The Dispute Over Public Education

ByLuis Hernández Navarro

This article by Luis Hernández Navarro originally appeared in the February 24, 2025 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

The removal of Marx Arriaga as Director General of Educational Materials and his replacement by the poet Nadia López García does not end the dispute over the New Mexican School (NEM) and Free Textbooks (LTG).

In fact, it doesn’t seem that the anger has subsided. On the contrary. The movement called for by the Director of Educational Materials demands “the dismissal of Mario Delgado and all SEP officials who undermine the principles of the Fourth Transformation and who habitually make deals with the neoliberal bloc.”

The disagreements are of two different kinds. On the one hand, there are those occurring within the 4T itself, between those who support Dr. Arriaga and those who stand with President Claudia Sheinbaum and Secretary Mario Delgado. On the other hand, there are those between the ruling party and a diverse opposition coalition against the LTG, which includes Ricardo Salinas Pliego and TV Azteca, academics, and churches (both the Catholic Church and Pentecostal denominations).

Marx Arriaga and Marx, Carlos.

Despite the President’s assertion that the project doesn’t belong to anyone personally and her affirmation of the continuity of the current educational project and the new textbooks, the infighting within the ruling party has reached unprecedented levels. For example, a figure with such moral authority as Dr. Lorenzo Meyer posted on social media last Friday, February 20th: “The reasons given by Marx Arriaga, former head of the new textbooks at the Ministry of Public Education (SEP), to explain his dismissal reflect poorly on the leadership of the current administration. As citizens, we have the right to demand an explanation regarding this decision and its implications.”

Dr. Arriaga’s account resonated with a segment of the Obrador supporters. His explanation followed a very clear script: Mario Delgado has extensive networks. He’s a very shrewd individual. His strategy is to close ranks to try to eliminate the New Mexican Education Model (NEM) and, incidentally, the General Technical Education Programs (LTG). The Ministry of Public Education (SEP) is full of officials who don’t believe in democratic education, and they will do everything possible to ensure that the dream that began with Obrador’s movement disappears.

Mario Delgado’s discourse on the New Mexican Education Model (NEM) and the General Teacher Training Programs (LTGs), Arriaga said, is just talk. He wants to change them. He intends to promote business training, human capital development, and the creation of subservient workers so that maquiladoras can be established throughout the country and cheap labor can be maintained. In contrast, the ousted official affirmed, he did not betray the rank-and-file teachers and will continue fighting for a different kind of education.

The Secretary of Education’s response was, to say the least, a failure: he presented it as a personal attack. He confessed that he had offered his detractor an ambassadorship or another position to get him to leave the Directorate of Educational Materials. He accused the right wing of making a scandal out of anything. He claimed that the criticisms of his performance as an official were the work of his longtime haters, who constantly label him. He presented himself as a victim and as a politician who has delivered results. And he reaffirmed his leftist affiliation. But he neither explained nor defended the New Mexican Education Model (NEM) project or the Literacy and Technology Transfer Program (LTG). Instead, he has spent his time talking about the number of scholarships the Ministry of Education (SEP) awards and the schools being built, but little else.

Critics of Arriaga within the federal government have explained his departure as a result of his resistance to introducing changes to the content of textbooks to give more weight and prominence to women. However, this assertion is not entirely accurate. Professor Rogelio Javier Alonso Ruiz documented how seven of the 25 didactic projects in the fourth-grade textbook, Proyectos escolares de cuarto grado (School Projects), address the central theme of Gender Equality. And four of the 10 lessons in the secondary school textbook, Historia del pueblo mexicano (History of the Mexican People), refer to the role of women in national history.

To make matters worse, a set of recommendations for modifying the textbooks was leaked, some of them pertinent, unrelated to gender issues, and making it clear that the conflict within the Ministry of Public Education (SEP) is of a different nature. Even belatedly, these observations partially vindicate those who, at the time, with serious criticisms unrelated to those of ideologically driven reactionaries, pointed out the errors and shortcomings in the materials. Publicly acknowledging this does not reflect well on those who fanatically defended them, as if they were untouchable.

Nadia López García to Enrique Peña Nieto in 2018, “Rest assured that today you have planted, in this generation, the seed so that in Mexico all our dreams may grow. We will not give up.”

Far from containing the crisis, the appointment of Nadia López García, an Indigenous woman, educator, and poet, as Marx Arriaga’s replacement has exacerbated it. She has been criticized for the fawning speech she gave to Enrique Peña Nieto in 2018 when she received the National Youth Award, amidst widespread outrage over the disappearance of the 43 students from Ayotzinapa. She has also been criticized for having worked at the Ministry of the Interior under Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong and concealing this fact; for traveling to various parts of the world (India, Japan, Morocco, France, Italy, the United States, and many more); for publishing in the magazine Letras Libres; and even for being married to a welfare judge.

The criticism of her performance as national coordinator of Literature has been devastating. According to the poet María Rivera, she destroyed the quality of literary awards and dedicated herself to promoting not the literary community, but her own personal interests.

The official defense of the textbooks and the New Mexican Education Model (NEM) has been ideologized, undermined, and dismantled. For years, it was monopolized by Marx Arriaga, who turned it into a personal crusade. His dismissal left a void that the government has not filled. Currently, there is no voice with pedagogical authority to respond to the criticisms leveled at the textbooks and explain and justify the necessary modifications. An inexperienced and controversial official like Nadia López García will hardly be able to extinguish this fire. We are inevitably heading toward a period of intense turbulence and further infighting in the struggle for public education.