The Network for Public Education has issued an urgent appeal to end the government violence against teachers in Mexico.
During the past few days, extreme violence has been used against teachers in Oaxaca, Mexico, who were protesting governmental education “reforms.” This has resulted in the deaths of at least eight people. The Network for Public Education joins with those condemning this violence and calls for a dialogue to resolve the underlying issues. We support the statement issued by the Civil Society of Oaxaca demanding that the government do the following:
End the wrongful and disproportionate use of force and repression against the teachers who make use of their legitimate right to free expression and free protest.
Establish a round table for dialogue with the teachers of Oaxaca.
Provide medical attention for all persons injured as a result of the violent acts of the State.
Stop the criminalization of the teachers by cancelling arrest warrants against members of the teachers’ union of Oaxaca. Immediately release all teachers who have been arrested in an arbitrary and illegal way.
Punish all persons responsible for arbitrary detentions, torture and other violations of Human Rights against members of the teachers’ union of Oaxaca.
Please personalize the statement above and send it to:
US Ambassador to Mexico, Roberta S. Jacobson
Paseo de la Reforma 305
Colonia Cuauhtemoc
06500 Mexico, D.F.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I just sent a letter to the US Ambassador in Mexico. Postage for a letter to Mexico is $1.15. I just used three regular stamps.
You can also send a letter or email to the Mexican Consul, in Washington, DC:
1250 23rd St. NW
Washington DC, 20037
Tel: (202) 736-1000 * Fax: (202) 234-4498
E-mail:consulwas@sre.gob.mx
Indeed. We complain, rightly so, but none of our teachers as far as I know have been killed. In Mexico, yes and many people have disappeared. Teachers have become involved in trying to find out where these people who have disappeared are etc.
THEY have become deeply involved in this.
They indeed need our backing.
I’ve read enough about various countries’ interest in purposefully “disappearing” teachers to recognize it as a means of silencing opposition to governmental oppression. And I’ve read enough about our own government’s interest in instating educational policies which blame and remove long-term career teachers to see the very real, and very frightening, correlation.
They’ll eventually arrest labor organizersin the US. They don’t enforce wage, hour or safety laws now for low wage or temp workers. You wouldn’t believe the stories I hear in Ohio. It gets worse every year.
Younger workers don’t even know some of these practices are illegal .
Race to the bottom.
The BBC reported that one of the two Oaxaca teacher’s union officials arrested, Fransisco Villalobos, was charged with stealing textbooks. What!? What’s wrong with this picture? I don’t mean to compare the levels of violence in Oaxaca and California, but at least they told Villalobos what the charges were. Here in LA, they put you in teacher jail without ever telling you why.
The BBC also noted that the teachers were unarmed, and that shots were fired only by police and by unidentified assailants. Meanwhile, a state owned oil company, Permex, stood to have to shut down a refinery if the protests were not halted. …Who were those unidentified shooters?
The government claimed the federal and state officers were unarmed, then admitted they were. I just watched a video on TeleSurTV of an officer firing an assault rifle into the unarmed crowd of men and women.
There is a lot wrong here. This is a human tragedy which requires condemnation to be sure, but investigation as well. Where’s the White House on this?
Sorry, Pemex, not Permex.
I agree that there is a lot wrong in this story. However, there is part of me that feels that there is a lot more that we may or may not know.
This story in the Washington Post noted that the protesters were the ones who were violent. So it’s both sides of the story…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/at-least-six-dead-as-education-protesters-clash-with-police/2016/06/20/41e6e8fc-3705-11e6-af02-1df55f0c77ff_story.html
Certainly the story of the disappeared in Mexico, many of them education students, is horrific (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Iguala_mass_kidnapping). There is a lot more to that story that still needs to be examined. And I do think that the government is responsible here – more than has been mentioned.
Much of the discussion is similar to that in the US – teacher tests, determining who should be in the classroom. I do not condone violence at all. That being said, I ask, should we simply say that anyone can teach in the classroom? Should classrooms world-wide have some type of way to measure if someone should be in the classroom? Or should we just let anyone teach that wants to?
Killing protestors is wrong.
Dr. Ravitch, I agree…but isn’t it also wrong to throw molotov cocktails (which it seems that the pro-union group was doing?). As Raj noted, it seems that the protesters were violent too…This was not a case of a peaceful demonstration from the protestors.
I am not aware that the protesting teachers killed anyone. They were murdered, and murder is a very harsh punishment for protesting.
Dr Ravitch. we agree murder is wrong. I am wondering if you think that some types of protesting (including throwing Molotov cocktails and injuring or maiming police) could also be wrong?
I do not approve of violence, of throwing Molotov cocktails or fighting police. People who do that should be arrested, not murdered. Don’t you agree?
Lots of thoughts. First Dr. Ravitch, yes, I agree that protestors should be arrested. But if one is throwing a fire bomb at you, it’s challenging to react and simply try and arrest them. That being said, I cannot place myself in the position of those. The fact that there were hundreds of teaching students who suddenly disappeared is certainly horrific and I do believe that the Mexican govt most likely is involved in the situation and that those involved should be brought to some type of justice.
Left Coast Teacher – I do agree with you – training and degrees are much better than just giving a test. I don’t think that this “test” has anything to do with VAM scores, etc. but rather was one small way to determine if a person should be in front of the classroom. As you noted, teaching positions were handed down through nepotism. Imagine if that was the case here in the US, where those in the classroom were given positions simply because who they know (before one jumps up and says that that probably does happen – yes, but I am saying imagine it on a large scale for numerous years). If those in the union were only protecting a corrupt system so they could benefit – this I disagree with.
To me there are no winners or right or wrong in this situation. That’s why I brought up the issues that I raised and feel a bit uneasy when I read the original post about writing Ambassador Jacobson or the statement from the NPE. Personally, I do agree with the call to an end to violence. I do agree with both sides coming together peacefully for a cause. But I feel a bit uneasy when one jumps automatically to the side of the teachers/teacher union and against the government without looking at all of the facts.
When and if we get all the facts, then perhaps people will react differently. Given the government’s inability and probable collusion in past teacher abuse, I can’t say I am surprised that fellow teachers might feel some kinship with the protesting teachers even those who have no business in the classroom. The government has no credibility in this particular fight, and there is no reason to automatically accept their version of events without corroboration from reputable sources.
Teachers need to be fully qualified. In Oaxaca, they are apparently not. But the standardized testing that’s part of President Nieto’s neoliberal education reform package is not the best way to determine teacher quality. Testing instead of training seems like a way to justify mass layoffs, not a way toward real reform. And while I do not condone violence, I agree with the Oaxaca teachers who do not want to see land in Mexico, Brazil, Columbia, the U.S., etc. sold to edu-entrepreneurs. I have read interviews with the protesters (No, Raj, not in mainstream media.) saying the problems are testing and privatization. Testing and privatization need to be stood up to even when the reformers are prepared to deploy full military arsenals.
First, there are ways to protest testing and privatization without throwing molotov cocktails. Second, I appreciate the fact that you agree that there should be some type of qualifications for teachers and that supposedly in Oxaca they are not qualified. What I don’t understand is that Pena Nieto attempts to have a test as a start in a measure for qualifications (in the US, nearly every state has teacher candidates take the Praxis II Content or Pedagogy as a measure of readiness). Is the test ideal? No. But it’s a start to trying to have some type of qualifications for teachers. There are some (probably on this blog) who may be against any type of assessment at all…However, then I go back to my original point – should anyone be allowed to teach.
I will say that from the original post that Dr. Ravitch posted – I do agree that both sides should peacefully sit down and be open to each other.
Mexico: murder is not the answer
And burning cars, wrong as it is, does not warrant a death sentence. I’m not in law enforcement, but I know there was a better way to handle it than murdering civilians.
Diane,
I agree killing protesters is wrong. But in my book killing any one is wrong, wrong and wrong.
“Over the past week, unionised teachers have blockaded streets, a shopping mall and even train tracks in the western state of Michoacan. They have also forced some bus lines to cancel trips to Oaxaca, which is a popular tourist destination, and blocked a highway on the isthmus of Tehuantepec. And in Oaxaca city, protesting teachers have set up an encampment in the city’s main square.” ALL WRONG!!
Finally revolting against the government is WRONG!
NPE support to this organization is WRONG!!
The Guardian (actually, the AP) chose the word ‘revolting’ instead of ‘protesting’. Semantics. Blocking transit is far, far, far from treason. And burning inanimate objects is far, far, far from firing automatic weapons at unarmed men and women. Raj, methinks thou dost revolt too much.
The problem in Oaxaca is that many of the teachers did not graduate from college, not that they have low value added bogus. They are able to get teaching jobs through nepotism. Wouldn’t it make sense to educate and train teaching candidates and work toward more obtaining degrees and certificates? And wouldn’t that be more sensible and humane than firing thousands of teachers because of a test that doesn’t measure impact on the lives of poor and indigenous children, and telling the teachers to instead, what? Raise chickens? I ask you.
But I do not mean to make fun with chicken jokes. People died trying to save their jobs from depending on a test.
violence of the oppressed is not morally equivalent with the violence of the oppressors…period. that stands true throughout the course of human history including our own American revolution. It’s amazing to me. People are so ready to say these days that violent resistance is morally wrong. It doesn’t matter the circumstances. It doesn’t matter the level of violence being used by the state. It doesn’t matter It simply doesn’t matter because everyone is always on their moral high horse when it comes to violence. Either that or they have this completely ahistorical belief that violence has never worked to achieve inherently positive political ends. They sanitize the civil rights movement, the Indian independence movement, so many historical moments that contained both violence and nonviolence existing in a dialectical relationship to achieve political ends.
Jlsteach, I agree with you. There is a situation in which the Mexican government did nothing, for decades, to ensure quality. For that matter, they did nothing for decades to ensure fair elections. But when Nieto took office, he came in with a heavy-handed, top down, destructive set of policies. For that matter, he started a war within his borders. A problem of this magnitude, uneducated teachers in the classroom, requires a longer term, more comprehensive approach than slash, churn, and burn. So, I agree with you. There must be peaceful negotiations. The current policy cannot stand. Is a neoliberal president capable of flexibility? Or does neoliberalism go hand in hand with dictatorship? Ball’s in Nieto’s court.
By the way, the value added reference was an error on my part. Sorry, as my high stakes testing related emotions ran away with me. I should have referred to Praxis not VAM, not that Praxis tests are replacements instead of supplements of university classes and degrees.
Just to clarify statements made here. The item below is from a reputed news paper from England. There are similar stories in US news papers. NPE should be very careful not to promote violence. NPE support just because they are teachers is wrong. Read the full story first before jumping into the conclusion.
Please note the last two sentences. “Following the arrest of some if its top leaders, the union called for a revolt against Mexico’s government.” Revolt against the government is heady stuff and I cannot see any one with a conscience supporting it.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/20/violence-mexico-teachers-protest-dead-oaxaca-union
“Violence at Mexico teachers’ protest leaves six dead, officials say
Violent clashes between police and unionised teachers who were blockading roads and burning vehicles in southern Mexico have left at least six people dead, according to union and state officials.
The teachers from the radical National Coordinator of Education Workers, or CNTE, are opposed to the mandatory testing of teachers as part of Mexico’s education reform and are also protesting the arrest of union leaders on money laundering and other charges.
Sunday’s clashes in several municipalities in Oaxaca state involved federal and state police. Associated Press journalists saw riot police firing on protesters in Nochixtlán, where officials said the protests were strongest.
Isabel Garcia, a member of the CNTE’s political commission, said three people supporting the protests were killed. She provided no further details.
And a state official, who was not authorised to speak to the press and requested anonymity, said a state police officer was killed.
In a late-night press conference, Oaxaca state governor Gabino Cue, accompanied by Federal Police chief Enrique Galindo, raised the death toll to six. They said 53 civilians, 41 federal police agents and 14 state police agents were injured. Twenty-one people were detained.
Earlier, Mexico’s federal government released a statement saying 21 federal agents had been wounded, three of them by gunfire. It said the federal police that participated in the operation were not carrying guns.
“The attacks with guns came from people outside the blockades who fired on the population and federal police,” it said.
Footage shows at least one police officer firing a gun several times, though it was unclear if he was a federal or state agent.
Clashes also lasted hours in the municipality of San Pablo Huitzo, north of the state capital. And clashes were continuing Sunday evening outside Oaxaca city itself, where protesters burned federal police installations.
Over the past week, unionised teachers have blockaded streets, a shopping mall and even train tracks in the western state of Michoacan. They have also forced some bus lines to cancel trips to Oaxaca, which is a popular tourist destination, and blocked a highway on the isthmus of Tehuantepec. And in Oaxaca city, protesting teachers have set up an encampment in the city’s main square.
Federal prosecutors accuse union leaders of setting up an illegal financial network to fund protests and line their own pockets. They allege the scheme operated in 2013-2015, when the union effectively controlled the payroll of Oaxaca’s teachers.
Following the arrest of some if its top leaders, the union called for a revolt against Mexico’s government.
Ten years ago, the teachers started a six-month takeover of Oaxaca that didn’t end until police stormed the barricades.”
ALSO WRONG: arresting members of the union, and sometimes spiriting them to prisons hundreds of miles away.
ALSO WRONG: The horrific corruption that led to the deaths of 23 preparatory teachers, who were slaughtered and burned.
The point is, Raj, that none of us really knows the situation in Oaxaca. Until we do, we should not be casting aspersions.
BUT, NPE can and SHOULD speak out against killing protestors. Yes, if there were Molotov cocktails thrown (and the various articles and footage disagree on that point), it was wrong! BUT, no one should get a death sentence for that, and we have NO IDEA if the protestors who were killed were doing anything at all but protesting.
Raj, you could tell me the sun shined at noon and I wouldn’t listen to you. It matters not what the story in ed reform is, you always seem to take an antagonistic stance and throw your weight around telling posters what they shouldn’t or should do. Please, go away and take your pious opinions with you.
revolt against a government is wrong? and the Mexican government at that? where do you get this from?
Reflective, it was Thomas Jefferson who said that society needs a new revolution every now and then.
No one is promoting(or instigating) violence here. But there is someone here who deliberately makes an incitement for sport. That’s the WORST form of WRONG among all. Go pick up your trash and broken sound speaker with you. Your name is well informed. Thank you.
Thank the DEFORMERS and our President and Congress for GLOBAL EDUCATION REFORMMOVEMENT: GERM. Paso Sahlberg has spoken about this hair-brained greedy idea. But love the GERM acronym. It is indeed an ugly GERM.
Does anyone know much about the educational system in Mexico?
NPE is correct to call out the Mexican government for using lethal weapons against civilian labor protests, period. Arrests/ jailing without due process as well. Teachers in solidarity with teachers. The precise facts will never be known, take it from me as a long-ago language student (summer of ’68), full facts won’t make it to the press. Mexico was a corrupt police state then, and still is today. As long as they claim to be a democracy with civil rights exchanging ambassadors, voting in the UN etc, make them feel international pressure, and expose their govt to the criticism it richly deserves.
Another story from the news: People now it is in your ball park – go for it
http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-mexico-teachers-union-clashes-20160620-snap-story.html
6 die in violent clashes between police and teachers union in Mexico
Violent clashes in the southern state of Oaxaca between police and members of a teachers union resulted in six civilian deaths and more than 100 injuries on Sunday, recalling the extended standoff between unionized teachers and police a decade ago that crippled the state.
The protests center on sweeping education reforms, heralded by President Enrique Peña Nieto, which require the testing of teachers in an effort to improve the country’s abysmal public education system. Oaxaca’s branch of the National Coordinator of Education Workers, or CNTE, clashed with police after union leaders were arrested on money laundering and other charges last week.
On Monday, Peña Nieto said he regrets the loss of human life and pledged to punish the responsible parties.
“I’ve given instructions so that, within the framework of the law, the necessary actions will be taken to resolve the conflict,” he said via Twitter.
Four hundred federal police and 200 state police were sent to remove a roadblock on Sunday morning in Nochixtlan, north of Oaxaca City, that had been set up on a highway by protesters, according to the state’s outgoing governor, Gabino Cue Monteagudo.
Monteagudo said that events turned violent when protesters captured five federal police officers and a rescue effort began. Protesters threw rocks and Molotov cocktails and burned vehicles, and teachers have set up an encampment in Oaxaca City’s main square, the Associated Press reported. Oaxaca has long been known as a tourist haven for lovers of food, art and architecture. It’s also home to 16 indigenous groups and a long and complex tradition of social movement. Sunday’s eruption is just the latest chapter in a conflict between the federal government and a group of highly organized teachers.
“I suspect this confrontation is about more than education reform,” said professor Lynn Stephen, director of the Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies at the University of Oregon. “It’s about something much more profound: the poverty and growing inequality in the country, and the impunity.”
Stephen is the author of “We Are the Face of Oaxaca: Testimony and Social Movements,” featuring interviews with many of the members of the teachers union that led a six-month standoff with police in 2006.
In the poor southern region where Oaxaca is located, teachers are tasked with the daily challenge of providing shelter and food for their students, along with the mandate to boost test scores and improve reading comprehension. There teachers quite literally must build the schools in which they work and then find furniture to fill their classrooms. Students arrive at school barefoot, ache with intestinal parasites, and learn native languages before Spanish.
Critics of the union movement say teachers are playing the victim in order to mask widespread corruption within their ranks. The tests are threatening to those filling teaching positions who have never had training and wouldn’t be able to pass, said professor Francisco Gil Villegas, who teaches social science at the College of Mexico in Mexico City.
“Those political movements paid with political favors, giving jobs to people who were just not qualified at all to be teachers,” Gil Villegas said. “They are violent political protesters, many of them.”
The June 12 arrest of union leader Ruben Nuñez, secretary general of Oaxaca’s branch of the CNTE, on money laundering charges, and the recent election of a new governor for the state who supports the education reforms, have added to tensions between the teachers union and authorities, Gil Villegas said. Alejandro Murat, who was elected this month as governor, is a member of Peña Nieto’s party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.
“The electoral outcome was proof that [unionized teachers] are losing popular sympathy,” Gil Villegas said. “They have a moral deficit in their own movement.”
Edith Santibañez, a representative of the union, said that none of the members at the roadblock were armed and that the Molotov cocktails were thrown by protesters who had infiltrated the crowd.
“We want to make it clear that it was not us, it was people who want to destabilize our struggle,” Santibañez said. “We deny attacking police. Instead, the police attacked us with guns and shot at people when we’re exercising our right to protest.”
Raj,
No matter what stunt, motive, invective you may have, whether it is to show your disapproval, express cynicism, throw temper tantrum, or fix your position in a way to town down your invective, it’s all very clear to many of us that your action is thoroughly monitored . We have every reason to doubt your action in faith. Don’t even think this will bring us back some smypathy(not empathy), because we all know you are one of those who spend most of the time throwing invective for incitement. You get more pissed because it bounces off from us and hits right back at you on the head.