Grading Education

The Mexican Competitiveness Institute has come out with a report in which it gives the nation's system of primary and secondary education a 65 out of 100. The authors concluded that the main cause of the low grade was the poor quality of teachers, and could not be resolved by just throwing more money at the problem. The report also compared the per-student spending in different states, which revealed enormous variation: in Baja California Sur, Campeche, and Colima, the state spends a little less than $100 per student per year, while in Mexico state the figure is almost 12 times that. For students who attend what the report calls the elite 2 percent of private schools, the annual fee ranges from about $2,000 to $13,000 a year. The reports also recommended that Mexican parents check the quality of their children's school at the website www.comparatuescuela.org.