Protesters Could Help the Left in Their Opposition to Mexican School Reform Richard Fausset - The Los Angeles Times
go to original August 31, 2013

Public school teachers march along Paseo de la Reforma, a main artery in the capital, to Los Pinos presidential residence in Mexico City, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013. The sign reads in Spanish "Mexico has no president." (Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images)

Mexico City - The thousands of teachers who have been jamming the streets in this congested capital city for nearly two weeks to protest an education reform package have no immediate plans to leave, and the threat of their continued presence is prompting calls for the government to forcibly move them out.

The teachers, members of the National Coordinator of Education Workers, or CNTE, have been marching daily and blocking major thoroughfares, trying the patience and denting the pocketbooks of residents like Carlos Fabian Manterola, a 41-year-old taxi driver.

If Mexico City’s mayor, Miguel Angel Mancera, were to kick the teachers out, Fabian said Friday, "a lot of us would applaud him. The government leaders, they don’t care. They fly around in helicopters. We’re the ones who suffer."

The government of President Enrique Pena Nieto is hoping to push through the last major element of an education reform in Congress that would subject teachers to evaluations. The teachers oppose this measure and argue, among other things, that the government should spend more generously on underperforming schools.

Read the rest at The Los Angeles Times

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