(en) Anarkismo.net: Under Attack, Mexico?s Teachers Fight Back Against Neoliberal ?Reforms? by Scott Campbell

Along with attacks from the police, the teachers have been under siege from all sides.
With the state pushing reform forward, the National Representative Assembly of the CNTE 
decided to call off the beginning of the school year and declared an indefinite work 
stoppage starting on August 19. They called for a massive convergence in the Z?calo and 
for more than three weeks, over 40,000 teachers from all corners of Mexico have reinforced 
the encampment, turning the Z?calo into a tent and tarp city. ---- On December 1, 2012, 
while protests were being brutally repressed in the streets, Enrique Pe?a Nieto addressed 
Mexico for the first time as the country?s newly-anointed president. He outlined the five 
main goals of his administration and announced ten ?presidential decisions? to achieve them.
 
To reach his third goal of ?quality education for all,? Pe?a Nieto stated he had decided 
to pursue a program of educational reform requiring the modification of the constitution 
and the establishment of a national evaluation system for teachers. And in doing so, Pe?a 
Nieto ? the Butcher of Atenco and the signed, sealed and delivered choice of the ruling 
elite ? made clear his intention to target education and take on Latin America?s largest 
union, the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE).
 
He wasted no time in getting to work. The following day, the heads of the three main 
political parties signed the ?Pact for Mexico,? a document committing them to Pe?a Nieto?s 
five goals. With such backing, Pe?a Nieto?s proposed changes to the constitution easily 
passed both houses of Congress and were quickly approved by a majority of state 
legislatures. On February 26, 2013, the constitutional reforms related to education went 
into effect.
 
Full implementation of the reforms required the passage of three regulatory laws, which 
Pe?a Nieto sent to Congress on August 14. While opposition to the reform was immediate, 
the impending start of the school year, along with the introduction of the laws, kicked 
the resistance into high gear. The struggle was and is led by the National Coordinating 
Committee of Education Workers (CNTE), a democratic formation within the markedly 
anti-democratic, corporatist and corrupt SNTE.
 
Since the announcement of the educational reform, the CNTE has organized marches, strikes, 
and meetings with government officials, presented alternative models to the proposed 
reform, and undertaken educational efforts to inform parents and the public in general 
about the repercussions of the reform. On April 19, teachers from the CNTE established an 
encampment in the Z?calo, the main plaza in Mexico City. With the state pushing the reform 
forward, the National Representative Assembly of the CNTE decided to call off the 
beginning of the school year and declared an indefinite work stoppage starting on August 
19. They called for a massive convergence in the Z?calo and for more than three weeks, 
over 40,000 teachers from all corners of Mexico have reinforced the encampment, turning 
the Z?calo into a tent and tarp city. In an assembly on September 7, teachers from 25 
states (out of 31, plus the Federal District) and 37 SNTE branches (out of 59), joined by 
55 civil society organizations, announced their united opposition to the educational 
reform and their plan to amplify the scope of the struggle.
 
The neoliberalization of education
 
The attack on education did not begin with Pe?a Nieto. In recent years, Mexico?s teachers 
have seen the imposition of a nationwide standardized test, ENLACE; reforms to privatize 
and reduce the benefits available to teachers and other federal employees through the 
Institute for Social Security and Services for State Workers (ISSSTE); and, an attempt by 
previous president Felipe Calder?n and SNTE boss Elba Esther Gordillo (now in prison for 
corruption) to exert more federal control over teachers through the Alliance for Quality 
Education (ACE) scheme.
 
The basis for Pe?a Nieto?s reforms can be found in a 2010 agreement Mexico signed with the 
neoliberal Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which in part 
stated, ?Mexico urgently needs a standards-based teacher evaluation system?to reward 
excellent teachers or support lower-performing teachers. Teachers who permanently display 
a low level of performance should be excluded from the education system.?
 
Publicly supported in his efforts by pro-business lobbying groups such as Mexicanos 
Primero and the Employers Confederation of the Mexican Republic (COPARMEX), Pe?a Nieto set 
out to implement the OECD agreement and then some.
 
The constitutional modifications and regulatory laws change Articles 3 and 73 of Mexico?s 
Constitution. Together, they create a standardized system of teacher evaluation, as well 
as granting schools ?autonomy? ? that is, autonomy to raise funds from the private sector 
? in other words, to become privatized.
 
A standardized evaluation system that is imposed from above without the input of teachers, 
yet at the same time placing the fault for low scores solely on teachers? shoulders, is 
extremely problematic. The attempt to create a monocultural, one-size-fits-all education 
system that produces a certain type of student, as Gallo T?enek notes, ?doesn?t, knowing 
the cultural diversity that exists, take into account the reality and local conditions of 
each of the regions, municipalities, communities and states in the country, as well as the 
inequality and poverty that prevail throughout the nation ? for example, in regions of 
Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guerrero, contrary to the better conditions that exist in cities such as 
Monterrey, Guadalajara and the Federal District.?
 
The second major aspect of the reform, making schools ?autonomous,? opens up each school 
to be directly influenced by capital. As CNTE Section 22 from Oaxaca explains in a letter 
to parents, ?Parents will have to pay for the education of their children, since the 
federal government has disowned its responsibility to maintain schools, meaning it will 
not send funds to build, equip or provide teaching materials for schools. It also clearly 
states that parents and teachers will manage the financial resources to maintain the 
operation of the schools, which will lead to the establishment of compulsory monthly, 
bimonthly, or semiannual fees.?
 
By forcing schools to continually fundraise in order to exist, CNTE Section 9 points out 
that the legislation ?opens the door for, in the name of autonomy, and with the pretext of 
involving parents in the management and maintenance of the schools, the de facto 
legalization of fees, allowing the entrance of businesses into schools and turning the 
constitutional provision guaranteeing free public education into a dead letter. This has a 
name: privatization.?
The teachers fight back
 
Given the broadside attack on education, it is no wonder teachers have mobilized in such 
numbers. As Lev Moujahid Vel?zquez Barriga, a teacher from Michoac?n who even in 2002 was 
teaching students under a tree as there was no classroom, told Contral?nea, ?If we aren?t 
here, in the future the children aren?t even going to have a school or a place to study.?
 
The teachers and their supporters have organized daily marches from their encampment in 
the Z?calo. Carolina previously reported for El Enemigo Com?n, ?Since they set up camp in 
the Z?calo, they?ve held marches and protests, encircled the national House of 
Representatives and Senate, blocked the highway to the Mexico City Airport, made ?courtesy 
calls? to Televisa and TV Azteca, cordoned off the Public Education Department, carried 
out a megamarch to Los Pinos (the Mexican White House), joined a multitudinous march 
against the energy reforms, and despite extreme harassment, encirclement and armed 
violence by the Mexico City riot police, marched on the federal Congress at San L?zaro on 
September 1.?
 
Along with attacks from the police, the teachers have been under siege from all sides. The 
corporate media have embarked on a ?satanization campaign,? relentlessly painting the 
teachers as violent, lazy, greedy vandals responsible for generating chaos in Mexico City 
and holding the nation?s children hostage. Congresspeople have called for investigations 
into the CNTE, claiming that outside groups are funding the encampment in order to foment 
rebellion. Their own union ? loyal to power, not its members ? has been calling for them 
to return to work, while SNTE President Juan D?az de la Torre tours the country extolling 
the educational reform and the SNTE website lauds the plan.
 
Realizing what is at stake, the teachers have not been moved. In recent days they have 
carried out several massive marches. On September 1, as noted above, teachers and their 
supporters marched on Congress, forcing Pe?a Nieto, who was due to give his first State of 
the Union address there, to delay it until September 2 and deliver it from Los Pinos. The 
September 1 action saw clashes and police violence, with over 20 people arbitrarily 
arrested, including three independent journalists. All but seven were promptly released, 
and after paying exorbitant bails of 126,000 to 135,000 pesos each, all are now free, but 
still facing a litany of trumped-up charges.
 
Large marches also occurred on September 4, 5 and 8. On September 10, Pe?a Nieto signed 
the three regulatory laws, completing the legal process of his education reform. 
Unwavering, the teachers moved forward with the previously announced national general 
strike on September 11. Marches and other actions took place in at least 23 states. In 
Mexico City, tens of thousands of teachers and supporters took the streets. For hours they 
blocked major roads such as the Paseo de la Reforma and the Circuito Interior. Clashes 
with the police occurred on numerous occasions, with police beating, kicking and spraying 
fire extinguishers at protesters. At least 12 protesters were injured by the police violence.
 
On September 12, the negotiating committee of the CNTE met with Interior Minister Miguel 
?ngel Osorio Chong, netting no results. The CNTE demanded a meeting with Pe?a Nieto and 
for a detailed analysis of the impact of the educational reform to be carried out. Osorio 
Chong asked for the teachers to leave the Z?calo before the Independence Day celebrations 
on September 15 and 16. With reports of a joint military and police plan to remove the 
teachers? encampment by force before September 15, the CNTE has announced it will decide 
its next moves through national and state assemblies.
 
Pe?a Nieto, with the collaboration of the media, the corporate class and the main 
political parties, may have been able to move his educational reform package through the 
legislative process with relative ease. Yet, when it comes to implementation, that is 
another matter. CNTE Section 18 from Michoac?n, which has 12,000 teachers in the Z?calo, 
has already announced its intention to ignore the reform. In the face of unceasing attacks 
and pressure, the teachers continue to steadfastly reject the latest neoliberal offensive 
against Mexico?s education system.
 
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/26192
 
Link esterno:
http://elenemigocomun.net/2013/09/mexico-teachers-neoliberal-reform/