The End of Elba?

It does seem that a tipping point has been passed with Elba Esther Gordillo, and a critical mass of outrage capable of driving her from public life has begun to form. (For background on the teachers union leader's recent troubles, read this and this.) The accusations (that she requested cash handouts in exchange for political support) aren't anything too surprising to anyone who's followed her career, but the fact that other public figures are charging her directly, that Calderón is distinguishing between a political alliance of convenience and what she evidently took to be a "license to plunder", that connected columnists like Jorge Zepeda Patterson and Ricardo Alemán are writing columns titled "The end of Gordillo", and that she is being pushed to deny the rumors that she is going to suddenly retire, well, all of that makes you wonder if the end is nigh for La Maestra.

Hopefully, she goes. But I do think there is this tendency to confuse her as an emblem of all that is wrong with Mexican education with her as the actual cause of everything wrong with Mexican education. With regard to the latter, she is not. Educational improvement will be marginally easier with her out of the way, but that will not automatically and immediately transpire as a result of her retirement.