Andres Oppenheimer
This may turn out to be a historic week for
The amendment was signed Monday after being approved by
But judging from what I saw during a visit to
Among other things, the amendment establishes mandatory teacher evaluations and requires that hiring and the promotion and merit pay of teachers be subject to evaluation scores. It also allows schools to fire under-performing teachers, something that has been strongly resisted by the union.
Until now, Gordillo's 1.7 million-member union has pretty much decided who gets hired as a teacher, and who gets promoted. Thanks to the union's political power - it even has a political party with senators and congressmen - teachers in
This had led to declining education standards and corruption. In voluntary evaluation tests performed in recent years, more than half of
As a result of this perverse education system,
When I asked the president's chief of staff,
Nuno said that it's in the government's interest that the education reform be fully enforced, because that will allow
"If you pass an effective reform, you are politically stronger to pass the next reform," Nuno said.
Asked about Gordillo's arrest,
My opinion: While Gordillo's arrest made the biggest headlines by far, the most important test for
It won't be a matter of firing hundreds of thousands of teachers who get bad evaluations. The teachers' union rightly states that bad teachers deserve to be trained, and that they deserve a second - and perhaps third - chance to get tested. But if this process is allowed to stretch over 10 years, or be open-ended, as the teachers' union wants,
The real battle for
- Latin America's Fastest-Growing Economies
- A Post-Castro Era Looms for Cuba
- It's Time to Delist Cuba
- Evolving United States - Mexico Relations
- Mexico's Drug War: Balkanization Leads to Regional Challenges
- Venezuela's Maduro Off to a Bad Start
- Venezuelan Opposition Leader Gains New Political Clout
- Venezuela's Maduro Hurts his Own Case
- Venezuela Lags Behind in Social Gains
- Argentine President May Be Hurt by 'Francismania'
- A Guatemalan Tyrant Faces Justice at Last
- The Free Market Experiment in Latin America
- Surprise! Mexico Backs Human Rights Cause!
- The Deal That America and Russia Must Make Following Chavez's Death
- Venezuela Election: David vs Goliath Contest
- Venezuelan Elections: Rehabilitated Neoliberalism vs 21st Century Socialism
- Chavez: American Nemesis, Latin American Hero
- Open Letter to The Economist - RE: 'Hugo Chavez's Rotten Legacy'
- Argentine Pope Could Impact Politics in Latin America
- Argentina Shoots Itself in the Foot Over Falkland/Malvinas Islands
- Brazil Should Stop Being Self-Absorbed Giant
- Mexico's Education Reform May Prove Historic
- Everybody is Upbeat on Mexico — Except Mexicans
- NAFTA at 20: The New Spin
- Venezuela Vice President Maduro Will Raise Anti-American Rhetoric - For Now
- Chavez's Populism will Remain Popular for Decades
- Ecuador, The Dictatorship of the 21st Century?
- With Chavez Absent, Venezuela is in Limbo
- United States - Europe Deal Will Impact Latin America
- Latin America's Corruption Starts at Top
- Argentina-Iran Deal Makes a Mockery of Justice
- Haiti's Man-Made Hell
- Salvadoran Gang Leaders Achieve a Measure of Redemption
- Latin America Should Not Be an Asterisk
- Militarizing Latin America: Four More Years
- Latin America's New Leader: Raul Castro
- The Falklands Referendum: A Hemispheric Balancing Act
- Argentina's Leader Populist, But No Longer Popular
- Mexico's Cartels and the Economics of Cocaine
- Super-Rich Pay Lower Taxes in Latin America
(c) 2013 Tribune Media Services, Inc.