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.

7 of 10 teacher candidates failed, but it doesn't matter

The results are in from the Examen Nacional de Conocimientos, Habilidades y Competencias Docentes, or the obligatory exam for those aspiring to teach at Mexico's schools.

The results are just as bad as in earlier years: 70 percent failed, meaning 94,0400 of 134,704 exam takers did not even get half the questions of the exam right, which was the barrier to fail.

Yet the results will have absolutely no impact on whether they will be offered a teaching job or not.
And lest there remain any confusion: Just because Mexico's teacher aspirants have to take an entry exam, this does not mean they will ever need to take any other exams in their lifetime to prove they actually know any or all of the material they are educating Mexico's youth on.

Source:
Reprueban aspirantes a maestros. El Universal, July 23, 2012.

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 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.

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"?

Calderón: Gordillo had "no license to plunder"

Noteworthy language from President Felipe Calderón: Asked by a journalist on the political agreement that saw Elba Esther Gordillo appoint three top-level political positions in return for her electoral support on voting day, July 2 2006, he responded:

"This does not imply, and this is an important clarification, that there was a license to plunder these institutions"

Teachers cheating on their exams

What an example to the students: SNTE teachers are cheating on their own exams.

The Mexican teachers union SNTE has for years fought tooth and nail against a required exam where they actually had to demonstrate that they have the required skills for teaching. Some progress has been made recently, and teachers who willingly undertake the test will receive a financial bonus of up to 60 percent of the salary. 

Yet La Jornada reveals that the very exams used to test the teachers are now offered up for sale to the teachers - so why bother study or demonstrate your skills, when you can simply cheat on this exam? 

Apparently, SNTE teachers linked to Sección 36 of Mexico State - the absolute stronghold of national SNTE leader Elba Esther Gordillo - have been offering the exams for sale for at least a week. 

Is Elba Esther Gordillo actually serious about aviadores?

Seeming leader-for-life of the Mexican teachers union SNTE, Elba Esther Gordillo, spoke out against so-called aviadores, or those registered and covering pay as teachers yet never setting their foot in a classroom. She even called on state governments to act against them as it "discredits" the SNTE.

Given that the notorious practice of aviadores has been a long-running trait of the SNTE, it is a bit hard to take Gordillo fully at her word her. Indeed, aviadores have been actively been used by SNTE in marches and demonstrations, as organizational personnel, as part of the PANAL party created by SNTE, and other non-teaching tasks that have nonetheless benefited Gordillo and SNTE.

One can only hope that Gordillo has indeed realized herself how much the practice does discredit SNTE and teachers in general in the eyes of the Mexican population, beyond the practical - and monetary - benefits they may offer. But I wouldn´t hold my breath.

Oaxaca shut down for second day after teachers protest

Fourteen thousand schools shut down in Oaxaca. 1.3 million students left without school, as their teachers are continuing their actions against the state government of Oaxaca, protests that appear increasingly radical: Yesterday, members of the 73-thousand strong teachers union, SNTE Sección 22, having earlier shut down virtually the entire Oaxaca downtown, upped the ante by blocking down shops and commercial centers, government offices, and even taking a highway tollbooth. 

From what I can tell, Governor Gabino Cué has bent over backwards to appease the teachers, which insist the state has been awarded much more money meant for them, and demand the firing of several government functionaries. 

Yet far from being a case of a downtrodden, overworked, and underpaid union demanding its legitimate rights, there is much more to this than meets the eye: Mexico's federal auditor has detected at least 10,000 aviadores or teachers in name only, who appear on government payrolls yet have never set their foot in any classroom. SNTE 22 demand the regular incorporation of 3,000 people, yet refuse to accept any auditing of these and their credentials. How many of these are now blocking downtown Oaxaca? 

Moreover: What will be the financial cost to Oaxaca, on of the poorest states in Mexico, and what will the future cost of again depriving students of their eduction?

National Teachers Day: Ten thousand march against Elba Esther Gordillo

During the National Teachers Day in Mexico this Sunday, more than 10,000 teachers, most of them from the dissident teacher union Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (CNTE), not to be confused with the SNTE, marched in Mexico City demanding that Gordillo resign.

A show of force, but compared with SNTE's strength of at least 1.4 million members, a drop in the ocean.

Of note: Calderón himself appeared with Elba Esther Gordillo, following less than stellar relations between the two, as Gordillo has in essence returned to backing the PRI and in particular Enrique Peña Nieto.

A union leader with a jet of her own: Elba Esther Gordillo of SNTE

Elba Esther Gordillo and SNTE, the largest Mexican teachers union and one of the largest unions worldwide, is the subject of a Reuters article.  Nothing new, but the extraordinary story of Gordillo and SNTE is always worth revisiting.

Highlight:

"With mansions in Mexico City and California and a private jet, Gordillo presides over a system in which the union sells posts to aspiring teachers and skims off money from government funds destined for new computers and teachers' housing."

Gordillo and SNTE remain one of the largest roadblock to Mexico's development.

Does it get more groveling than this? Eruviel Ávila pleads for help

Eruviel Ávila, PRI's dedazo'd candidate for governor of Mexico State, pleaded for the help of  Elba Esther Gordillo, head of the teachers "union" SNTE, and the corporatist cadres under her iron control:

"I need maestra Elba Esther; I need the teachers from the state of Mexico from the federalized sector; I need the state teachers, I need everyone."

While it has long been known that Gordillo has essentially returned to the PRI, and that her cadres, always for sale to the highest bidder, can swing, and have swung, many elections - in Mexico state, there are more than 70,000 federalized teachers and 70,000 state teachers into this corporatist holdover of a PRI union - can one at least show a modicum of dignity and not literally beg for their support?

SNTE bashed in Senate: Ricardo Monreal diatribe against "corrupt" Elba Esther Gordillo

It is seldom I find myself much in agreement with former Zacatecas governor, now-Senator Ricardo Monreal,   though I make an exception for Monreal's colorful outbursts in yesterday's session in the Senate:

"There is in the world no more corrupt union than SNTE. There is no more corrupt woman in the country than  Elba Esther Gordillo. Investigate her, and investigate me. I have no respect for a political union that keeps our education on the ground. I will not tolerate attacks. I do not fear their money or power; I am going to take on that woman, you and your union. Governors, legislators, and the president are afraid, but I am not. Here you will have me from today onward, fighting for the union to be transparent with its resources, because nobody knows how it is actually managed."

Can't say I disagree with this assessment. I hope Monreal actually will follow through on this quest.

SNTE section 22 exposed: "Aviators"

The Auditoría Superior de la Federación (ASF) or the Mexican federal auditor, found that in Oaxaca in 2010, under then-Gover Ulises Ruiz, an "indeterminate" numbers of "teachers" affiliated with  dissident Section 22 of the national teachers union SNTE are so-called aviadores, literally aviators or fliers, a term referring to those who draw a state salary yet never set a foot in the classroom, only "flying" in to pick up the check (the term in Argentina, if I recall correctly, is ñoquis, after the Italian dish traditionally eaten on the 29th)

Three hundred "commissioners" of the SNTE section 22 was also on the state pay roll, paid to perform administrative tasks for the state yet working for the union instead.

AFI reports that the inflated/bloated/faked employee rolls cost the state at least 40 million pesos last year, a sum that could have been spent on the Oaxaca education system, among the absolute worst performing in the country, rather on propping up the teachers union.

Carlos Marín, writing in Milenio, claims at least 10,000 out of the 70,000 employed as teachers in Oaxaca, are aviadores. The real cost of this nefarious practice thus remains to be seen.

New Oaxaca disturbances: The smell of a rat

Something doesn't add up in Oaxaca.

Yesterday, teachers of the dissident Section 22 of the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (SNTE), clashed with federal and state police in Oaxaca city, site of a visit by President Felipe Calderón. Notably, the teachers (if that is what they are) loudly attacked the government of Gabino Cué for its "aggression," and declared it would launch a strike, blockades, "take" and occupy the government house, and so forth.

This just doesn't make sense. This rush to denounce Gabino Cué smells of a rat. For one, most of the police were federal, and were there due to Calderón's visit. To pin the tag of "depressor" on Cué seems really out of place.

Second, yesterday I watched Milenio TV, a very decent canal of live Mexican television news (if you can stand the usual sexism of Mexican TV: Weather ladies dressed like prostitutes). From these images, rather than a group of peaceful demonstrators being attacked by cruel police, the picture actually looked quite the opposite: The police were cowering behind shields, while very aggressive demonstrators were attacking them, hurling objects, and setting police and other cars on fire, and including a huge bus.

I don't mean in any way to downplay the very serious and recurrent issue of police brutality, especially from the Federal police and the EMP, the presidential guard, which has been on display far too often. In this case, the demonstrators might, for instance, well have been angered by previous police actions. But from what I saw in the televised images from Milenio, SNTE Sección 22 simply looked ready for a fight.

While their anger against Calderón would seem to stem from the recent decree that allows tax deduction for tuition for private schools - in effect, a subsidy of the middle and upper class - it seems to me the teacher union was simply too eager to take on the state government, which, as it were, only weeks ago declared it would eliminate the so-called aviadores from the state's pay rolls, or "teachers" who are teachers in name only yet still draw a salary from the state.

In Oaxaca, then, I think I smell a rat.

New rival teachers union established: Sindicato Independiente de Trabajadores de la Educación en México (SITEM)

The Sindicato Independiente de Trabajadores de la Educación en México (SITEM), or the new Independent  Education Workers Union in Mexico, finally received the toma de nota from the federal labor secretariat, and is thus officially registered as a new union rival to the SNTE of Elba Esther Gordillo.

For the sake of the quality of education in Mexico, which on many levels is abysmal due to the reign of Gordillo and her charro union, this is signficiant news. SITEM, according to its own figures, already has 8000 workers registered, and will in the coming weeks launch a massive campaign of affiliation to draw in more members, primarily in Guanajuato, Querétaro, Hidalgo, Puebla, Veracruz, Quintana Roo, and Mexico City, according to the new secretary general, Juan Carlos Villanueva.

That is, though, a drop in the ocean compared to the more than 1.5 million members of Gordillo's SNTE, the largest union in Latin America. Yet it may be, as it goes, the start of something beautiful.

Alonso Lujambio: A great academic, yet a pathetically timid secretary of education

It seems by now clear that Alonso Lujambio, secretary of education, will do absolutely nothing to stop the SNTE teacher union from, in Baja California Sur, handing out propaganda material for its PANAL party to children, soliciting sensitive information from them and their parents, and using schools for open political activities in favor of PANAL, such as forcing children to stuff envelopes in Mexico State.

Lujambio first said schools "under no circumstances should be places for political proselytizing," yet then quickly dismissed the occurrences as "an isolated event" - which it is not - and in a sorry display of Pontius Pilate-like hand washing, said the matter belonged with electoral and legal authorities, not with the secretary of education. It was a remarkably open admittance that Lujambio will do absolutely nothing to stand up to the all-to-powerful Elba Esther Gordillo. How on earth is it possible to simply dismiss this as "it is not my responsibility"? You are the secretary of education!

At least in Baja California Sur, SNTE dissidents opposed to Gordillo has denounced  the matter to the attorney general. Several deputies in Congress have demanded that the federal government cut SNTE's funding and privileges. Wherever any action may come from as a result of SNTE/PANAL's outrageous actions, one is hard pressed to expect anything at all from Alonso Lujambio Irazábal -  a great academic (and a PhD from Yale) yet a man, we now know, with unfortunately very little political backbone.

New rule: If you want to be president, you can't be afraid of Elba Esther Gordillo

Senators of all political stripes demand that the Education ministry (SEP), headed by Alonso Lujambio, take action against the outrageous action of Elba Esther Gordillo's SNTE union, which has handed out electoral material to children in primary and secondary schools, and solicited private data from them and their parents.

Even PAN senators such as Ricardo García Cervantes accuse education secretary Lujambio of not having the guts to take on the all-powerful Gordillo. Note that Lujambio has on more than one occasion hinted at his desire to be president of Mexico. In this regard, standing up, for just once in his career, to Gordillo would be a first positive step toward his PAN nomination

A damning indictment of education in Mexico and the SNTE teachers union

There might be lies, damned lies, and then statistics, but nevertheless: These figures mean something.
Despite the incentive of a salary hike ranging from 20 to 150 percent of their basic salary, only 32 percent of teachers in primary and secondary education agreed to take an evaluation test of their skills.

According to the ministry of education (SEP), out of 1,156,506 teachers in the country, only 635,051 showed any interest in taking the evaluative test. And of the latter group, only 377,460 actually followed through.

The SNTE, the teacher union led by president-for-life Elba Esther Gordillo, has fought tooth and nail against most any form of evaluative mechanism of Mexico's teachers. Note that the evaluation mentioned was moreover wholly voluntary, yet with a significant monetary bonus: 68 percent still refused to take it.

El Universal also informs us that SNTE didn't respond to a a request for comments. Fair enough: How does one rationalize away these statistics?

Elba Ester Gordillo's SNTE-PANAL stoops to new low: Get them while they're young

It really is quite a scandal, and should have some serious repercussions: The party PANAL, an electoral outfit based in the SNTE teacher's union that came into being when Gordillo was kicked out of the PRI and brought her PRI-affiliated teacher groups with her, has seemingly engaged in a blatant breach of electoral law in Baja California Sur - as well as crossing any remaining moral boundary - by handing out, through its SNTE cadres, school material for children at the primary level that included logos of PANAL and in Kim Il-Sung-style exalted Gordillo's party - all with the benediction of teachers and the administration of the schools.

Baja Calfornia Sur is having elections in a few weeks time, and what better way to get to voters than to hand out election material to children - most likely financed by taxpayers - so that they can bring it home to mom and dad and tell them how great PANAL is? Well, there is another one: Include a little note that asks for their name, last name, street, house number, municipality, state, borough, area code, phone number, and email, or that of "one of their parents."

Even the most  cursory glance at PANAL's actions makes it obvious that it violates not only electoral law, but also Mexico's legal code.

Jesús Ortega, national president of the PRD, argued PANAL should lose its national registry as party.
Manuel Espino, former PAN leader, condemned the use of primary schools for electoral proselytizing; current PAN leader Gustavo Madero echoed Ortega's call for PANAL to lose its official registry.

Let's not forget as well that the party is violating any right of the children to privacy and protection of personal data, even potentially putting their lives and those of their parents in danger

President of the federal electoral institute (IFE), Leonardo Valdés, said IFE would seek to corraborate the information before deciding what to do. Let's hope they act fast: The actions of PANAL, and SNTE, must have consequences, if the law is to appear to have any weight and value at all.

Could one also be allowed to hope, just for a moment, that the increasing calls for leader-for-life of SNTE, Elba Esther Gordillo to renounce her position might actually be heeded?