OECD to Mexico: Kick teacher union from education secretariat

Gabriela Ramos,directors of the secretary general's office at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), had pretty choice words on Mexico's teacher union SNTE for Mexico's new incoming PRI government:

The union needs to to what obviously all unions do in the countries that have made progress in their education system: to ensure that teachers have the best working conditions, better training, and then leave to authorities the decisions on how to make assessments, performance awards, recruitment of teachers and principals, as well as allocation of positions

Amen. In Mexico, the SNTE and its notorious mafia-like president-for-life Elba Esther Gordillo is the proverbial fox guarding the hen house, taking for itself the liberty to do the tasks Ramos mentions, and doing them extremely poorly.

Will Enrique Peña Nieto do what Carlos Salinas did in 1989, namely to remove a vastly corrupt SNTE head,J oaquín Hernández Galicia, in order to gain some credibility as a reformer?

If so, let's hope the analogy will not be complete: The replacement for "La Quina" turned out to be...  Elba Esther Gordillo.

Source:
Sugiere la OCDE marginar a SNTE de directriz educativa. El Universal, Nov. 15, 2012.

Peña Nieto's transition team - where's the change?

Here's a graphic of Enrique Peña Nieto's transition team:

Forty-six men, 8 women. A couple of analysts have noted the "surprises" of Rosario Robles and Roberto Campa, but I see absolutely nothing either new or interesting or noteworthy of this team, many of whom are likely to join his government. Campa belongs to Elba Esther Gordillo, and Robles is an utter opportunist, a former "radical" leftwing maoist who even became head of the PRD until kicked out after nearly destroying the party by contracting a huge amount of debt, and then allowing her lover to try to blackmail the party. She was part of the plot to block AMLO from running in 2006 with the videoscandals, and has done nothing of importance since then.

The others are standard-fare priístas, most of them representative of the "old" PRI as much as the "new" to which Peña Nieto claimed to belong.

Where's the promised change, plurality, innovation, bold signals? Nothing of that kind discerned at least in Peña Nieto's transition team; let's see how the eventual government will look like in December.


Peña Nieto nombra equipo de transición. El Universal, Sept. 6, 2012.
Sorprende equipo de Peña: expertos. El Universal,  Sept. 6, 2012.
Robles entra al primer círculo. El Universal,  Sept. 5, 2012.

Teacher March Madness

The past days, teachers have been causing complete mayhem in Mexico City, shutting down main thoroughfares and causing economic losses in the tens of millions - the thousands of police having to safeguard the process, the lost hours of productive for people not getting to work, the loss to business forced to shut along the protest routes, etc. In Michoacán, Guerrero, Oaxaca, and other states, hundreds of thousands of school children were not able to go to class.

This time the protest is not organized by the national SNTE, but by a dissident teacher union, CNTE, founded in 1979. But sad to say, they resort to exactly the same practices so many are fed up with from SNTE.

What is it that they want?

1) They want a "plaza" or a teaching position, for life - for life. That is, they want to be appointed, and not ever have to bother about looking for another job. This is especially perturbing, as they also
2)  Oppose any evaluation of their skills or lack thereof. They don't want any exam, review, skills test at all, to determine whether they are fit for teaching.

But they still want a job for life. They are also protesting that the national SNTE has negotiated, finally, with the federal government what appears to be at least the beginning of a very rudimentary evaluation of their fit for the teaching profession. SNTE has in general opposed this since its foundation in the 1940s.

Meanwhile, and related, Michoacán, bus companies halted all services, following the "commandeering" of dozens of buses - that is, teachers and teacher students simply stole several buses for their own use. After days of conflict, and following an ultimatum from Governor Fausto Vallejo Figueroa, teacher students finally released "22 passenger buses, four trucks of perishable goods and eight drivers who remained detained for six days," which led finally to the reopening of the Morelia main bus station.

In a related development, former secretary of health José Ángel Córdova Villalobos, just appointed, and surprisingly, secretary of education, insisted that the national tests, negotiated with SNTE, will proceed. Córdova for his part referred to embattled SNTE head Elba Esther Gordillo as "a great leader." Really?


His predecessor, Alonso Lujambio, presently fighting for his life in a battle with cancer, was, it must be said, completely subservient to SNTE, barely admonishing it for outrageous illegal acts such as distributing taxpayer-funded teaching materials that also called for a vote for its PANAL party and for children to hand over personal information as well as that of their parents. I hope Córdova will show some more backbone.

Vázquez Mota, fit to govern?

I have been thoroughly disappointed with virtually every aspect of Vázquez Mota's campaign so far. Granted she has not much of a record to show to - her highest positions were relatively brief posts as secretary of social development and secretary of education, and despite having some credibility from having fought very publicly with SNTE teacher union despot Elba Esther Gordillo, has really very little to show for in her career. Can anyone point, for instance, to any relevant legislation pushed and passed when she was head of PAN's parliamentary group?


But I was at least expecting to see some future potential on the campaign trail, through her speeches, encounters, responses to criticism, and so forth.


Instead, she has managed to draw the ire of students and the university world, and revelations from here thesis work suggest an extreme anti-popular but also anti-intellectual bias, appearing closer to a Santorum and Palin than anyone else.
- It all began when she, in front of audience at the college ITAM giggled that she was "not perfect, because I studied at La Ibero," or the Universidad Iberoamericana.


Not likely to endear her to Ibero alumni. But then, her Ibero thesis has surfaced, where she in a classist rant refers to UNAM, Mexico's premier public university, as a "monster" - "it slowly converted into a political institution, a monster that harbor half a million students who unfortunately have no interest in their professional preparation."


And the kicker? Beyond the blatant generalization and depreciation of what is the best university in Mexico and its student mass, many who indeed come from lower class families and are first-generation students, the thesis in which she rants against UNAM was begun in 1983 and finished in 1998(!). Yes, unlike all those pesky students at UNAM who don't even study, Vázquez Mota only took fifteen years to finish her thesis masterpiece. 


Now, given the way education is structured in Mexico, it often happens that students finish their coursework but at a later point finish their thesis, though 15 years is quite a stretch - and particularly for someone who depreciate students at other universities for not being dedicated to studying.


But again the worst is yet to come in the fall out: She answered then in the most pathetic way possible: She is the victim - yes, a victim - of a "dirty war," where here commentaries are taken "out of context" with the purpose to "defame" her. Since when is holding someone accountable to earlier statements a "dirty war"?


Vázquez Mota then went to ITAM, the best private college in Mexico, and as it draws primarily from the upper layers of Mexican society one might have expected a friendly audience. To their credit, the students questioned seriously her record. The best comment yet from one of the students:

Many of the things you are saying are not true, because as Secretary of Public Education, of Social Development, twice a member of parliament, you did not pursue any of the reforms you are now talking about, why should we now believe that you are going to do so?

Why indeed should we?

Gabriel Quadri, zero credibility

Gabriel Quadri, the presidential candidate for Elba Esther Gordillo's teacher party PANAL, is man who have completely exhausted whatever credibility he once held as a political journalist/environmentalist/activist etc:

While he earlier heaped praise upon the notorious Gordillo as an "admirable woman" and referred to her authoritarian union, led with iron hand by its "president-for-life" Gordillo since 1989, he now managed to claim that Gordillo has nothing to do with PANAL.

As anyone with a modicum of political knowledge would know - and Quadri certainly fits here - PANAL is a party created by and at the complete disposal of Gordillo, for sale for the highest bidder during both state and federal elections since its 2005 creation. It claims a "liberal" ideology, but is utterly devoid of any ideology or programmatic orientation.

(most recently a PANAL deputy, Héctor Alonso Granado, spewed anti-gay slurs in the state of Puebla, for which he was denounced to the state's human rights commission - so much for social liberalism)

Yet by openly proclaiming his adherence to these open "untruths," Quadri's credibility is not just undermined; it is really already, before the official election process has even started, gone out the door.

35,000 teachers march in Mexico City

Teachers in Oaxaca, mostly "dissidents" in that they are opposed to the national teacher union SNTE and instead belong to the rival CNTE, have a bad fame for spending very little of their work hours in the classroom and instead out on the road protesting or operating for electoral purposes.

Now they've been joined by other, mostly CNTE-affiliated teachers, from Chiapas, Guerrero, and Michoacán and other states in a huge 35,000-strong protest in Mexico City.

Some of their demands are just: Democratization of the ultra-corrupt SNTE teacher union led by Elba Esther Gordillo. They also have legitimate concerns over the overhaul of ISSTE, changing the terms for retirement pensions and health care to public workers, though this was passed more than four years ago and was arguably needed to avoid complete bankruptcy of the system.

Yet what is their major demand? They refuse to be subject to any tests of their qualifications whatsoever, as proposed in the Alianza por la Calidad de la Educación.  No comprehensive entrance exams, no tests later on to see if they are actually qualified to teach Mexico's children and youth, which Mexico's poor educational ratings suggest they may not be.

Is this really a fair and just cause, worth leaving hundreds of thousands of children without school, for as long as the strike last, and shutting down Mexico City in the process?

On Elba Esther Gordillo's downfall: Denise Dresser

Denise Dresser, eloquent and sharp as she usually is, has a great commentary in La Vanguardia on the weakening power of Elba Esther Gordillo, but also on how Enrique Peña Nieto has far less power vis-a-vis the PRI than many has assumed. Read it here. 
The gist of the article:

"Yes, [Gordillo] has been an Iron Lady, but today she is perhaps little less than a dented tin can."

Quote of the day: Teacher union leader Gordillo

Ultra-corrupt notorious head of Mexico's teacher union SNTE, Elba Esther Gordillo, after failing to make the new PRI leadership agree to place her ultra-incompetent son-in-law and daughter as senate candidates, which lead the PRI and her party PANAL to break their alliance:

"Well, then let everything go to fucking hell."

May it, indeed.

Political drama: Break PRI-Gordillo

Front page in all main Mexican newspapers: PRI president Pedro Joaquín Coldwell announced the PRI's electoral alliance with PANAL is over.

This is very dramatic political news: It has been known for a while that grassroots discontent in PRI surged given the extremely generous terms in favor of PANAL, the party controlled by teacher union head Elba Esther Gordillo, and the PVEM, the misnamed "Green party." As for the latter, there was much criticism of the blatant nepotism from Gordillo, who wanted both her daughter and son-in-law as candidates for the senate- as well as a disproportionate number of other senate and legislative seats.

Yet crucially, as far as I can see, this means that any alliance for a common candidate for presidential election - that Gordillo would back Peña Nieto - is also over.

Coldwell, who confirmed the alliance with the PVEM (for now?), said of Gordillo and PANAL: "It is not a rupture, it is an amicable separation." That is simply not true: This is a huge political rupture.

Just a few days ago, we also learned that PRI Chiapas Senator María Elena Orantes López renounced from the PRI, after weeks of wavering, wreaking havoc on the local as well as the national party organization.

I can't wait to learn more about the background for this. Did Gordillo get a better offer from PAN? Did she push it simply too far, and PRI realized her support just cost it too much?

But the good news is, from my point of view: The 2012 race just got a lot more competitive. A lot.

AMLO's priority: Get rid of Elba Esther Gordillo as teacher union head

AMLO said one of his first priorities will be to remove Elba Esther Gordillo as head of the main Mexican teacher union SNTE, Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación.

I suspect that he'll gain more than a few votes on this one, as he moreover has much credibility on this: Unlike PAN, who in 2006 was a Gordillo ally, and 2012, where Peña Nieto has recruited her (or vice versa), AMLO has always refused to make any pacts or alliances with the "president-for-life" of SNTE.

A very significant development: PRI fissures surface

The carefully groomed yet highly constructed facade of PRI unity ahead of 2012 is cracking, and most importantly, in a highly public manner: Labastida openly attacks the PRI leadership.

Francisco Labastida Ochoa is no minor person in PRI - senator, presidential candidate in 2000, and very close to Manlio Fabio Beltrones, who also at least appears to be seeking the PRI nomination for 2012. 

* He argues the party presidency of Humberto Moreira is damaging the unity of the party

* He argues the PRI's alliance with the discredited Elba Esther Gordillo is taking away as many votes as it is adding for the party. 

Also, according to the rumor mil, in Mexico City Beatriz Paredes is very unhappy with the decision by Moreira to simply hand over a senate candidacy to Jorge Emilio González of the very un-green Green Party, rather than to reserve it for a PRI legislator.

Many PRI bigshots point out that the PVEM (Green Party) and PANAL (party of Gordillo) are getting far too many safe seats in return for backing the PRI's presidential nominee - which seems a very fair point.

For those of us who see the New PRI as nothing but the same old authoritarian old PRI and fear its return, a split in the PRI is highly desirable.

PRI will run in coalition with the two most discredited parties in Mexico

Admittedly there are a few to choose from - Mexico has an unusally wide array of highly opportunistic minor parties - yet in terms of two lacking near any semblance of a programmatic identity and real purpose beyond serving as franchises, as tools for their leaders, few beat the Partido Nueva Alianza (PANAL) of teacher union boss Elba Esther Gordillo, and, unchallenged at the top, the  Partido Verde Ecologista de México (PVEM), the only rightwing Green Party in the world, which is not green, and not a real party.

Regardless: PRI's Political Commission just announced it will go in coalition with these two miscreants for the 2012 election in at least 126 districts, and for 10 senatorships. The PVEM's "Niño Verde," Jorge Emilio González Martínez, son of party founder Jorge González Torres, wants to be senator, and will likely get the candidacy.

Joaquín López-Dóriga has a very interesting column on the price PANAL wanted to extract from PRI - 30 federal deputies and 5 senators, reportedly. That is a very high price to pay for Gordillo's support.

PRI president call for alliance with Elba Esther Gordillo and SNTE

PRI's scandal-ridden national president Humberto Moreira Valdés called openly for an alliance with the discredited SNTE teachers union and its "president-for-life" Elba Esther Gordillo.

Gordillo and her PANAL party might contribute 2-3 percent to the PRI's 2012 candidate.
Enrique Peña Nieto, to be sure, is also in favor.
So much, of course, for the "new PRI."

On a different note, yet another PRI elite calling for Moreira to step down as PRI president: Former Governor Miguel Alemán Velasco of Veracruz (the son of the former president), and still quite a big shot in the party.

A defeat for Elba Esther Gordillo in Oaxaca: Piñeyro is out

After much pressure, governor Gabino Cué of Oaxaca fired his Government Secretary, essentially his second-in-command, Irma Piñeyro Arias. A former gubernatorial candidate for the PANAL party who dropped out in favor of Cué, she is an ally of the powerful SNTE head Elba Esther Gordillo. Her resignation is as such a defeat for Gordillo, and a victory in particular for the "dissident" wing of SNTE in Oaxaca, Section 22, which has long demanded her resignation. New Government secretary is Jesús Martínez Álvarez, who was notably governor briefly in the mid-1980s.

Michoacán: PAN at its worst

There is something truly repugnant about virtually every step the PAN has taken in Michoacàn ahead of the November gubernatorial election.

As is known by know, the president's sister,  Luisa María Calderón Hinojosa, became the PAN's candidate for governor. Nothing illegal, though it bears notice that the pact she made with her brother and other member of the Calderón family in 2006 to NOT seek any elected office while Felipe was president, was just a lie. Shocker.

Yet now, Marko Cortés Mendoza, the losing candidate in PAN´s primary, has just been given the consolation price of becoming PAN´s mayoral candidate in Morelia. First, I think it tells you a bit of his character that he even threatened to leave the PAN and run for another party should he not get some kind of reward. A pure opportunist - I think the morelianos deserve someone with a bit more principles. But it gets worse: Marko - he goes by his first name in the state - was directly appointed candidate centrally by the PAN, reminiscent of the worst dedazos of the PRI regime. This does not please local deputy Alfonso Martínez, who has been campaigning long and hard for the nomination, yet simply received news that any primary is cancelled.

And worse it gets: Despite all the dirty laundry aired in public, and quite a bit of mudslinging, regarding the PANAL party of  Elba Esther Gordillo, based on her iron grip of the SNTE teachers union, and despite declarations from PAN it would not stoop again to the low of allying with Gordillo, the PAN in Michoacàn did just that.

I hope Michoacán makes a wise electoral choice on the coming Nov. 13.

Elba Esther Gordillo's monthly salary: 23,900 pesos

I've heard the figure reported before, but a report by Mexico's Secretary of education reports that Elba Esther Gordillo's monthly salary is 23,900 pesos, or about 2000 USD. This, for her official job positions, which is for being a teacher and director of a campus in Neza in Mexico State.

So can anyone explain me, then, how she can be a proprietor of  "more than 60 residences, including an apartment in Paris and a house in San Diego"?

Gordillo's PANAL party under investigation by IFE

Mexico's federal electoral institute is carrying an investigation of Partido Nueva Alianza (PANAL), the teachers union-based party controlled completely by  Elba Esther Gordillo, due to "unusual movements" in its bank account. 

PANAL's new president Luis Castro Obregón seems to fit the party like hand in glove.  He denied that the audit has anything to do with recent hurling of accusations of corruption between Gordillo and Miguel Angel Yunes, though refused to offer any more comments on the matter. 

Then, asked if he knew the name of Ricardo Viso Veligson, a man who has endorsed 18 cheques to the party for over 7 million pesos,  he simply refused to confirm or deny anything.

At least the former party president Jorge Kahwagi Macari - he of the 5,500-square meter house, a mini-horse collection,  and a 10-million dollar yacht  - was somewhat entertaining in his eccentricity, by way of comparison. 

Elba Esther Gordillo's effect on 2006 a myth?

A very interesting article in today's El Universal, by CIDE researcher and political scientist José Antonio Crespo.

In a nutshell: While Elba Esther Gordillo certainly made a pact with Calderón in 2006, in an unseemly votes-for-political positions, the value of her votes are vastly exaggerated.

Why? While it is well known that her party PANAL received far more votes for its list of national deputies than for its presidential candidate - herein was the very bargain, where the SNTE-organized teachers and their families would vote for Calderón for president and their own party for lawmakers - yet a a forthcoming study by Javier Aparacio, one of CIDE's very sharpest minds, now reveals that of the SNTE/PANAL teachers, only 22 percent actually followed the order to so, while 27 percent voted for AMLO.

What does this mean? That  Calderón paid a very heavy price for very little, and that Gordillo's bargaining power with regards to her PANAL party may be a castle made of sand: She does not deliver.

Party leaders, take note.

Enrique Peña Nieto says yes to alliance with Gordillo

Despite what appears to me not only widespread but also increasing denunciation of Elba Esther Gordillo, her SNTE teachers union, and her PANAL party from prominent panistas, priístas, and perredistas, at least she has one firm backer: Outgoing governor of Mexico State Enrique Peña Nieto, who declared his willingness to make deals with Gordillo in order to win the presidency in 2012. 

Ebrard: No alliance with Gordillo or her PANAL party for 2012

Marcelo Ebrard maintained there will be no alliance with Elba Esther Gordillo and her PANAL party for 2012.

Recall that just a couple of days ago, Jorge Castañeda claimed, quite improbably, that Ebrard was Gordillo's first choice for 2012.