LEFT: Spanish-speaking students are getting a lot of help on their
general curriculum by accessing courses from Mexico.
RIGHT: Migrant educators, including Nicolas Zavala, right, discuss how the
Mexican curriculum can be best used. BELOW: Jorge Herrera explains
how the CONEVyT curriculum can help thousands of Washington students.

Mexican curriculum
helping hundreds of
Washington residents

By Editor Ken Harvey

Hundreds of Washington students and parents are now benefiting from a comprehensive curriculum available online in Spanish, and thousands more are expected to enroll over the coming years.

Already, according to Mexican authorities, there are now 212 online Plaza Comunitaria learning centers set up in 32 American states involving 680 different educational groups with 10,181 registered students. Besides schools, it is being used in 33 correctional facilities, where 3,500 inmates are working to reintegrate into society. About 900 primary and secondary certificates were earned by inmates in 2005.

The curriculum, known by is Spanish acronym CONEVyT (Consejo Nacional de Educación para la Vida y el Trabajo), was created by the Mexican government primarily to help its citizens who migrate to the U.S. and other countries, helping the Mexican and other Latino immigrants to enhance their education and skills.

The kindergarten-through-adult curriculum is used in several ways.

“The primary ones who can benefit are the migrant students,” says Nicolas Zavala, Yakima’s federal programs director.

Migrant and other Hispanic students frequently enter U.S. schools without knowing how to speak English. Students under such circumstances are frequently thrown into classes where they cannot understand anything. They receive some English training, but they also fall further and further behind in most other subjects – not the best way to prepare for the newly required WASL exam.

“In the past it was difficult for migrant students to graduate on time for lack of credits,” explains Davis High School teacher Heriberto Torres-Hernandez, who oversees a learning lab filled with computers dedicated primarily to CONEVyT’s curriculum.

“Now if students have trouble with the language, they can still gain the knowledge,” says Torres-Hernandez. “With the Plaza Comunitaria we have all the academics they need. It’s a great tool. We’ve been very successful.”

Without the Spanish-language curriculum, students not only struggle to understand their teachers and the English-based textbooks, “it also affects them psychologically,” the teacher says.

About 80 Yakima students – most of them from Davis High – achieved credits toward graduation using the CONEVyT curriculum last year. Many more students are expected to achieve credits with the curriculum during this second year of the program.

Educators say the curriculum is definitely NOT designed to make it so students don’t have to learn English in order to graduate.

“We strongly believe students will learn English faster and it will help them prepare better for the WASL. And we hope this will encourage more students to stay in school and graduate,” says Jorge Herrera, the state and Yakima School District CONEVyT coordinator. “This is real ambitious – utopian perhaps, but not knowing English is a big, big barrier to most immigrant students.”

STUDENTS TAKE ONLINE COURSES WHILE LEARNING ENGLISH

While they are learning English, the CONEVyT curriculum allows students to take some core and elective courses in their native language. Last year a committee involving Zavala, Herrera, OSPI migrant program supervisor PhuongChi Nguyen and about 15 other bilingual educators from numerous school districts assisted in the curriculum analysis.

Washington courses covered by equivalent courses in the Mexican curriculum include basic math, integrated math, applied math, business math, pre-algebra, algebra, pre-geometry, geometry, pre-calculus, calculus, statistics, earth science, anatomy/physiology, biology, chemistry, ecology, physics, scientific research methods, world history, philosophy, economics, sociology, anthropology, civics, geography, various Spanish language courses, communications, health, computer network analysis, database programming, accounting, office technology, hygiene/personal safety, and various life skills relating to agriculture, business ownership, and parenting.

“They looked at them course by course and aligned them with our standards,” says Herrera. Out of 150 high school-level courses, the committee approved 73 courses to be applied toward credit.  A couple of months later, 16 more CONEVyT courses were aligned by YSD staff from the “Life Skills & Family Studies (13), and Basic World Language (3)” Portal curriculum, for a grand total of 89 courses that are presently used for high school credit.   In certain instances, it takes about three of the online courses to equate to one yearlong Washington course. 

The educators emphasize, however, that the purpose of the curriculum is not to graduate students without having to learn English.  Learning English is a major priority.

 “The purpose is to help them to learn English, not to limit them. I get frustrated when people do not understand the fact that learning a second language is a unique process of its own. It takes time to learn a second language. This curriculum helps keep or bring students up to grade level while they’re learning English,” Herrera explains.

He recalls how dumb and helpless he felt when he entered an American school without knowing how to speak English. And that wasn’t just in English classes but in math and science, where he knew the material quite well.

CURRICULUM USED TO SUPPLEMENT CLASSROOM INSTRUCTION

Many students use the curriculum to supplement their classroom instruction.

Anyone can use the curriculum for supplemental purposes free of charge. For those who want to save work, take tests and earn credit, someone – typically the district – has to pay a low recovery $10 fee per course for Colegio de Bachilleres modules which have been aligned to the 10^th, 11^th, & 12^th grade level and beyond.  And that includes online textbooks that can be read online, downloaded and/or printed out.

“I want to learn more,” says Erick Rodriguez, a Yakima middle school student who has lived in the U.S. about two years. “What I don’t understand in my regular class I can come here and learn again online. It helps me a lot in learning math and reading.”

Erick voluntarily stays after school for two hours a day, along with many other Yakima students, to use the CONEVyT curriculum.

The Yakima eighth-grade students are also working together on a course for which they will receive high school credit.

Some of the teachers also use the materials to supplement their regular textbooks. Jorge Rodriguez, for example, uses it in teaching Spanish to native English speakers.

COMMITTEE CORRELATES TO WASHINGTON STANDARDS

While the state committee correlated the Mexican curriculum with Washington standards, each school district has to determine which if any of the courses the district will accept toward graduation.

“Each district awards credit through its own system,” says Herrera. “One of the requirements is that testing and work has to be validated by a certificated staff member.”

In Yakima School District a student can apply 14 of the online credits toward graduation. The rest of the courses must be taken in a regular classroom in English. But the system does allow students to keep up with some of the most difficult classes in math and science while building their English skills.

Luis Castillo, a freshman at Davis High School in Yakima, had nearly completed high school in Mexico before he moved to the United States. While he is learning English, he is taking more advanced classes through CONEVyT.

“Since he had already nearly completed his secondary education in Mexico, he wanted something more challenging,” explains his teacher, Torres-Hernandez.

According to Luis and other students, the curriculum is very powerful.

“It provides a lot of examples and practice,” Luis says. “It’s very well explained.”

Yakima’s federal programs director Zavala agrees the curriculum is very well done.

“They show you different ways to solve the same problem,” he says. “I tried taking the calculus course, and it was written so well, so clearly.”

“It’s great. They don’t get bored,” says Torres-Hernandez. And if students do well on a pre-test, it speeds them on to more challenging material.

Many school districts and private organizations use the curriculum for multiple programs – some for students, some for their parents.

Over 1,000 people in Washington are now on the curriculum – over half of them in Yakima where it was first piloted.

In Yakima School District about 400 adults are using the program to learn English or to prepare for a GED test. Nearly 300 students, K-12, use it to supplement the classes taught in English. And about 100 high students are working toward regular credit.

ADULTS BENEFIT FROM CURRICULUM, TOO

One of the adults using the curriculum during an evening program at Washington Middle School (WMS) in Yakima is Juan Gonzalez, who entered the program last year after having dropped out of school many years earlier in Mexico. He was able to use the curriculum to advance four or five levels, working toward his GED, according to WMS program coordinator Lupe Orozco.

.Another older student, Eliseo Montes de Arias, arrived semi-illiterate but has made a great deal of progress on the curriculum, says Orozco. Other students have made similar progress.

“It’s leveled to the students’ needs,” she says. It’s also high-interest, with lots of graphics and diverse topics.

“And it’s a connection to their homeland,” explains Orozco, who feels it had a positive effect last year when Mexican President Vicente Fox visited Yakima and encouraged Mexican immigrants to take advantage of the online curriculum.

“He said this is the bridge they need to continue their education,” Orozco recalls.

“This is a good program for parents so they can help their kids with their assignments,” she says.

“It’s been a success because people study at their own pace,” adds Ricardo Prado, who uses CONEVyT to teach adults at WMS in the evening. “It’s geared at various levels, and they don’t feel pressure to keep up with someone else.”

Just learning to use the computer to access the curriculum is an important step for adults who have never used a computer before.

“After a while, they become confident. So even that is a success,” Prado says.

“It also shows their kids that it’s never too late,” he says. “We’re dealing with many people who are farm workers. This is giving them the opportunity to contemplate what they never thought was possible. I tell them, ‘You have to start somewhere. Just keep going.’ At first they laugh at me.”

But Prado tells his students of a woman who went to college with him. She was still struggling with English and needed a lot of help, but she refused to quit. She finally did graduate and left field work to become a teacher.

Washington State University Extension Service in the Tri-Cities is working in conjunction with Columbia Basin College, the Benton-Franklin Community Action Committee and other organizations to develop a program to assist Hispanic child-care providers to achieve greater literacy and/or their GED high school equivalency certificate.

The plan is to use CONEVyT for the core GED curriculum, supplemented with additional English as a second language (ESL) curriculum and classes on child-care best practices.

“Our program would not be open to the whole community,” explains Alissa Schneider, child-care specialist for the Washington Regional Action Project (WRAP).

The project is proposed to launch in late winter or early spring but depends on achieving grant funding, according to Schneider.

CURRICULUM BEING USED ACROSS STATE, NATION

Besides Yakima, other school districts now using the curriculum include the Toppenish, Wenatchee, Wahluke, Seattle, Monroe, Auburn, Okanogan, Winlock, Chelan, Rochester, Manson, Shelton, Highland, Mount Vernon and Forks School Districts. In addition, the Educational Service District 189 in Anacortes uses the curriculum to provide support services to dozens of school districts.

“The ESD is using it as supplemental services for students who are isolated and without resources,” says Herrera.

Mexico creates partnerships with state superintendents of public instruction and with local schools and other educational institutions in setting up, promoting and administering the program. Besides promotion, the primary things the local partners must provide are computer labs and support services.

Online gateways or portals, as of June, have been set up for Washington, Oregon, California, Wisconsin, New York, Texas, Georgia and North Carolina to supplement the main Mexican gateway. Others are anticipated this year for Nevada, Florida, Arizona and the Dominican Republic.

“We believe this curriculum will have a huge impact in providing a sound and well founded education for students and parents in general,” says Herrera.