Gordillo flexes her powers
Elba Esther Gordillo, the powerful leader of the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (SNTE), demanded in mid-April that teachers should be taxed differently from other public sector workers.
It is a sign of her considerable political clout and that of the SNTE that the government, in the form of the education ministry, the Secretaría de Educación Pública, gave careful consideration to this idea. Gordillo is huge influential. The SNTE, rather than teachers, municipal or federal officials, runs schools in Mexico. The result of this has been that Mexican children have some of the lowest educational attainments in the world and Mexican teachers are among the best paid (relative to average national earnings) in the world. Mexico's comparatively low educational standards is handicapping the economy, economists argue.
On reason why educational standards in Mexico are so low is that teachers are not set targets. It is worth noting that while the SNTE was demanding special tax treatment for its members, the teachers' union in the state of New York was discussing whether to link contracts for teachers to the exam results of their pupils.
In Mexico there is no link between what teachers get paid and the results their pupils obtain. There are also no comparative rankings between schools to help parents determine whether the school their children attend is better or worse than any other.
Gordillo has run the SNTE for most of the past 20 years. She decides everything from which version of Mexican history should be taught in schools to the role of the Roman Catholic church in education. At the beginning of April she came out very strongly against any idea that Roman Catholic priests could provide religious education in state schools. She argued that religious education should be a private matter and that if a parent thought it was important they could send a child to a private school. She pointed out that secular public education was specified by the third article in the constitution.
Besides controlling the SNTE, Gordillo also heads the Partido Nueva Alianza (Panal) which has nine seats in congress. Gordillo rules the Panal as imperiously as she controls the SNTE. She claims, with some justification, that her intervention was decisive in the 2006 presidential election won by Felipe Calderón Hinojosa. Gordillo split the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), where she had been number two.
In mid April, Gordillo decided that the Panal needed a shake-up. So out went the party president and leader of the group in congress, Miguel Angel Jiménez Godínez. He was replaced, on Gordillo's instructions, by Silvia Luna Rodríguez.
The nine Panal congressmen divide into two groups. One is formed of former SNTE officials; the other of former members of the PRI. Jiménez was a priístas and Godínez is a former SNTE official. One of the Panal deputies, technically a former priístas is one of Gordillo's two daughters, Mónica Arriola Gordillo.
It is worth noting that President Calderón appointed Josefina Vázquez Mota, of one the most effective members of his campaign team, to the crucial education portfolio. She has yet to confront Gordillo.