Argumentative Essay On Mexican American Education

1308 Words6 Pages

Presently there are U.S. citizens living in Mexico that must cross the border every day to receive their formal education. Since, they are not Mexican citizens like their parents or other family members they don’t qualify for public education in Mexico. Therefore, Mexican-Americans must make the descent of crossing the border to receive an education. However, this legal migration for education has many problems. First off, different border regions have different rules and regulations when it comes to the migration of students Las Paloma’s-Columbus, Mexicali-Calexico, and El Paso- Juarez deal with the influx of their diverse student body in many different ways. When migration illustrates a positive influence; it revolves around the scope of …show more content…

The school district “has an estimated student population of 46,000 that is almost 90% Hispanic, and 25% English Language Learners (ELL)” (Knight, 2005). Many of the students attending the Ysleta Independent School District and other schools in El Paso wait on the bridge for hours every morning and cross the border, in order to attend school. The schools in this district are a mix of students from both Mexico and the United States. Even though these students share the same schools, teachers, and class as their American counter parts they still face many different challenges. However, school districts in El Paso such as Ysleta and El Paso Independent do a phenomenal job in not only helping Mexican migrant students obtain the skills needed to succeed in school but also provide a quality education. Schools are well adapted to meeting the needs of cross-border students in part because Texas boasts a rich and vibrant bilingual tradition and not just for Spanish-English instruction, but for many other languages. Therefore, the laws and acts that require bilingual education for students in Texas has helped the bilingual programs established in El Paso provide conversational and academic proficiency in their schools. In fact, “the bilingual immersion program in El Paso (Texas) outperformed other transitional bilingual education programs” (Goldenberg, 2005). According to Goldenberg (2005), in El Paso 's bilingual immersion program, "all subjects are taught in English, although Spanish is used occasionally to reinforce a new concept”. El Paso 's bilingual immersion programs out preformed other bilingual programs across the U.S.-Mexican border because, it contains a “native language cognitive development component