The momentum of striking teachers in Mexico showed no signs of abating on Wednesday, as 12 thousand teachers retook the streets of Mexico City, continuing their struggle against what they see as education privatization.
The demonstration, during which "anti-riot police fortified the area" around the presidential residence, comes a day after Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto enacted an education reform package that has been met with weeks of protests and encampments in the central square.
The Associated Press reports that Wednesday's action was the 14th time in two months that the teachers brought the city's center to a halt.
Protests were also held in other states including Oaxaca, where, Agence France-Presse notes, teachers say
the national test fails to take into account the fact that many work in rural and mountain classrooms in indigenous villages where standards must adapt to children who learn native languages before Spanish.
As we reported earlier, the reform
would wrest hiring and firing powers away from unions and impose mandatory evaluative tests on education workers. Teachers and their allies are slamming the 'reforms' as a ploy to blame teachers for Mexico's education shortcomings, rather than look to the severe under-funding and privatization of education that devastate school systems, particularly in poor areas.
Uprising radio adds that
Nieto's reforms are intended to address corruption and how people obtain teaching positions but it also pushes forth a more privatized educational agenda including establishing teacher evaluations through standardized testing - something US educators are quite familiar with.
* * *
For more on the teachers' strike, see the video below from The Real News Network:
Tens of Thousands March Against Mexico School PrivatizationTeachers blockade downtown Mexico City to protest education reforms they say is harmful to public schools See more videos: ...
The momentum of striking teachers in Mexico showed no signs of abating on Wednesday, as 12 thousand teachers retook the streets of Mexico City, continuing their struggle against what they see as education privatization.
The demonstration, during which "anti-riot police fortified the area" around the presidential residence, comes a day after Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto enacted an education reform package that has been met with weeks of protests and encampments in the central square.
The Associated Press reports that Wednesday's action was the 14th time in two months that the teachers brought the city's center to a halt.
Protests were also held in other states including Oaxaca, where, Agence France-Presse notes, teachers say
the national test fails to take into account the fact that many work in rural and mountain classrooms in indigenous villages where standards must adapt to children who learn native languages before Spanish.
As we reported earlier, the reform
would wrest hiring and firing powers away from unions and impose mandatory evaluative tests on education workers. Teachers and their allies are slamming the 'reforms' as a ploy to blame teachers for Mexico's education shortcomings, rather than look to the severe under-funding and privatization of education that devastate school systems, particularly in poor areas.
Uprising radio adds that
Nieto's reforms are intended to address corruption and how people obtain teaching positions but it also pushes forth a more privatized educational agenda including establishing teacher evaluations through standardized testing - something US educators are quite familiar with.
* * *
For more on the teachers' strike, see the video below from The Real News Network:
Tens of Thousands March Against Mexico School PrivatizationTeachers blockade downtown Mexico City to protest education reforms they say is harmful to public schools See more videos: ...
The momentum of striking teachers in Mexico showed no signs of abating on Wednesday, as 12 thousand teachers retook the streets of Mexico City, continuing their struggle against what they see as education privatization.
The demonstration, during which "anti-riot police fortified the area" around the presidential residence, comes a day after Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto enacted an education reform package that has been met with weeks of protests and encampments in the central square.
The Associated Press reports that Wednesday's action was the 14th time in two months that the teachers brought the city's center to a halt.
Protests were also held in other states including Oaxaca, where, Agence France-Presse notes, teachers say
the national test fails to take into account the fact that many work in rural and mountain classrooms in indigenous villages where standards must adapt to children who learn native languages before Spanish.
As we reported earlier, the reform
would wrest hiring and firing powers away from unions and impose mandatory evaluative tests on education workers. Teachers and their allies are slamming the 'reforms' as a ploy to blame teachers for Mexico's education shortcomings, rather than look to the severe under-funding and privatization of education that devastate school systems, particularly in poor areas.
Uprising radio adds that
Nieto's reforms are intended to address corruption and how people obtain teaching positions but it also pushes forth a more privatized educational agenda including establishing teacher evaluations through standardized testing - something US educators are quite familiar with.
* * *
For more on the teachers' strike, see the video below from The Real News Network:
Tens of Thousands March Against Mexico School PrivatizationTeachers blockade downtown Mexico City to protest education reforms they say is harmful to public schools See more videos: ...