Education Reform: The US Experience

The regional discussion forums about education reform — agreed to last week by the national coordinator of education workers and the secretary of the interior — began yesterday in Michoacán with the broad rejection by hundreds of teachers of the modifications to Articles 3 and 73 of the constitution. These changes, endorsed by the Mexico Pact, have in recent months caused discontent within magisterial sectors and provoked a worrying political tension, especially in Guerrero, Michoacan and Oaxaca.

The realization of these discussion forums occurs days after a widespread social movement — whose protests lasted months — achieved the cancellation of standardized tests in reading and math in schools in Seattle, the outcomes of which were traditionally used to evaluate the performance of students, teachers and school centers.

The mobilization of teachers, students and parents of families in Seattle forms part of a much larger movement in our neighboring land against education reforms very similar to those that are currently trying to be imposed in Mexico. The tests, based on a reductionist approach, are inappropriate for education and ineffective in eradicating the deeply embedded lags in teaching in the U.S. educational system. This way of determining whether schools “pass” or “fail” has assaulted public schools and favored the creation of business opportunities for individuals. An example is the recent closure of almost 50 schools in marginal zones of Chicago, whose students, the majority African-American and Mexican, will be reassigned to charter schools, which benefit from public funds but are administered by private hands.

Given the evidence that discredits standardized testing evaluation and the movements in their country of origin to replace them, it is incomprehensible that a country like ours would attempt to use the same models, especially when the conditions of social equality, cycles of neglect and state-run educational institutions are more pronounced factors than in the U.S. In Mexico the institutional settings are weaker and more decomposed than those of the northern nation and could easily become a factor of lawlessness and social unrest.

The creation of the discussion forums that began yesterday in Michoacan certainly represents an important change of tone with respect to the one-sidedness of the education reform debate in [the Mexican] Congress. This shows its disposition to at least listen to other points of view, coming from sectors crucial to the reform. But this is not enough. It is also necessary that, within these forums, we develop an honest environment for discussion and are willing to correct errors committed in the recent process of constitutional amendment. We can start with the absurdity of approving a reform that was discussed behind the backs of teachers, as well as the lack of attention to and analysis of the vile statistics that other countries with these policies have produced, before we implement the same in our country.