Sản phẩm gia dụng Việt: Mexicos

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Thứ Năm, 9 tháng 5, 2013

Vatican cardinal says Mexico's folk Death Saint is blasphemous, decries its worship by gangs

MEXICO CITY - The Vatican's culture minister says Mexico's folk Death Saint is a blasphemous symbol that shouldn't be part of any religion.

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi says worshipping such an icon is a degeneration of religion.

The Santa Muerte is a skeletal figure of a cloaked woman with a scythe in her bony hand. It is worshipped both by drug dealers in Mexico and by the terrified people who live in drug-torn neighbourhoods.

Ravasi spoke Wednesday at a dialogue among believers and nonbelievers in Mexico City as part of the Vatican's "Courtyard of the Gentiles." The program was started in 2009 by Pope Benedict XVI, who said the Roman Catholic Church should hold such meetings so nonbelievers could get to know God.

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Thứ Hai, 4 tháng 3, 2013

Test the teacher? Educators balk at Mexico's reforms

Imagine a school where a teacher who doesn’t show up for class, or doesn’t hold a degree, or fails or refuses a mandatory evaluation can’t be fired. Imagine a school that routinely hires and promotes teachers on the basis of favors rather than merit.

Those are some of the practices Mexico hopes to change with an education reform that took effect this week – a reform staunchly opposed by the powerful teachers’ union, but one supporters say could greatly improve the competitiveness of schools and boost Mexico’s place in the global economy.

“Education is a great engine of transformation, social mobility, competitiveness, productivity, and social development,” says Monica Tapia of the Citizen Coalition for Education, a nonprofit dedicated to reforming the system. “Mexico spends so many of its resources on education. But we’re not achieving learning.”

The reform strips the education union – arguably the most powerful in Latin America – of its influence over the hiring of teachers. It provides for a system of merit-based pay and promotions, subjects Mexico’s estimated 1 million teachers to evaluations, and requires exams of those entering the profession. All with greater oversight by the federal government.

Although the union has threatened to fight any legislation that puts teachers’ tenure at risk, its most vocal critic was abruptly silenced this week – at least temporarily – when, a day after the reform took effect, the government arrested union leader Elba Esther Gordillo on charges of embezzlement.

The reform doesn’t specify how teachers will be evaluated, or what the incentives or consequences might be. That will be up to an independent institution to decide after additional legislation is put in place.

“We know from our experience in the US that [evaluations are] rife with challenges and easier said than done,” says Lucrecia Santibañez, an education researcher with the RAND Center for Latin American Social Policy. “Everything hinges on those evaluations. If they end up being unreliable, low stakes, then it’s going to be a great missed opportunity to effect some change.”

LOW RETURN ON INVESTMENT

Mexico spends a greater percentage of its budget on education than any other country in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and it has achieved nearly universal basic education. Yet across numerous metrics, Mexico gets a failing grade.

Fewer than half of students finish high school here. Mexico’s graduation rates are among the lowest of the OECD, and it falls behind Brazil and Chile.

Mexican students lag in math, science, and critical reading skills. In an international test of math skills – considered an indicator of a country’s higher skilled talent base – more than 25 percent of Korean students tested “advanced,” as did 18 percent of Canadian students and 10 percent of US students. Fewer than 1 percent of Mexican students ranked at the advanced level.

The importance of these performance indicators are heightened as Mexico strives to achieve greater economic growth, especially in industries such as aerospace and information technology, and to reduce glaring inequality.

Aptitude statistics among teachers are equally weak. Eight in 10 teachers who took a non-mandatory 2008 evaluation exam didn’t pass, according to Mexicanos Primero, a nongovernmental organization advocating teacher evaluations and education reform.

In Mexico, just 16 percent of teachers earn their position competitively. The rest obtain a teaching plaza by a variety of means – “inheriting” it from a retiring friend or relative, obtaining it from the union, paying for it, or entering the profession by means of a guaranteed post upon exiting a teacher’s school.

The vast majority of Mexico’s education budget pays teachers’ salaries – but historically the state has had minimal control over their management. The new adherence to evaluations could put that power back in the government’s hands.

THE TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVE

But teachers worry that a standardized test won’t accurately measure their ability in the classroom. It's an argument that echoes opponents of similar standardized testing efforts in the United States, especially those linking students' exam performance to teacher incentives.

Mariana del Rocío Aguilar Bobadilla, director of a Mexico City campus of the National Pedagogic University, notes that teachers in Mexico frequently work in diverse contexts. This includes city teachers contending with overcrowded classrooms, and rural teachers instructing multiple grades at one time.

Many teachers are open to evaluations if they are used to point out areas of weakness to work on – but they’re against any single exam that could make or break their career.

There is a lot on the line for them: Teaching can be a cushy job in Mexico, thanks to the powerful union to which the vast majority of teachers belong. Although starting wages are low, teachers in Mexico can earn a solidly middle class salary, between $1,000 and $2,000 per month; in some states, end-of-year bonuses amount to nearly half a salary. Many work just five-hour school days.

Proponents of these new regulations say they hope that at the very least they will rid the country of the practice of "phantom" teachers – people who may be collecting a salary but who never set foot in a classroom.

Ms. Aguilar Bobadilla notes that some 75 percent of teachers already participate in a voluntary program that ties some pay incentives to evaluations; she is critical of the fact that the government rarely consults teachers on the reforms that will affect them profoundly.

“We agree in that we want to see better results,” she says. “But perhaps we don’t coincide on which paths to take to get there.”

A BETTER LIFE?

The prevailing belief among parents, society, and in government is that education will afford children a better life in the future. But in Mexico, is it true?

In Mexico, unemployment rates increase with greater education, according to a 2012 OECD study. College-educated Mexicans were more frequently unemployed than those with a primary or secondary education, which suggests that the labor market still overwhelming requires low-wage workers. Although Mexico is currently graduating more engineers than ever, that pattern has held steady for a decade.

Mexico now has a unique opportunity to reflect on the kind of education system the country needs for the future – and a chance to bring together teachers and society into a common dialogue, says Felipe Hevia, a professor studying the issue of education at the Veracruz-based research center CIESAS-Golfo.

“The reform opens the door to discussion,” Mr. Hevia says, “And it foments the possibility that if we really think it through, we have a chance as a society to decide what type of education we want. It’s an opportunity to break down the fight between society and teachers.”

Thứ Sáu, 1 tháng 3, 2013

Head of Mexico's powerful teachers' union jailed

MEXICO CITY (AP) — One of Mexico's biggest political kingfish sits in a women's prison in the capital, accused of embezzling millions in funds from her teachers' union to pay for property, private planes, plastic surgery and her Neiman Marcus bill.

Elba Esther Gordillo, 68, leader of the 1.5 million-member National Union of Education Workers, was arrested late Tuesday afternoon as she landed at the Toluca airport near Mexico City on a private flight from San Diego. Assistant Attorney General Alfredo Castillo told the Televisa network that she was taken off the plane and flown by authorities to Mexico City.

Upon arrival in Mexico's capital, she asked to see a doctor then was taken in a caravan of Federal Police and Marine vehicles to Santa Martha Acatitla prison, Televisa reported.

The fall of one of the country's most storied and divisive characters — unthinkable just months ago — comes with the return to power of Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party, which previously ruled for 71 years and once helped Gordillo consolidate her power. She was arrested one day after President Enrique Pena Nieto signed into law a comprehensive education reform designed to dismantle a system she controlled.

Union members had been marching in the streets against the reform in recent weeks, and the fiery Gordillo, who rose from school teacher to a maker of presidents, vowed to keep fighting.

"I want to die with the epitaph: Here lies a warrior. She died like a warrior," Gordillo said in a speech on her 68th birthday earlier this month.

She has not spoken or appeared publicly since her arrest.

In a press conference minutes after her detention, Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said Gordillo is accused of embezzling 2 billion pesos (about $160 million) from union funds. Prosecutors said they had detected nearly $3 million in purchases at Neiman Marcus using union funds, as well as $17,000 in U.S. plastic surgery bills and the purchase of a million-dollar home in San Diego.

"We are looking at a case in which the funds of education workers have been illegally misused, for the benefit of several people, among them Elba Esther Gordillo," Murillo said.

Gordillo displayed her opulence openly with designer clothes and bags, bodyguards, expensive cars and properties including a penthouse apartment in Mexico City's exclusive Polanco neighborhood. She has been widely lampooned for her many plastic surgeries and depicted in political cartoons as ghoulish. Meanwhile, Mexico's teachers are poorly paid and public education has long been considered sub-par.

Murillo said authorities were expecting her return for a union national congress starting Wednesday in Guadalajara. Union leaders already gathered there late Tuesday were meeting to decide how to respond, according to a union spokeswoman who was not authorized to speak by name.

The investigation started in December, just after Pena Nieto took office, after Santander Bank alerted authorities to bank transfers in billions of pesos, according to the attorney general.

At the news conference, Castillo displayed a series of charts that resembled battle plans, with dozens arrows detailing the alleged flow of illicit transfers from teachers' union accounts to the personal accounts of three union workers who were not authorized to deal with finances — Nora Guadalupe Ugarte Ramirez, Isaias Gallardo Chavez and Jose Manuel Diaz Flores, as well as a real estate company. Gallardo and Diaz were arrested with Gordillo, Castillo told Televisa.

Some funds eventually ended up in bank accounts in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Castillo said that in one case they transferred $1 million to a Swiss account for a company owned by Gordillo's mother. Those funds were then used to buy a million-dollar house in the island of Coronado in San Diego.

A television interview last week about education reform, the interviewer told Gordillo that she was the most hated woman in Mexico.

"There is no one more loved by their people than I," Gordillo answered. "I care about the teachers. This is a deep and serious dispute about public education."

The reform creates a system of uniform standards for teacher hiring and promotion based on merit instead of union connections. It also allows for the first census of Mexico's education system, which Gordillo's union has largely controlled for decades, allegedly padding the payroll with thousands of phantom teachers.

So great is the union's control that no one knows exactly how many schools, teachers or students exist in Mexico.

For years, she has beaten back attacks from union dissidents, political foes and journalists who have seen her as a symbol of Mexico's corrupt, old-style politics. Rivals have accused her of corruption, misuse of union funds and even a murder, but prosecutors who investigated never brought a charge against her.

She was expelled from Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party in 2006 for supporting other parties' candidates and the formation of her own New Alliance party. Her support was considered key in giving a razor-thin victory to former President Felipe Calderon.

Columnist and political analyst Raymundo Riva Palacio said Gordillo is an experienced political fighter who may have lost the keen sense of political calculation that kept her in power for so many years.

"She lost clarity," Riva Palacio said. "Having so much to lose on the issue on which they finally got her, the money, she calculated badly."

Gordillo's arrest recalled the 1989 arrest of another once-feared union boss, Joaquin Hernandez Galicia, known as "La Quina." The longtime head of Mexico's powerful oil workers union, Hernandez Galicia was arrested during the first months of the new administration of then-President Carlos Salinas.

In 1988, he criticized Salinas' presidential candidacy and threatened an oil workers' strike if Salinas privatized any part of the government oil monopoly, Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex. On Jan. 10, 1989, — about a month after Salinas took office — soldiers used a bazooka to blow down the door of Hernandez' home in the Gulf Coast city of Ciudad Madero.

Like Gordillo, Hernandez Galicia's power was believed to represent a challenge to the president, and his arrest was interpreted as an assertion of the president's authority. He was freed from prison after Salinas left office.

Murillo denied that Gordillo's arrest was politically motivated and said it could not be compared to Hernandez's case.

"This was a very clear investigation and we will have more of them," he said.

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Associated Press writers Mark Stevenson and Adriana Gomez Licon contributed to this report.

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Thứ Ba, 26 tháng 2, 2013

Head of Mexico's powerful teachers' union arrested

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The head of Mexico's powerful teachers' union was arrested at an airport outside Mexico City Tuesday for alleged embezzlement, with federal officials accusing her using union funds to pay for plastic surgery, rent a private plane and even pay her bill at Neiman Marcus.

Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said that Elba Esther Gordillo, who has led the 1.5 million-member National Union of Education Workers for 23 years, was detained in Toluca on charges that she embezzled about 2 billion pesos (about $160 million) from union funds.

Gordillo's arrest marks the downfall of a colorful woman long seen as a kingmaker and power-behind-the-scenes in Mexican politics. It comes a day after President Enrique Pena Nieto signed Mexico's most sweeping education reform in seven decades into law, seeking to change a system dominated by Gordillo in which teaching positions could be sold or inherited.

"We are looking at a case in which the funds of education workers have been illegally misused, for the benefit of several people, among them Elba Esther Gordillo," Murillo Karam said.

Prosecutors say the funds were drained from union accounts and later channeled through accounts in Switzerland and Lichtenstein. They said they had detected a whopping $2.7 million in purchases at Neiman Marcus using those funds, as well as $17,000 in U.S. plastic surgery bills and the purchase of a million-dollar home in San Diego.

"Between 2008 and 2012, there was systematic embezzlement of union accounts," Murillo Karam said.

Gordillo made little attempt to hide her extravagant, opulent lifestyle with designer clothing and accessories, a habit that drew heated criticism in a country where public

The overhaul of Mexico's education system was Pena Nieto's first major proposal since taking office Dec. 1 and was considered a political blow to Gordillo.

The plan moves much of the control of the education system to the federal government from the teachers' union. Gordillo was elected to another six-year term as union leader in October. She was the only candidate and there was not a single dissenting vote.

She was expelled from Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party in 2006 for supporting other parties' candidates and the formation of her own New Alliance party.

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Head of Mexico's powerful teachers' union detained

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Federal officials say the head of Mexico's powerful teachers' union has been detained for alleged embezzlement.

Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam says Elba Esther Gordillo was detained at an airport in Toluca outside Mexico city on Tuesday on charges that she embezzled about 2 billion pesos ($156 million) from union funds.

He said in a press conference that Gordillo allegedly used the funds to pay for plastic surgery, her credit card bill from Neiman Marcus, purchase a private airplane and buy a house in San Diego.

Gordillo has led the 1.5 million-member National Union of Education Workers for 23 years. She was elected to another six-year term as union leader in October. She was the only candidate and there was not a single dissenting vote.

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