Mexico's Educational Ills

Macario Schettino, echoing a point made last month by Maite Reyes-Retana, says Mexico's educational problems go beyond one woman. 

Teachers are frequently recognized for their dedication and efforts in an activity as hard as teaching. I too wish to recognize teachers with dedication in this country, from preschool education to postgraduate. Contempt, on the other hand, [I have] for the hundreds of thousands that pretend to be [teachers] and that blamelessly destroy the lives of children and teens, day after day. 

Many people, in particular in the academy and in the media, the educational problems are concentrated in one teacher, Elba Esther. It would be great if that were the case, because it would only be a question of removing her, something that a million and a half professors surely would have been able to accomplish, supported by the four presidents who have governed this country while the teacher governs her union. Seeing the sectional leaders is enough to raise doubts that Elba Esther is the problem...

He adds that while it may not look like it, the country has made strides: 

The excuse from those who defend with vehemence the Revolutionary regime, the builder of these grotesques, is that the governments of "change" have not done anything to resolve the educational crisis. First, they have done something: today we know what is going on, and we never did before. The first [internationally comparative] exam in which Mexico participated, in 2000, couldn't be published by the OECD by rule of the Mexican government, the last of the PRI. But beyond knowing this, and taking some timid measures in the right direction, like the Alliance for the Quality of Education, it's hard for me to imagine what a government could do, from whichever party you like, to confront these groups in power like the unions mentioned (as is the case with the oligopolistic businessmen) without having a clear majority. Whether it is through votes (which hasn't happened since 1997) or through stable political alliances (something that we've never seen in Mexico).