Breathe
By Nurit Martínez
With the arrival of Republican President Donald Trump to the White House last week, Mexico's relationship with the United States has at least a dozen issues that are causing a crisis, but it is in education where uncertainty fills all the spaces, especially when the head of the Department of Education, Lynda McMahon, has stood out for being a specialist in wrestling entertainment and creator of pay-per-view. If so, the relationship with Mexico in this field is totally uncertain.
If we go to the wrestling arena, it is clear that in the ring we will see an unequal fight, not only because of principles and goals, but also because it involves placing the private, ideologized and religiously tinged schools in each of the states in that country.
If we look at what has happened in Mexico in basic education, there are some coincidences and some opposing positions. In similarity, the ideologizing tone in the curriculum and books in the first grades. On the contrary, the centralizing actions of the Fourth Transformation to have budgetary control, but from then on there is no development line action beyond the delivery of direct resources to families through scholarships. In this last point, it is not for families to choose among the best schools, but to alleviate the poverty of the majority of the population. In higher education, what there is between Mexico and the United States is the impulse for academic mobility. Young people who go to prestigious institutions in that country with the support of the government through scholarships. What can dreamers with a profile like Lynda McMahon's expect there?
So far the lack of certainty for them, with massive deportations in sight, is in the dilemma: whether the line that once they leave the universities there is a place for them in that country if in their graduation process they created their own company or joined the U.S. industry will prosper. But apart from that, there is no strategy to promote the high generation of qualified human resources in science and technology that would allow the pending issues of the trade agreement to be addressed. With a profile like McMahon's, who has no known studies beyond a degree in French at the University of East Carolina, she is a businesswoman of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), that is, of the golden age of International Wrestling. She and her husband Vincese are known in the mogul world for being the authors of a culture of marketing, violence, sexualization and spectacle. Thus, it is anticipated that these parts of the administration could reach out to the U.S. relationship with Mexico on the education agenda. From the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), the site where McMahon contributed to outline the public policy strategies for Donald Trump's campaign, the proposal for action has been clear: tosee education as a space to bring resources to families so that they can decide where their children go to school, that is, to reduce the presence of public schools. The line is to strengthen private and Christian education.
As a general concept, it undoubtedly confronts the second floor's idea of the Fourth Transformation. President Claudia Sheinbaum is the first advocate for public education not to be seen as a business, as merchandise. With the humanist vision that they have tried to place as a narrative, the Government of Mexico establishes for education the principle that it must be public, secular, free and of quality. What has been said so far about public policy in education in the Trump administration is the decentralization of the educational system: that the states are in charge of the educational agenda where the local followers, more conservative, can have a clearer influence. The Trump agenda represented by McMahon also aims to reduce the influence of teachers' unions and to make the education system the mechanism to dismantle pro-diversity and LGBTQ+ protection strategies, as the president announced just a week ago in the first actions he signed in the Oval Office. As you can see, the measures and actions are uncertain. We had better start to see if we train more tough guys or more technicians or both to have a chance when it is their turn to step into the education ring.
* Professor at UNAM. Specialist in educational issues.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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