Eduardo Andere is an education researcher and lawyer in
Mexico who has published widely about international trends in
education. After reading
articles about teachers demonstrating in the streets, I
asked Andere if he would explain what is happening in Mexico. He
sent the following post:   What is real and
what is rhetoric in the Mexico’s 2013 Education
Reform? Eduardo Andere
For you to get a clearer view
of the polemical Education Reform in Mexico you ought to have some
facts about education and education policy in the
country. Education
policy and education curricula from kindergarten to 18 is ruled,
directed or ordered by the national federal government. By
constitutional law education in Mexico is a federal matter. States
or local authorities implement the national policy; they are local
CIOs as compared to the national CEOs, so to speak.
Under Mexican law, education
is compulsory from K to 12. Kindergarten or preschool education
runs from age three to five and children start a six-year long
elementary school at six. Middle school or lower secondary school
runs from grade 7 to 9; and upper secondary school from grade 10 to
12, although there are two-year long high school
programs.
Student-wise, the size of the whole student population
from K to university is around 40 million; all of them under the
national law, and a national authority called the Secretary of
Public Education (SEP). In this sense SEP is much more powerful
than the U.S. Department of Education. Mexico is probably the most
centralized OECD educational system. It is probably as centralized
as the Singapore’s high performing country, but in sheer numbers
Singapore is a small city-state-nation of 5 million people compared
to 118 million people in México.
Nobody knows for certain the
real number of teachers hired by SEP or other sub-systems of
education; and nobody knows for certain how many of the hired
teachers are really sitting for class or doing “commissioned-type”
work for special, some times no-transparent activities, for both
the government or the union. Many constituencies have complained
about this situation. They say that for starters this is a proof of
corruption between the governments and the union. Official
statistics number around 2 million teachers in the whole system of
which 1.2 millions are teaching at basic education (K to
9). There are
several unions of teachers in Mexico, but by law, the union with
the highest registered number of teachers is the one with the right
to negotiate annual contractual agreements with the government.
Union membership is mandatory in Mexico. Teachers have no way to
opt out and the government retains a compulsory union’s fee from
their salary pay. This fee is transferred to the unions.
The largest teacher union in
Mexico is the SNTE (Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la
Educación or Workers of Education National Union). Of course, over
the years there have been some democratization efforts that have
given rise to dissenters within the national union. One of these
attempts gave rise to a “separatist” group that operates de facto
rather than de jure called CNTE (Coordinadora Nacional de
Trabajadores de la Educación; or Workers of Education National
Coordination Group). This group has been the one making all
the street noise against the education reform.
What about the much more
powerful in terms of members SNTE? Most of the teachers are SNTE’s
main track teachers, and most of them are quiet. Dissenters are the
minority. But here as well there are some contextual facts that you
need to know before I continue the story behind the education
reform. The SNTE
was born in 1943. Over the years as education became massive the
education union grew in members and power. By the 1980s the union
leader became very powerful and by government and media accounts
very corrupt and anti-governmental. In 1989, and under the
government of President Salinas, (influenced by a public sector
modernization movement from around the world, sometimes called New
Public Administration) many public policy reforms were launched.
Well, in the late 1980s the Salinas’ government tried to pave its
way for the new reforms by removing a couple of very powerful, and
again, perceived, very corrupt union leaders. One of those leaders
was the SNTE leader. A teacher, who later became known as “La
Maestra” (“The woman teacher”), replaced him. For years she was
wooed and lured by the national government to implement
modernization projects or keep teachers in the classrooms and
peaceful. The government and the union developed a close
corporativist relationship that lasted until late 2012. One of
those projects was the 1992-1993’s education reform. Since then, La
Maestra and her union became very powerful, not only in union
matters but also in policy and political matters.
Under the former President of
Mexico, Felipe Calderón’s regime, La Maestra became very
influential. She was even able to place her son-in-law as assistant
secretary of basic education at SEP, the second most important and
influential position in national school education in Mexico. But
not only that, for decades she managed to get annual real salary
increases for teachers who for decades earned very low salaries.
But most importantly, her union became co-signer in all relevant
national new policies of education. She was so powerful that some
people would call her the de facto vice president of Mexico.
Presidents came and went under her tenure but her power and
influence in politics and policy became uncomfortable to policy
makers and politicians. Since she was no shy at all in
showing off her political muscle she became very unpopular. Her low
charisma and extravagant way of life didn’t help either. She was
shrewd but not smart enough to foresee her demise.
The same day that President
Peña’s constitutional education reform was officially published she
was arrested (at the writing of this post, September
8th, 2013 she is still in jail). The news
became national level immediately, and the President’s popularity
skyrocketed among the media and the public opinion. Ever since the
SNTE’s leaders and most of teachers have been very quiet and
accommodating to the education reform. That is not the case with
the dissenters.
After the constitutional approval some secondary laws had
to be passed by the national or Union Congress. During the last two
weeks three new laws were passed pending only the presidential
approval (promulgation) and the publication by the federal
registrar. What
are some of the main issues with the education reform?
1) Evaluation and
assessment of school education becomes a national state policy. A
new national body of evaluation called the Instituto Nacional para
la Evaluación de la Educación (National Institute for the
Evaluation of Education) has been established with federal state
powers. This is an agency with a governing body of five prestigious
former academic professors or researchers, La Junta, which will be
able to set national assessment policies, practices and criteria
that will influence national education policies as well. This Junta
has the power to overrule or nullify any evaluation attempt or
exercise against the federal wishes. This Institute (INEE) will set
up binding policies for federal and local authorities of education
and even set the rules for the assessment of teachers and students.
La Junta will also be able to set the minimum criteria to become a,
or remain as teacher from K to 12 grades. Indeed, a very powerful
mandate. 2) A new civil career
program for teachers is established with very precise rules and
regulations. All teachers will have to be examined by law: if they
fail to pass three rounds they will be ousted from the classroom.
If failing teachers have tenure they will be given non-teaching
jobs, positions or activities; no-tenure teachers will be fired.
This is one of the outcries from dissenters and no-dissenters
alike. Historically teachers’ unions, with the acquaintance or
acceptance of governments, were able to name, handle or manage the
hiring and promotion of teachers, principals and supervisors. Some
arrangements between the unions and governments even allowed the
sale and inheritance of “plazas” or teachers’ jobs. This was part
of the explicit or implicit corporativist arrangement between the
government and the unions. For years some academic experts and
media observers regarded this practice as corrupt. Some local
authorities on their own initiated changes in favor of some sort of
open competition for assignments or promotions of plazas or jobs,
but some kept the old system intact. Teachers who benefited from
this “rare” arrangement of course don’t like changes and bitterly
oppose to the new rules. What the new authorities see as corrupt
practices the union leaders and some teachers see it as a
class-obtained gain after many years of work and negotiation. You
have to know that historically teachers’ salaries have been very
low specially compared to the salary of the secretary and assistant
secretaries of education. I once did research about the topic and
the difference in the salary between an elementary school teacher
and the high-ranking officers of national education amounted to
around 40 times without fringe and PR benefits for the latter. So,
some dissenters and some main track teachers don’t see these
practices as necessarily corrupt but as a “well-deserved benefit”
for teachers and their families after years of struggle. After all,
the argument goes, many politicians and businesspeople have
obtained law or governmental protections or benefits, sometimes
monopoly-based, that have earned them much sizable assets to sell
or inherent to their children. Changing the rules of the game in
the middle of the game has made the big noise, and the problem does
not have a clear-cut solution. Of course, no one wants a system of
selling and inheriting jobs, but even as bad as it sounds, the full
story has to be laid out. 3)
Teachers, as deficient as they could be in their learning and
teaching, have been selected, trained and placed by the
government for decades. The national or state governments control
the training of basic education teachers in Mexico. Universities
are not allowed to train teachers for public or private basic
school education, although many schools, especially private, have a
way of gaming the system. There is no competition for training;
there is a national curriculum set up and controlled by the
national government; the newest curriculum dates from 1997; the
national curriculum for basic education students dates from 2011.
Quality is low. So, “what is the purpose of assessing teachers
whose average cognitive quality is low and we know it already
without tests?” Some say, this is a way of putting pressure on
teachers. If the new assessment policy is criterial (i.e., what
they should know) most of them will flank; if it is normal-based
(i.e., what they really know) most of them will pass. This is a
dilemma: If most of them fail, where from are we going to
find the new teachers? If most of them pass, we will keep the same
low level of quality in teaching. The new laws-to-be have loopholes
that could allow teachers to fence-off from the consequences of
high stake assessments, however, they also grant authorities enough
lee-way to apply strict measures of assessments and accountability
to teachers, principals, supervisors and students.
4) There are some miscellaneous
provisions like autonomy to schools, bans to junk food in schools
and full-day schools that follow popular perceptions rather than
academic recommendations.
Apparently, most of the teachers in the streets come from
the poorer states of Oaxaca, Michoacán and Guerrero. They face one
more strategic challenge: the more education policy is centralized
the less bargaining power they have in education and labor matters.
With decentralization they would negotiate at a local level, where
they maximize their negotiating power; with centralization a group
of local teachers, from one federal entity among 32 federal
entities, has to negotiate with the national government.
At the end it is not clear
how everything will change, my own perception is that the new
government bought the wrong diagnosis of the causes of the low
quality of education in Mexico. The new government fell into the
spell of the corporations’ view of education reform: more testing,
more accountability, more pressure on teachers, more
standardization, and less unionization. Little is said about the
real causes of education failure: poverty, segregation, inequality,
low quality in selection, training and placement of teachers, and
lack of family, school and community learning environments. Does
this sound similar to the U.S. education reform pushed by big
business and private donors?