[EDLING:2371] fmhult at dolphin.upenn.edu has sent you an article from HoustonChronicle.com "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."

[fmhult at DOLPHIN.UPENN.EDU]

 http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4568586.html

Districts seek bilingual ed teachers in Mexico
By CYNTHIA LEONOR GARZA

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 to Monterrey, 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 at chron.com


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