The Bilingual Brain Drain: Why Mexico Is Losing Its Best English Teachers to American Schools

I first became aware of it when a principal of a school in León showed me a wall of staff photos that had not been updated in two years. She remarked almost nonchalantly that three of the faces were now in North Carolina. San Antonio was the location of one.

Somewhere outside of Phoenix, another had touched down. She shrugged and tapped each picture with a fingernail in the manner of pointing out old friends in a yearbook. Speaking with people in Mexico’s bilingual education system gives me the impression that everyone is aware of what’s going on, but nobody wants to give it a name.

In an effort to bring its students closer to global fluency, Mexico has been training a generation of English teachers using methods like content-based instruction for many years. The nation made investments in immersion certifications, workshops, and collaborations with American and Spanish universities.

However, the teachers being hired in the north are the same ones who graduated from those programs with credentials and fluency. American school districts have been covertly conducting what amounts to a teacher airlift, especially in states where the number of Latino students is increasing. They provide signing bonuses, J-1 visas, and beginning salaries that seem almost unreal by Mexican standards.

It’s difficult to ignore the math. After years of experience, a high school English teacher in Querétaro might make about 12,000 pesos a month. The same teacher can earn that much in a week if they are assigned to a school district outside of Charlotte. For a long time, scholars such as María Luisa Pérez Cañado have maintained that bilingual programs rely solely on qualified teachers remaining in the system. Fewer of them are remaining in Mexico.

There are subtle signs of the absence in classrooms. A substitute who is not familiar with the curriculum. A partially completed CBI lesson plan that was meant to be co-developed is currently stored on a shared drive. One researcher was informed by Guanajuato students that they could tell when a teacher was “tired of being here,” which frequently meant that they were fed up with their low pay. A few of those educators have already departed. Some are completing paperwork.

The American side of the narrative isn’t particularly evil. There is a real shortage of bilingual teachers in American schools, particularly in dual-language programs that work with children who are, for the most part, Mexican immigrants. It has an odd circularity to it. Teachers who received their teaching training in Puebla may teach Mexican-born students in Texas. For them, the system is effective. For the cousins they left behind, it is less effective.

Education officials in Mexico have occasionally discussed loyalty contracts, housing subsidies, and retention bonuses. None of them have become very popular. Here, salaries move even more slowly than policy. In the meantime, recruiters from organizations like Participate Learning still hold frequently crowded informational sessions in Mexico City and Monterrey.

It’s still unclear if this drain will permanently alter bilingual education in Mexico or if it will just deteriorate for ten years before something changes. When you walk through any of these schools, you can see that something quieter has been left behind by the absence of those teachers. A wall of faded photos. A desk that is empty. Children were supposed to learn English through this program, but they gradually forgot how.