REQUERIMIENTOS PARA LA CONEXION

Education politics at the state and national level are influential in formal education spaces. Resistance to the federal Education Reform of 201320 has resulted in multiple strikes and school closings, in particular in autumn of 2013 when public schools in Oaxaca opened almost two months late on October 14th due to teachers' protests in the state and national capitals. Subsequent protests did not always close schools, but instead a percentage of teachers would be absent from school in order to attend.

One of the points of contention is the system of standardized testing being promoted by the federal government, both for students, and most controversially, for teachers. The ENLACE test of students that was in place from 2006-2009 in a sample of schools is no longer being administered in Oaxaca (http://www.enlace.sep.gob.mx/ba/), although it continues in the rest of the country, having been redesigned and renamed

20 _{This federal reform includes changes to the constitution}

(http://dof.gob.mx/nota_detalle.php?codigo=5288919&fecha=26/02/2013) and to the Ley General de Educación (http://dof.gob.mx/nota_detalle.php?codigo=5313841&fecha=11/09/2013), and requires all states to harmonize their education laws with the federal law.

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PLANEA (Anzures Tapia, 2015, http://www.inee.edu.mx/index.php/planea). During my study in general teachers did not seem concerned about testing of their students when asked directly (IN 140128 E-2), and rarely brought the subject up as a topic of concern spontaneously. This stood out to me because they were much less pressured by testing of their students than teachers I have interviewed in the US and the Philippines, and when the subject arose the general comment was that standardized tests are inappropriate in a state as economically and socially diverse as Oaxaca. With the weakening of the teachers union through the restructuring of the Instituto Estatal de Educación Pública de Oaxaca (Oaxacan State Education Institute, IEEPO, http://www.ieepo.oaxaca.gob.mx) in August 2015, and the revised PLANEA exams poised to be used throughout the country, it appears likely that standardized exams may begin to loom larger in schools in the Isthmus.

Another recent reform in the Mexican curriculum is the inclusion of an

"additional language" to be studied in the monolingual primary school curriculum. I met one teacher who interpreted this as an opportunity to teach a local language to her students (IN 140729 U-13), but in general it was viewed as a politics in favor of

increased English teaching. In general the federal reform and politics in opposition to it were mentioned by the teachers I spoke with, but most did not discuss these politics as issues of pressing importance in their schools, except in relation to school closings, which angered parents and made their work more difficult. The presence of other national and international organizations promoting Indigenous languages can sometimes be felt, albeit less directly-- for example posters made by the INALI that made their way onto the wall

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of the director's office of a bilingual school; IZ bingo games made by researchers from central Mexico during their fieldwork in the Isthmus with one bilingual school; and IZ botany bingo games made by Pérez Báez's Smithsonian team and distributed to 19 schools.

As mentioned several times, the Plan para la transformación de la educación de Oaxaca (PTEO) policy promoted by the Oaxaca state department of education and teachers union Section 22 has a positive impact on the use and/or valorization of IZ in both monolingual and bilingual schools, with perhaps a greater impact in monolingual schools that did not previously have a mandate to promote local languages. Not all schools are actively implementing the PTEO, although most school representatives that I spoke with mentioned that they were obliged to create a school-specific project or plan in order to conform to PTEO. Other teachers mentioned that the PTEO might disappear at any moment if the federal government succeeded in imposing a uniform Education Reform on Oaxaca, as it has on the majority of states in the country. Despite the tentative status of the PTEO, many teachers appear to be taking it seriously.

Poverty and problems in the home were mentioned by several teachers as an important factor, although these were not commented on in all schools. Wealth disparities in the Isthmus, and in Zapotec culture, are not new (Royce, 1975), and play out

differently in different parts of the region. Raising children in Spanish is often associated with being a "professional" or having an education, thus linking IZ use to low socio- economic status and Spanish to economic mobility. Lack of job opportunities in the region leads many educated young people to go elsewhere for work, where they

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inevitably need Spanish or other languages. One young woman from La Ventosa who became involved with IZ teaching while studying English in the UABJO, spent many months looking for work in the area and eventually took a job in a tourist resort several hours away where English became the most highly valued part of her communicative repertoire. As a member of the UABJO community of practice she came to value her IZ capacities, but when she left the UABJO and entered the job market she oriented towards English (FN 130422). The complex links between IZ use, educational success and

professional success will be discussed further in chapter 5.