"Extortion Allegation Rocks Head of Teacher Union in Mexico"

[WhiskeyGirl]

Elba Esther Gordillo is probably Mexico's most powerful woman, president of the nation's biggest union...

She's fighting allegations from a former ally that she tried to extort nearly $2 million a month from a federal agency in a scandal that has raised questions about how far reform has taken root in Mexico following the 2000 ouster of the long-ruling Institutional Revolution Party, or PRI.

Where does the money come from?

The accusation hurled by the former head of Mexico's social security system for government workers...Miguel Angel Yunes said Tuesday that Gordillo had met with him at a San Diego hotel in 2007 and demanded his agency give 20 million pesos ($1.7 million) a month to finance activities of a new political party created by her allies.

Critics accused her of amassing more than a dozen properties with millions of dollars. She has acknowledge some of the wealth, saying part was inherited. The newspaper Reforma last week analyzed one of her outfits, noting she was carrying a $5,500 purse and wearing $1,200 shoes.

I've seen Michelle Obama's fashion analysis too...

read more here - http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/07/07/extortion-allegation-rocks-head-teachers-union-in-mexico/

Wow.  Can you imagine the teachers unions running the US Social Security system?

Our education system?

Maybe this is what has contributed to corruption in Mexico?

[WhiskeyGirl]

"Around the month of February 2007, on one occasion she invited me to a meeting in San Diego at a hotel near her residence ... She asked that monthly I give 20 million pesos to finance the activities of New Alliance," Yunes said at a news conference. "Obviously, I said 'no.'"

read more here - http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/07/07/business-financial-impact-lt-mexico-gordillo-scandal_8553061.html

This lady lives in California?  San Diego?  She doesn't even live in Mexico?  Is she one of those million dollar visa holders?

How much business do Mexican politicians and government employees do in the US?

Why doesn't she live in Mexico?

[WhiskeyGirl]

"Mexico Lowers the Bar on Education"

It’s a common challenge in all of Latin America: run-down public school systems are insufficient, inadequate and outdated...

Unfortunately, the Ministry of Education (SEP) continues taking one step forward and two steps back in this regard, mainly hindered by its inability to negotiate with the ever-combatant teacher’s union (Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación, or SNTE) which has become a mob of ramblers who’ve taken education hostage.

...This year the Ministry of Education and the SNTE (led by Elba Esther Gordillo) declared that candidates will be eligible to become teachers if they pass a meager 30 percent of questions on the Examen Nacional de Habilidades y Conocimientos Docentes (National Test on Teaching Skills and Knowledge).

On the one hand, candidates are not screened from criminal records. The only documentation requested for eligibility is their university title or proof of having taken a final professional exam (depending on the grade they aspire to teach), their voter card, the CURP (a registry number), and completion of a couple of forms...

It is no wonder that regardless of the amount of money being poured into education (and seeped through corruption into the unions), our students are less and less prepared for the challenges of tomorrow.   

Sound familiar?

read more here - http://www.americasquarterly.org/node/2606