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Janet Laddish
Teachers from Mexico, the United States and Canada met in Vancouver this February to assess the impact of NAFTA on education and to build a tri-national coalition supporting public education.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed in 1994. Since then, the direction of social, economic and public policy has put pressure on public education. "Education, which is currently a `non-conformist' area in terms of NAFTA, will eventually be brought under NAFTA and agreed-upon minimum standards for teacher education, certification, re-certification, scope of practice and eventually even curriculum, will be agreed upon," Jim MacFarlan of the British Columbia Teachers' Federation (BCTF) told teacher delegates.
Despite assurances that education would be exempt from the agreement, Canadian and Mexican delegates remain unconvinced. The political framework resulting from the new openness of international trade and investment promised by NAFTA will influence the nature of public education.
In Mexico, education is threatened at a fundamental level—with the signing of NAFTA, the Mexican government endorsed privatization at a high cost to over 40 million citizens who live in poverty. Today, Mexican teachers have the dual task of struggling for democracy and protecting public education.
"As a result of neo-liberalist politics which the government still continues to follow, the budget for education has been cut, which has resulted in lowering the quality of education services and worsening the inequality of the educational system," said Jesus Martin Del Campo, with Mexico's National Education Workers Union.
In the U.S., so-called reforms in education have meant cuts in federal funding for equity programs, national testing goals (America 2000), increased emphasis on corporate competitiveness and the new education marketplace, which includes Project Edison, Burger King Academies and Education Alternatives Inc. For a number of years, public education in the U.S. has focused on the needs of business.
Standardized testing was also a hot topic at the conference. Last August in Mexico, when it became clear that testing alone would determine which schools children would attend, about 4,000 parents took to the streets of Mexico City in protest. Although Mexican and Canadian school systems differ greatly in some respects, they share similar problems resulting from the misuse of standardized testing data.
In 1993, a tri-national coalition was formed to develop a working relationship between teacher unions in Mexico, the U.S. and Canada. February's conference was the fourth Tri-National Coalition in Defence of Public Education.
"The difficulties and differences are as telling about our collective situation as are the limited successes," wrote Larry Keuhn, BCTF researcher and 1997 conference organizer.
Janet Laddish is district representative for Edmonton District and a delegate to the 1997 Tri-National Conference.
