A Union's Grip Stifles Learning

Several other teachers also described similar practices involving hiring and placement. They said local union leaders also sometimes take a cut when they sell a teacher's job, much like a real estate agent does when matching buyers and sellers.

Teachers are not particularly well paid; they receive $500 to $700 a month depending on years of service. But the jobs are sought after because the pay comes year-round for a school year of 200 days, with good medical benefits, year-end bonuses, the flexibility to hold other jobs and the resale value of the teaching position.

Ochoa Guzman, the union leader, said the union did not sanction the sale of jobs and had urged teachers to report the practice. He recalled being shocked when he saw a newspaper advertisement offering to sell a teaching position to the highest bidder. "It was so bold," he said. "Anyone who saw the newspaper could imagine that it's legal or authorized, when it is not."

Sylvia Schmelkes, a top Education Ministry official in the Fox administration, was blunt: "The union is a business for selling jobs. The inherited jobs open the possibility that those who get them are not good teachers."

Classroom as Sacred Niche

The union is currently opposing a major overhaul of the middle school curriculum. Lorenzo Gomez-Morin Fuentes, assistant secretary of education, said the curriculum was established more than 80 years ago and desperately needed modernizing. The change was intended to focus on teaching fewer subjects in more depth, he said, to prepare students "according to the needs of this century."

But the union has objected to the proposed curriculum change, saying it was done "unilaterally." Many observers said that the union rejection meant it could probably use its political clout to kill the initiative.

Analysts noted that while top Education Ministry officials come and go with changing administrations, the union's leadership and vast network of connections remain more constant. Atanasio Garcia Duran, a union leader in Veracruz and a rare internal critic, said the union's power comes from "a network of complicity" that developed during the PRI era between union officials and state and federal education officials. Principals, area supervisors and school inspectors frequently do not report teacher problems, he said.

Gomez-Morin, the Fox administration official, said that during the PRI era a "very closed" education system developed. One thing the Fox administration is trying to do is open up classrooms to parents, he said, but the union is "uncomfortable with parents watching."

Daniel Dominguez Aguilar, the leader of a small independent union at a teachers college in Jalapa, in Veracruz state, said, "The classroom has historically been the sacred niche of the teacher." And that has thwarted efforts to evaluate teachers in the classroom and to do research on how often teachers are absent or tardy, he said.

Internal Divisions

Many union members said their union is in transition, if not crisis, trying to find its way in a more democratic era. They said some factions are open to reform and transparency, while others cling desperately to the old ways.

But during visits to a dozen schools over the past two years, the union's power was evident in the fears expressed by its members. Public criticism of the union would be professional suicide, many said. Some even spoke in hushed tones and behind closed doors before criticizing the union.

At the middle school where Gonzalez is principal, in this city of 160,000 in Veracruz state, few in the yellow brick schoolhouse, the Technical Secondary School No. 75, were willing to discuss the power of the union. But Gonzalez, who is also a union member, ultimately agreed that the public had a right to know what was going on in the public schools.

Gonzalez said parents and students were so fed up with all the classes missed by Loyda, the math teacher, that they complained to the local newspaper, which published a story earlier this year, bringing rare attention to the absentee issue.

Gonzalez sent a letter to state education officials, outlining the problems with Loyda, which resulted in an undisclosed "economic sanction" against the teacher. Gonzalez said parents didn't believe he would send a letter that complained about a fellow union member. "But I felt it was the right thing to do," Gonzalez said. "Things are changing, but slowly."

Loyda referred all questions to his union representative, Roberto Fonseca, who called the issue "private" and declined to comment.

One of the students in the math class, Mario Alberto Vazquez, 15, and his mother, Maria Candelaria Zaino, said they didn't see the lost semester as a private issue. Zaino, who never learned to read and write, said public school was the only way her son could get ahead. The union "allowed a teacher not to fulfill their duties," which hurt Mario, who hopes to be an engineer, his mother said.

"We have a right to learn," Mario said.

Researcher Bart Beeson in Mexico City contributed to this report.