Education Dissident Marx Arriaga “remains the voice of the state, let’s not be fooled”: Specialists & Teachers

ByAlexia Villaseñor

This article by Alexia Villaseñor originally appeared in the December 30, 2025 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

In response to the call to form committees to defend the New Mexican School (NEM) and Free Textbooks (LTG) made by the Director General of Educational Materials of the Ministry of Public Education (SEP), Marx Arriaga, specialists and teachers pointed out that the official is late to the teachers’ struggle and “presents himself as the champion of the resistance when he has never stood with the rank-and-file teacher; he continues to be the voice of the State, let him not deceive us.”

Brazilian Marxist Paulo Freire, founder of critical pedagogy

A couple of days ago, Arriaga published a statement on his X account arguing that education in the country is being privatized, hence the need to form committees to be a “real counterweight” and thereby “refound the Ministry of Public Education and the National Education System”.

This is not the first time this official has made controversial comments from and against the agency where he has worked since 2021. At the beginning of this month, he criticized the use of educational materials generated in this ministry during previous administrations and called those who recommended them in the bibliography of the new curriculum support booklets for teaching practice “sewers of the SEP” (Ministry of Public Education).

Under his direction, since last year he has been holding meetings in basic education schools called “Study Circles: ‘Freirean Bonfires’”, some of them led by him.

These are collaborative spaces open to schools across the country, “inspired” by the pedagogy of Paulo Freire, so that teachers can critically reflect on their practice and transform their reality in accordance with the New Mexican School, the official explained in a video.

Marx Arriaga Navarro

Teresa Martínez, a professor at the Faculty of Higher Studies Aragón of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), noted that teachers in Mexico have been resisting and fighting for decades. An example of this is the alternative teaching and learning model of the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE), known as the popular educator model, which aims to bring students and the community closer together.

The goal of the popular educator workshops, according to teacher Elvira Veleces, leader of section 14 of Guerrero of the coordinator, is to learn from the teachers themselves, since it is through teaching experience that teaching practices can be improved, she explained in a conference on the subject.

Martínez explained that the rebellion Arriaga is calling for from within the institution “cannot be taken too seriously, since he is part of the government and speaks from a political standpoint that assumes he can transform anything from within the state institution, in this case the SEP (Ministry of Public Education), and that is very difficult.” Furthermore, he added, Arriaga committed “one of the most egregious errors that has been denounced time and again: not asking the teachers, not consulting them about what they want and how it can be done.”

2025 CNTE Occupation of Zócalo in Mexico City

Challenges in the New Mexican School

The academic argued that under this government there has been no improvement in the country’s classrooms or in the working conditions of teachers, issues that cannot be separated from one another.

There is an overwhelming administrative burden for teachers that does not allow progress in terms of pedagogy, in linking the school with the community, which is the idea of ​​the NEM, he argued.

Meanwhile, elementary school principal Francisco Bravo reiterated the need for a diagnosis of how the NEM has worked in order to be prepared.

“We need to move forward in diagnosing how the new proposal for the Mexican school is going, because we don’t have it, how can we know if the teachers understand it or not; otherwise we could fall back into simulations,” he said when asked about the challenges this model faces.

Teresa Martínez stressed that “nothing that comes from the institution can be alternative, even though the NEM and the Free Textbooks talk about community and formative fields, they are still a vertical and authoritarian imposition.”