexico , meanwhile, education officials in the border state recently said economics is still the driving factor behind the high drop-out rate. Guadalupe Chacon Monarrez, the Chihuahua state education secretary, said the pull of work, favored by the availability of jobs in the maquiladora assembly plant industry, lures many drop-outs who enter the workforce early to contribute to the family income.

Chacon said that many drop-outs are from hard-to-serve rural areas, where economic realities compel many children to leave school early. "The people in the Sierra are not very interested in finishing elementary and middle school," Chacon contended. "They are not interested in learning to read and write as they should, because their priority is to survive."

Another possible reason for high drop-out rates not mentioned by Chacon is insecurity. Some parents in the Sierra Tarahumara are reportedly disallowing their children to attend school out of fear they will be accosted by drug traffickers and exposed to drug abuse, which now is reported at the elementary school level.

Eva Trujillo Rodriguez, a technical advisor to the Chihuahua state education ministry, said other forces account for school drop-outs, which she added are not always accurately tracked. According to Trujillo , a high internal mobility rate, out-migration and deaths all enter into the picture. Statistics gathered by Mexico 's National Women's Institute report that only 26.8 percent of males and 25.2 percent of females finish high school in Chihuahua state. The graduation rates are below the Mexican national averages of 28.8 percent and 26.4 percent, respectively.

New Mexico , which hosts a large number of immigrant students from Chihuahua in its public schools, reported a 5.2 percent high school drop-out rate for the 2003-2004 school year, a number many observers consider far below the real dropout rate-especially for Latino students.

Sources: Albuquerque Journal, March 4, 2006. Article by Gabriela C. Guzman. Reuters, March 2, 2006. Article by Patricia Wilson. El Diario de El Paso /El Diario de Chihuahua, February 23, 2006. Article by Oksana Volchanskaya. Profile of Women and Men in Mexico , 2003 and 2004. Study by the National Women's Institute.

Missing: Mexican Students in Higher Education

Mexican nationals enrolled in United States institutions of higher learning continue to be outnumbered by students from other nations. Patricia Munoz, the spokesperson for the US

Consulate in Ciudad Juarez , said figures provided by a 2005 report from the Open Doors program showed the percentage of Mexican nationals among the 562,321 foreign students attending US universities did not even reach three percent.

Speaking at a recent forum held in Ciudad Juarez , Jon Amastae, the director of the Center for Inter-American and Border Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), commented that the potentialities of cross-border higher education weren´t adequately addressed in the North American Free Trade Agreement. In contrast to Mexico , Amastae said the following nations were the sources of far greater numbers of foreign students in the US : China , 50,000; India , 50,000; Pakistan , 45,000; and Taiwan , 35,000.

”(International education) is a big business, ” Amastae said. “It´s a key element in international business between the United States and the rest of the world...(foreign students) bring a lot of money to the United States.¨

Amastae added that 15 percent of the 10,000-plus Mexican students in US universities attend one school, UTEP. Historically tuition costs at the University of Texas´ El Paso campus have been low in comparison to other institutions, but like other universities the cost of getting an education at the border campus is creeping upward. Administrators have proposed tuition hikes for both the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 academic years which, if implemented, will increase the cost of a full-time undergraduate education from $2,000 dollars per semester this year to $2,290 dollars in 2007-2008.

Source: Norte, November 20, 2005. Articles by Cesar Ruiz and Javier Kuramura.

Educational Scorecard Released

Grading schools is in vogue on both sides of the border. In Sonora , state authorities released last week an assessment of student performance in the state's elementary and middle schools. Covering 2,351 schools, both public and private, the evaluation rated school performance based on students' reading comprehension and mathematics skills for the 2004-2005 academic year. Most educational institutions were graded as being at or below standards.

The assessment was the second time the State of Sonora rated schools according to students' performance. More schools were included in the latest scorecard, giving somewhat of a broader picture of students' academic abilities in the border state. A total of 1,731 elementary schools and 620 middle schools were included in the survey. The results announced by state education officials categorized 1,298 schools as meeting standards; 372 as above standard; 203 as excellent; and 478 as below standard. The number of students evaluated in the educational scorecard rose from 227, 458 pupils in 2003-2004, the first year of the assessment, to 386, 103 in 2004-2005.

In response to the evaluation, Sonora Governor Eduardo Bours called for the redoubling of efforts to wipe out educational inequities and prepare students for competition in the global marketplace. "We don't need to know where we came from but where we are going," Gov. Bours said. "That's why I congratulate the teachers for their participation."

Educational authorities did not comment on the socio-economic characteristics of the evaluated schools, but Jose Luis Ibarra Apodaca, the general director of state educational evaluation, said elementary schools that have involved parents possessing at least a basic education showed the best results. Ibarra said another factor favoring student performance was having a computer at home. Sonora state officials did not immediately say whether the evaluation would lead to changes in their state's educational system.

Sources: Nuevo Dia ( Nogales ), November 10, 2005. La Jornada, November 10, 2005. Article by Cristobal Garcia Bernal.

A Huge Educational Deficit

 Chihuahua state authorities are alarmed at statistics revealing that almost half of Ciudad Juarez residents older than 15 years of age haven't finished the 8th grade. Based on recent data gathered by the federal government's National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics (INEGI), state education officials figure that about 428,384 of 914, 904 Juarez residents above the age of 15, or about 46.8 percent of the demographic group, haven't concluded their middle school studies. Hector Hernandez Garcia, the regional delegate of the Chihuahua Adult Education Institute (ICHEA), judged the news as worrisome.

"The lack of education or studies causes a grave social problem," said Hernandez, "because these people lack the elements of knowledge for making decisions that allow them to have better conditions of life." Hernandez estimated that as many as 900,000 people statewide in Chihuahua might not have a middle school education. Out of the total group not completing the 8th grade in Ciudad Juarez, the ICHEA calculates that 19,544 are illiterates; 121, 252 are elementary school graduates; and 287, 578 lack a full middle school education.

 Hernandez attributed the educational deficit to a number of factors. According to the education official, the availability of work not requiring higher education, family economic pressures forcing people to abandon school early, and the shortfall in public educational resources all play a part. As a border city drawing newcomers from various parts of the Mexican republic, Ciudad Juarez attracts people whose main goal is to find work,  Hernandez said. Many arrive solely for the purpose of crossing into the United States but get trapped on the Mexican side, he added. 

 The ICHEA's Ciudad Juarez chief commented that the existence of a large pool of people without studies beyond middle school presents a problem during a time when higher education is needed to obtain better employment and improve living standards. Hernandez said people who don't go beyond middle school will likely find their job options limited to marginal occupations like fire-breathing at intersections or even prostituting themselves and engaging in criminal pursuits. 

 Source: Norte, July 22, 2005. Article by Teofilo Alvarado.

High Failure Rate Blamed on Slacker Students

 It’s a lack of motivation and not an incapacity for learning that’s driving the high middle school failure rate, according to a Ciudad Juarez educational administrator. Juan Alberto Montes Contreras, the director of  Federal Middle School #1 in Ciudad Juarez, commented in an interview with Ciudad Juarez’s daily Norte newspaper that an over reliance on educational technology combined with a disinterest in reading are causing many students to flunk their classes, especially mathematics, chemistry, physics, and Spanish. “These young people are not stupid at all,” said Montes. “What’s happening is that they are lazy.”  According to Montes, about 25 percent of students in Chihuahua state flunk their courses.  Montes complained that students as well as teachers are losing their ability to reason and apply critical thinking skills, relying instead on calculators, computer spelling programs and other gadgets to perform simple adding and writing tasks.  Technology-dependent students are in abundant evidence even in elementary school, he said.  

“We are not teaching them to be logical in their reasoning,” said Montes. “We use (technological) methods too much.” Added to the problem of “mechanized” learning, said Montes, is the unwillingness of many young people to crack open a book. “We are losing the love for culture,” lamented the middle school leader. “If people don’t read, they will not be able to understand the basic rules of spelling and editing.”  Montes warned that students who expect to pass their classes simply by showing up and occupying a seat are in trouble, because current academic standards require students to master at least 60 percent of the subject material in order to achieve a passing score.

 Carlota Amelia Maldonado Lucero, a curriculum supervisor, said failed students can’t expect to always benefit from extra courses offered by the schools since the classes are geared for test preparation. Maldonado said students need to keep up with their regular classes to stay ahead of the curve. In Montes’ view, additional parent and teacher attention is the best remedy for problem pupils. The educator also suggested that automated teaching methods be scrapped.

 Source: Norte, July 16, 2005. Article by Cesar Ruiz.

School's Out for Summer

 It's finally over. Mexican schools began emptying late last week, and beach resorts started welcoming the first wave of tourists as the 2004-2005 school year drew to a close. In Tijuana, state education officials, parents and students on Friday celebrated the occasion with a mass ceremony in front of the Tijuana Cultural Center. Students, parents, teachers, and administrators listened to music, heard speakers and recognized outstanding students.

Among the special guests were Children's Governor Xochitl Melissa Sayago Mirana, and the winners of contests in history, geography, civics, and knowledge. Special recognition was also given to four special education students who were integrated into regular classrooms during the school year. David Reyes Yanez, Baja California assistant secretary of education, urged parents to continue supporting their children's education. He said the co-participation of parents and teachers in a child's education was vital. Teresa Sanchez Ramirez, the mother of students Carmelo and Guadalupe Alejos Sanchez, praised teachers at the Rosario Castellanos Elementary School for devoting good attention to their pupils at the school. An estimated 294,000 students from 1,800 schools completed the school year in Tijuana alone. Classes begin again in August. According to Assistant Education Secretary Reyes, the biggest portion of Baja California's state budget is spent on public education.

 Source: Frontera, July 2, 2005. Article by Nashiely Dominguez  

 Laredo Teens to College Instead of Prison

 Thanks to a gang intervention program, Erick Emmanuel Trevino and his friend Jose Alfredo Armenta look forward to attending college classes rather than wasting away their days behind bars. The Laredo, Texas, teens were among 25 former gang members who graduated from the border city’s LBJ High School this year. The young men credit a gang intervention program operated by the United Independent School District (UISD) for redirecting their lives. “Four years ago, when I got here, LBJ was a tough school, especially because it was a new school,” said gang intervention facilitator Joe Espinoza. “Gangs would plan activities in the summer to see who would control the school.” Espinoza contended that UISD’s gang intervention program has curbed the influence of gangs at LBJ. Unlike many schools which don’t count on extra personnel to intervene in gang-related issues,

UISD provides facilitators for each of the four high schools as well as a roving facilitator for middle-schools.  The gang specialists give classroom presentations, identify gang members, contact parents, conduct house visits, and convene counseling sessions.  At least 20 street gangs operate in Laredo and the nearby communities of Rio Bravo and El Cenizo. Some of the youth gangs maintain ties to older prison-based gangs, and fights over neighborhood turf and drug money are common. Trevino and Armenta said they joined the Rio Bravo gang because of alienation, peer pressure and physical threats posed by the rival El Cenizo gang.

 (editor’s note: Rio Bravo and El Cenizo are two colonias, or underdeveloped communities, inhabited by many Mexican-born immigrants and located south of Laredo proper.  The colonias’ residents have long  struggled for political representation, basic services, education, and jobs.  With few opportunities in their communities, many colonia residents commute to Laredo for employment.)

 “When you’re in a gang, you feel pride. You say, These are my people. You feel untouchable,” said Trevino. “When I was in the gang, I would just see another guy from El Cenizo and I would get mad and want to fight him,” said Armenta. “Sometime I’d ask myself why do we hate them, but to tell you the truth, I don’t know the answer.” Now distanced from gang life,  Armenta will enroll in Texas A&M International University this fall.  He plans to study criminal justice and play soccer. Trevino, meanwhile, is considering moving to Austin and attending the University of Texas, where he has been accepted.  

 Source: Laredo Morning Times, May 30, 2005. Article by Tricia Cortez.

Baja California Behind Other Border States and National Average in Math and Reading

An international education assessment completed by the the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) ranks Baja California below Mexico's national average in the areas of math, reading, and science.  The study, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), was conducted among junior high and high school students in Baja California.  Both private and public schools participated in the Baja California part of the study. 

All of Mexico's 31 states participated in the assessment with the exception of Michoacán.  The Mexicali newspaper La Crónica did not indicate why Michoacán was not part of the study.

Mexico's Federal District, which is not considered a state but still participated in PISA, ranked second in math, science and reading.  In first place in all of these categories was the small, Pacific-coast state Colima.  Aguascalientes ranked third in all three categories. 

Baja California ranked 17th in math, 21st in reading, and 18th in science.  

Chihuahua and Tamaulipas, two other northern border states with large border cities that have experienced much immigration over past decades, did much better than Baja California.  Both states ranked among the top eight in Mexico in reading, math and science. 

Source: La Crónica (Mexicali), December 15, 2004.