Thread: Nevada educators meet Spanish counterparts on bilingual teac

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stori ... 10012.html

Today: November 08, 2005 at 15:12:56 PST

Nevada educators meet Spanish counterparts on bilingual teaching
By HAROLD HECKLE
ASSOCIATED PRESS

SEVILLE, Spain (AP) - Clark County school administrators brainstormed Tuesday with their Spanish counterparts on how to provide world-class bilingual education to Nevada, hungry for teachers as it copes with a growing Hispanic population.

"Las Vegas is the fastest-growing city in the U.S., with a big need for high-quality teachers. We currently have 500 vacancies," said Roger Gonzalez, head of human resources for the school district.

Gonzalez was among 73 educators from the United States and Canada who attended a three-day seminar ending Wednesday in this historic Spanish city aimed at cementing accords to enable North American children to graduate from grade school speaking fluent Spanish and English.

Under the International Spanish Academies project, Spain sends qualified graduate teachers to schools that have agreed to implement fully bilingual education programs.

"By bilingual we mean exactly that - 50 percent of all classes are in English and 50 percent in Spanish," said Miguel Martinez, education and science commissioner at the Spanish Embassy in Washington, D.C.

"The final objective is to achieve completely bilingual students, irrespective of background," Martinez said.

Some subjects, such as math, are taught exclusively in Spanish while others only in English, forcing students to think, read and write in both languages.

The Spanish government funds the selection process and recruitment of teachers in Spain, and the school districts pay the salaries of teachers when they take up their posts.

The program has proved popular in Canadian and U.S. schools, particularly in Texas, Florida, Illinois and California, which pioneered the project.

This year Nevada enrolled in the program, which aims to prepare students for an increasingly global and competitive world.

"Our district now has five elementary schools that are bilingual, and we have taken on 15 teachers from Spain," said Carol Lark, an assistant superintendent in the Clark County School District.

"The Spanish teachers have been very successful. They have adapted very well," Lark said.

The Las Vegas-based district, the nation's fifth-largest, has about 291,000 students at 317 schools in the 2005-06 school year. About 37 percent of the students are Hispanic.

Nevada is one of 27 U.S. states to collaborate with Spain in providing bilingual education.

The program benefits all concerned, Martinez said. Once their tour of duty is over, Spanish teachers return home speaking much better English and also take with them valuable insight into the United States.

Academically there are also important spin-offs, according to Stuart Wachowicz, curriculum director of public schools in Edmonton, Alberta.

Research shows bilingual students outperform their monolingual peers in many academic disciplines, he said.

"They have a better chance in life," Wachowicz said.

He said two-language education became compulsory in Alberta after one of Canada's largest oil-prospecting companies announced it would only recruit people who spoke two languages.

"It is an example of how the commercial world is shaping educational decisions," Wachowicz said.

Both Nevada delegates said they were inspired by discussing the future of education in their state in the historic setting of Seville.

"I feel immersed in history," Gonzalez said as he emerged from a meeting at the Royal Alcazar, in the same room where Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan planned the first-ever circumnavigation of the world in the 16th century.

Other details that emerged at the Seville conference:

-Spanish teachers adapt better to the United States than Latin American teachers and have good English language skills, according to Edda Caraballo a teacher from the Saddleback school district in Orange County, Calif.

-North Carolina also has sought teachers from Spain. Mecklenburg County, whose seat is Charlotte, recruited six to join a staff of 28 to teach 600 bilingual students, said Maria Petrea, a county official.

-Dade County, Fla., has been another pioneer, after California, and even wealthy Palm Beach has three bilingual Spanish academies at its schools, said David Samore, principal of Okeeheelee Middle School in West Palm Beach.

In light of multi-culturalism and globalism, this makes me sick . Here we go again with Spanish being shoved down our throats. Become bilingual--for what? To make the rich man even richer?

Interesting that they're getting them from Spain, rather than Mexico. Gosh I wonder why?