The head of
the Mexican teachers' union (SNTE), Elba Esther Gordillo, has been arrested for
embezzling over $156 million from union funds, according to a recent BBC report. Gordillo allegedly used the funds
to purchase private property, private planes and plastic surgery.
If the
allegations are true (and there is considerable evidence that they are), this
would be an enormous amount of money stolen from the teachers, who earn less than $20,000 per year, on average. However, the
prosecution of Gordillo probably has little to do with concern for the plight
of the average Mexican teacher, for whom the ruling elite have little
compassion (except possibly a few crocodile tears during election time). Rather, it is a strategic
move meant to neutralize an individual and an organization that have stood in
the way of private financial gain.
Gordillo has
been an outspoken critic of the government’s free market reform agenda, thus
slowing (ever so slightly) the juggernaut of privatization occurring in Mexico, as in public
education systems throughout the world. While Gordillo, like her colleagues in
the U.S. and other countries, has been relatively impotent in this endeavor,
what little efforts she has made are still considered unacceptable to education
profiteers who demand complete unfettered access to education tax dollars. Her arrest is also likely meant to reduce the
political influence of her union (she has repeatedly rallied her 1.5 million
members to vote as a bloc and used their dues in political campaigns), and send
a message to anyone critical of the government’s privatization agenda.
Had the
government truly cared about the wellbeing of its impoverished teachers, it
would have prosecuted Gordillo years ago. Indeed, she had repeatedly been
accused of fraud and embezzlement over the years, but the government chose to
ignore the accusations until now. It is curious that Gordillo was arrested only
one day after the government enacted major new reforms to the education system.
According to
the union, these new reforms could result in mass layoffs and the further
privatization of the Mexican education system. One of the reforms, for example,
will require teachers to undergo regular examinations in order to maintain
their jobs. Considering that many teachers are poorly trained or under qualified,
this clearly could result in massive layoffs.
The new
legislation also strips away union influence over hiring and promotions and
implements merit-based systems for both. According to Reuters, this was intended to halt a corrupt
system in which teaching jobs were passed down through families or sold by the
union, while veteran teachers were getting cushy paid positions within the
union, calling in substitutes to fill in for them in the classroom, and
continuing to receive paychecks for their teaching responsibilities. Gordillo
was quoted by Reuters saying “either the government bureaucracy sells them
[teaching jobs], or my bureaucracy sells them. . . “
The quality
of public education in Mexico is not good. Mexican students perform near the bottom
compared with other OECD nations. Reformers blame union corruption for the
problem and argue that the new legislation will end this corruption, raise the
standards of the teaching profession in Mexico and improve educational outcomes
for students. However, without providing good quality free or inexpensive
teacher training programs, the new legislation will merely throw people out of
work without doing anything to get quality teachers into the classrooms. Furthermore,
as in all merit-based programs, even the well-trained, honest teachers who show
up every day and do an excellent job will be at risk of losing their jobs if
student performance data (which is correlated much more with students’
socioeconomic backgrounds and other outside of school influences than it is
with teacher quality) does not improve sufficiently.
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