Corruption in mexico's public education system

CORRUPTION IN MEXICO’S K-12 EDUCATION SYSTEM 1
Types of Corruption in Mexico’s K-12 Public Education System and
its Impacts on Students and Communities
Ashley Yang
EDC 353 International Education
Augsburg University
07 May 2018

Pseudonym Disclaimer:
Several interviewees and contributors have elected to use pseudonyms. It was not questioned for
whatever reason why they may have elected to use the alias.

Introduction
It’s four in the afternoon in the bleak hillside of Alta Vista and a quarter of sixth-grade
students are distracted, grumpy and hungry from not eating all day. The students are no longer
interested as the teacher tries to explain to them the grammatical structures of the English
present-perfect tense. Many think they have no need for English in the future and therefore they
prefer to scribble in their empty notebooks or count the clock hands. Few were born in the
United States and have lived there for much of their childhood, attending U.S. public schools and
programs where their English is already that of a fluent and native speaker. These students hate
the class because the teacher commonly makes mistakes and has trouble with pronunciation
where holding a stable conversation is proven difficult. He’s intimidated by these ‘different’
students that he commonly doesn’t call on them fearing they will correct him before the class.
Others are genuinely interested and academically motivated to succeed but simply cannot focus
because they only had breakfast in the morning before their 8am shift to sell candy or gum on the
street side or trash bags for ten pesos in the downtown strip. They have a daily goal to meet and
often prefer to continue working then grabbing a bit to eat. Some can’t afford it at all and they’ll
have to wait until they get home. But why is this happening in Mexico? What policies and
decisions are requiring students to work before school hours? Of the many possible reasons, one
of the most popular is corruption.
Corruption is real in Mexico. In fact, it’s real on many levels in many countries such as
India, Japan, Argentina, Columbia, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and even the United States among
others to begin with. Of the country’s popular reputation of fueling corruption in the government
itself, the system is taking away the basic resources such as finance and well-trained educators
who are greatly needed in Mexico’s public schools in order to provide a quality and accessible
education to all. Though the Mexican Constitution promises a free education to its citizens,
families still find themselves paying a required annual “voluntary contribution” for public
education along with countless other fees. The most common acts of corruption practiced in
Mexico’s K-12 are budget fraud, social class discrimination, and ‘ghost teachers’ – the payroll to
an anonymous person who never enters the classroom but enlisted as an educator. These illegal
acts are not only negatively impacting students to continue onto pursing a college degree but
preventing teachers from performing to their highest potential. This in whole keeps communities
from economic growth and development; recreating a systematic oppressive cycle for those of
poor and impoverished communities.
Education Right Now in Mexico
“The government actually should be giving us free education up until the end of high
school,” says Daniel Francisco Ortega Vasquez. Ortega is a 21-year-old student in Cuernavaca,
Morelos studying cinematography while working full-time at the local TV station as a
videographer. Ortega is not the only student who thinks this. Over the course of my two years
here in Mexico, I’ve talked and met with more than 200 students, 150 of which were or are my

students in both public and private schools. Written in Article 3 of the Mexican Constitution is a
guarantee to all Mexican individuals the right to a free education up until the twelfth grade.
Original version: “Toda persona tiene derecho a recibir educación. El Estado-Federación,
Estados, Ciudad de México y Municipios, impartirá educación prescolar, primaria,
secundaria y media superior. La educación prescolar, primaria y secundaria conforman la
educación básica: ésta y la media superior serán obligatorias.” (“Article 3”)
English translation: “Everyone has the right to receive education. The State-Federation,
States, Mexico City and Municipalities, will provide preschool, primary, secondary and
upper secondary education. Preschool, primary and secondary education make up basic
education: this and the higher average will be compulsory.”
The Mexican education system is organized into four levels: pre-school (K1-K3), basic
education (grades 1-9), upper secondary education (grades 10-12), and higher education
(college). Though on paper and obligated by law, the Mexican governments – locals,
municipalities, states, and federal – don’t abide by this. “When I was in high school, for three
years we paid $3,000 pesos [Mexican] each year from 2013 to 2015,” Ortega adds, the
equivalent of $167 USD today ($18 MXN per $1 USD). Though these numbers may appear as
affordable and cheap to westerners, let me add that the legal federal minimum wage for an eight-
hour shift in Mexico is $88.36 MXN ($4.90 USD) and $11.05 MXN per hour ($0.61 USD)
(“Salarios mínimos 2018,” 2017). This means that a single parent must work at least 271 hours to
afford this public school that is supposed to be provided for free by the Constitution as the right
of being a Mexican citizen. Ortega attended the El Cetis 43 public high school in Xochitepec.
Other students from Preparatoria Diurna N. 1 UAEM, a public school in Juitepec, suburb
Cuernavaca, pay a much lower fee at $600 MXN per year. The voluntary contribution varies by
state, by region, by city and municipality plus by school. I haven’t discovered an accurate reason
to these differences.
In addition to required voluntary contributions, students are not provided transportation to
and from school, school lunches, nor sufficient school materials to use for quality learning.
Ortega spent approximately $480 MXN a month on transportation alone and he is very thankful
his parents had jobs that paid more than minimum wage: “I am honestly blessed for my parents’
hard work.” This doesn’t yet include the additional $1,300 MXN on classroom equipment, other
fees such as field trips, notebooks, books, etc. and the $5,400 MXN total for meals at $20 MXN
per meal, five times a week, for one whole year. Again, these seemly small numbers do add up.
Please see table 1. This leaves one student needing to spend approximately $14,000 MXN ($780
USD) per year for public high school that again, is supposed to be free. If a family has more than
one child, the cost would double, or triple, and so on.

Voluntary contribution $3,000 MXN $167 USD
Transportation
fee by month x number of months
$4,320 MXN
= ($480*9)
$240 USD
School materials, uniforms, and other fees $1,300 MXN $72 USD
Meals/lunches $5,400 MXN $300 USD
2013-2015 Est. Annual Total (MXN) $14,020 MXN $779 USD
Table 1 Chart of estimatedrequiredbasic spendingper year inMexicanpesos for Daniel FranciscoOrtega Vasquezduring his
high school years at public school El Cetis 43 locatedinXochitepec from year 2013 to 2015. Conversionrate is $18 MXN to $1
USD as ofApril 2018.
In 2013, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published a
territorial review on Mexico’s states of Puebla and Tlaxcala to which noted, “in Mexico, the
average student attends a public school where only 49% of school funding comes from
government sources (compared to 89% in OECD countries), while over 41% of school funding
comes from parents” (OCED 62-63, 2013).
“Everyone knows the government is corrupt,” says Juan Carlos Díaz Sanchez, my
English co-teacher in middle school Alta Vista. Díaz has been teaching English for several years
now at this low-income public school in the middle of a pretty ‘dangerous’ neighborhood. On my
first day of work, he had asked me why I had picked their school above the many others and to
how come I wasn’t fearful of the reputation Alta Vista holds. With sincere respect, I was placed
there by my university for my practicum and knew of no such thing beforehand; I highly doubt
university staff would be place me somewhere unsafe. But I was most importantly caught off
guard as apparently the Alta Vista neighborhood is one filled with dangerous gang and drug
related activities; a foreigner reigning around seemingly without a connection to the community
or credible reason is not a recommendable act. “Here people know you are a teacher, so I
wouldn’t worry too much. But I wouldn’t wonder off too far,” Díaz noted to me. It’s true that in
the eyes of the community, a teacher’s profession is one viewed with respect, one with honor
among the families, even for those who participate in criminal activities. On the contrary, the
national government sees it as an unnecessary profession. You can see that through the lack of
sufficient schools for the growing student population and the increasing number of licensed
teachers.
Mexico’s Growing 1.3% Population and Insufficient Schools
Mexico has had an exponential population growth rate while in reverse, a literacy rate
that is not fast enough to steadily keep up with the growing population. More and more people
are not able to read and write due to limited school buildings and services to formally educate
children. Much of the Mexican population are widely made up of children ages 5 to 29 – the
primary ages of education starting from kindergarten until graduate degrees (see figure 1).

Persons ages 14 and younger represent 27% of the entire population – more than 34 thousand
children (“Mexico,” 2017). According to UNESCO’s 2016 general reports on each country,
Mexico has a total population of 127.5 million at an annual growth rate of 1.3%. In Mexico, the
compulsory education lasts 14 years from age 4 to age 17 with a total population of more than 46
million: 6,827,706 (pre-primary), 13,693,858 (primary), 14,047,949 (secondary), and 11,517,817
(tertiary) (see figure 2). The graph charts below speak to the number of students out of school by
gender and my year (see figure 3).
Figure 1 Mexico populationmake upseparated byage.
Source:UNESCO bycountryreport. (“Mexico,” 2017)
Figure 2 Mexicanpopulationbyschool age population by
educationlevel. Source: UNESCO bycountryreport.
(“Mexico,” 2017)
Figure 3 Numberof out-of-school childrenbyyearand numberof out-of-school adolescents byyear. Source:UNESCO by
countryreport. (“Mexico,” 2017)

In the state of Morelos, there were a total of 2,061 public schools that housed more than
450,000 students in the school year 2016-2017 (see table 2) (Secretaría de Educación Pública,
2017, p. 1). Interestingly, the number of public schools are not equally distributed. Nearly half of
all schools are geared to be public pre-schools (exactly 731), which are very important as to
continue to the next grade level, each student must had completed the pre-requisite level.
Additionally, the numbers of primary schools, too, appear supportive towards student education
for all with a sitting number of 839 public schools. But of these two levels alone, there are only
491 schools left to be distributed between secondary, high school, and university education
(2061 – [731 + 839] = 491). Take note that postsecondary education is not required to be
provided by any Mexican government per the definition of a ‘basic education’. During this stage,
students are finding themselves taking more and more entrance exams to attend the 6th, 9th, and
university grades. If you aren’t accepted in one year, you wait until the next and try again, taking
the same exam, or move onto the private sector. This is where you begin seeing students drop out
after completing their primary years. Though this used to be the trend years before, we can see
more and more students continue onto middle school, but the numbers between middle school to
high school differ as the trend of drop outs have shifted there. The town of Tepotzlán of outskirts
Cuernavaca, what the locals call a pueblo mágico (a magic town), consists of approximately
47,000 residents, mostly made of children and young adults (“Número de habitantes,” 2015). In
this beautiful city located in the mountainous hillside of central Mexico, only 2 high schools
serve their student population and those of neighboring smaller towns like Amatlán de
Quetzalcóatl. Many students must travel the one-hour bus ride between Tepotzlán and
Cuernavaca to attend a public high school and even middle school, where entrance is already
competitive, if attending the private sector isn’t an option due to whatsoever reason, and where
waiting a year is not ideal. In a visit to Amatlán for a week, an indigenous town of the Nahua
people, one could say their purchasing power is much different from someone of the city. But
from the town, spoke a man about the cost of sending his two children, twins, to school every
day in the city of Cuernavaca – something that costs him $88 MXN per day (only
transportation), a one-day minimum wage per worker as we have talked about in the previous
section. Though at the surface, all the numbers are sufficient, but, we must look deeper and seek
comparison to identify these patterns.
Mexico has a double shift system as a form to reuse school buildings but greatly damages
the learning abilities of students. Administrative staff also have the option to work for the second
shift so when the students of the second turn come in, so do their staff. It’s a no different than a
completely new school.

Table 2 Statistics of EducationSysteminthe state of Morelos school year 2016-2017. Note, ‘privado’ means
‘private’ inEnglishand‘público’ means ‘public’. (Secretaría de EducaciónPública, 2015)

 Elementary school
o Day shift: 8:00am – 2:30pm
o Afternoon shift: None
 Middle School
o Afternoon shift: 1:30pm – 7:30pm
 High school
o Afternoon shift: 1:10pm – 8:50pm
Though afternoon and evening classes come with its own benefits, very much like that of
college courses, is it effect to teenage students? Vista College came up with some pros and cons
that I agree on through my experience of having taken night courses. Pros: (1) Students can hold
down a steady job; (2) students can sleep in during the day; (3) students have time to prepare for
class; and (4) students have the opportunity to meet different kinds of people – job holders,
entrepreneurs, risk-takers, etc. (2015). A study shows that late-nighters are more likely to take
risk than early birds (Economy, 2015). On the contrary, some cons include: (1) Students have
longer days; (2) students will experience lack of sleep if not planned accordingly; (3) students
may experience a difficulty focusing; and (4) students will experience a social life conflict.
Whether participating in the afternoon shift is beneficial or not, it truly depends on each student
and their personal agenda. I know for sure when I was 16- and 17-years-old taking later courses
was very helpful in maintaining a part-time job.
National Education Budget Comparison: Mexico Against the World
Why is it that nearly half a million adolescents and some 140,000 children are not
obtaining education in 2016? Corruption. Each year, politicians and government officials spend a
large portion of their time fighting for just a small piece of the national budget to benefit towards
their goals and interests as representatives of the community. In small towns like Amatlán, a
town representative may be fighting towards a small education budget to benefit the remodeling
of primary school. Or in larger cities like Cuernavaca, a city mayor may be interested in a larger
budget from the national funds to increase teacher salaries or to increase extracurricular activities
in public schools. But due to Mexico’s history and reputation of governmental corruption, it begs
the question of exactly how much of this money is actually benefiting the systems it’s given
specifically for.
In April 2017, fugitive former governor of Mexico’s Veracruz state, Javier Duarte, was
arrested in Guatemala by Interpol for accusations just a year before of organized crime and
money laundering (Associated Press). It was estimated at least $645 million Mexican pesos were
siphoned off by the governor during his time in office from 2010 to 2016 (“Fugitive”). Under
Duarte’s administration, Veracruz also interestingly became “the most dangerous region of the
country for journalists,” with 17 killed during his term. Due to the accusations, Duarte was
suspended from his party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (El Partido Revolucionario

Institucional), also commonly known as PRI, which governed Mexico for the past seventy years
and is the party of the current President, Enrique Peña Nieto. Research conducted by María
Amparo Casar, the Executive President of the activist group Mexicans Against Corruption and
Impunity, founded that “of 42 governors suspected of corruption since 2000, only 17 were
investigated” and “before the most recent arrests, only three were in jail” (Malkin). Another great
example is Tomás Yárrington, the former governor of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas arrested
in Italy just weeks before Duarte’s arrest. Yárrington was arrested on charges from Mexico and
the United States for money laundering and organized crime where he accepted bribes from drug
cartels in exchange for free reign in his state.
According to the World Bank, Mexico has gradually increased its spending on education
between 1989 to 2014 with a low point of 2.265% of the GDP invested in education in 1989, and
a high peak at 2014 with 5.313%. That’s roughly about $0.24 MXN trillion pesos of $4.50
trillion MXN pesos ($18.23 billion USD of $343.11 billion USD) (Reuters Staff). In comparison
with some well-known countries for education, Finland, Belgium, and Switzerland are holding
title as Independent’s top three in the world for 2016 (Willams-Grut). In 2014, Finland’s
government had a total expenditure of 7.168% of its GDP on education; Belgium with 6.585%;
and Switzerland with 5.096%, just slightly below Mexico. A common pattern here with the
exception of Switzerland is a somewhat linear relationship between government spending and
quality of education – “the more invested in education, the better it’s quality.”
Wait, Mexico has a close percentage to other countries, why is its education quality not
as ‘good’? Well, it begs the question of exactly just how much is actually being invested into the
schools, resources, and programs for educational growth? A study conducted by John W. Miller,
president of Central Connecticut State University in Connecticut, analyzed trends in literate
behavior and the literacy rates of over 60 countries. Among the top ten were Nordic countries (in
consecutive order from first place to tenth) Finland, Norway, Iceland, Denmark Sweden,
Switzerland, United States, Germany, Latvia, and the Netherlands. And among the bottom ten
from 50th place to 60th consecutively are Turkey, Georgia, Tunisia, Malaysia, Albania, Panama,
South Africa, Colombia, Morocco, Thailand, Indonesia and Botswana. Mexico sits roughly in
the middle at country #38.
Public Education as Systematic Oppression
Though considered an emerging market by international evaluators and companies, many
Mexicans don’t agree. Mexico has money. It was listed as the 15th country richest country based
on GDP in 2013 and 2014, according to Statistics Times, topped by 14 first-world countries and
one emerging market – Brazil (2015). “Mexico has a system where all the money stays at the top
and doesn’t trickle down to the working population. That’s why you have the very rich and the
poor; there is only a very small working class,” says a Mexican taxi driver. On a much longer
ride across town, I felt a deep connection with this 61-year-old man. When I asked him if I could
quote him in my paper, he gave permission but had requested his name not be released for
personal reasons. But what he says is true. He’s been working as a taxi driver since he was 22-

years-old, has a wife and five kids, all grown up now with their own families, but doesn’t have
any savings. Some people earn a living wage in other countries being a taxi driver, but when
there isn’t money to go around and the rich have cars, there’s not much of a large market, not to
forget the competition now with Uber drivers and the increase in gasoline prices. “Sometimes
you feel like you made good money and then it goes away so quickly. It’s as if money is water
and it just flows through your pockets, leaving very little to dry,” as in very small amounts to use
for personal spending.
Having worked in both public and private sector education systems, I have noticed a
grand difference when I shifted to a school where students and families have a much lower
purchasing power – the level of English. English in Mexico is a super plus to any person, local or
foreign. This is due to Mexico’s grand neoliberal policies allowing a flush of foreign businesses
to enter the Mexican market with little government regulations. If you have English, you can
work for companies like Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Marriot Hotels, Coca-Cola,
Pepsi Co, and many more. But how can someone who is learning poor English in public schools
be able to succeed to these positions if what they learn year after year are the same thing? At my
old private school Loyola Secundaria, the English levels of students in even the seventh grade
were immense. We talked about politics and discussed proper classroom behaviors and even
negotiated homework without a problem. And when an administrative staff came to speak with
me, students often volunteered to translate what he/she was saying. With my ninth-graders, we
read The New York Times and The Washington Post, talked about global conflicts and literature
with even William Shakespeare in there. It’s crazy how much they loved watching Romeo and
Juliet, not to say, even read the book, the new English version of course. The point to address
here is there English levels are excellent. Yes, there are small grammatical errors here and there
and pronunciation mistakes, but those are fixable; they have an excellent base understanding of
the language! To compare this with students in the public middle school I now teach at in Alta
Vista is informational, eye-opening, and heartbreaking. My seventh graders were just working on
future simple tense with a very vague understanding on present and past simple, progressive, and
perfect. This is not to condemn the teachers and say their English is bad or that their teaching
techniques are not well, but it’s to note that the system doesn’t give them the proper resources
and curriculums needed to successfully and effectively learn a language they started in primary
school. “We learn the same thing from primary school to high school. It’s really hard when you
don’t have a good teacher or one who really knows the language well,” Ortega told me, “very
few become fluent in it and that’s usually because they continue studying English in University
classes or have private tutors.” It’s clear that the difference in English among sectors function as
a systematic oppressor to keep the lower class where they are. It’s much like the business
concept of luxury spending: why would a millionaire spend a million dollars each year on a
private golf club membership when that could be used in other forms? Simple. It keeps the low
and middle class where they are. After all, a rich person is only so based on the lower classes’
position; we just can’t all be the same.

A lot of Mexico’s lack of school resources comes from fraud and corruption system like
discussed in the previous section. President Peña Nieto’s flagship education policy reform no
longer appeals to the citizens. The education budget was cut by 11.4% (more than $16.5 billion
USD) due to fear of economy downfall after the winning of the Trump administration in 2016
(Lakhani, 2015). The textbook budget was cut by a third, 40% reduction of teacher training and
equality programs, and funds to get children digitally connected have been cut completely.
People defend that it’s because Mexico is an emerging market without adequate funds to go
around. Let us not disregard that Mexico’s global GDP ranking tops that of Finland, the country
with the ideal education system in the world; it’s just the way money is distributed in the system.
Indigenous Students in the Mexican World
Students of indigenous backgrounds are one the most oppressed groups in Mexico.
“Racism has [been] featured in education policy, and this one fails to recognize that this is a
multilingual country where all children have equal rights,” says researcher Ivania de la Cruz
Orozco, from the Centre for Research and Teaching of Economics (Cide) (Lakhani, 2017). She
adds, “Education doesn’t exist in a bubble… Mexico’s indigenous children do not go to
university because of the social and economic conditions they live in. It’s not because they don’t
want to go.” Poverty in Mexico is one of the country’s greatest challenges of the century where
more than two-thirds of the population lives on or under the national poverty line. Please recall
Mexico is a country with wealth and GDP. But of this population in poverty, indigenous
communities are experiencing the greatest hits with high rising rates. Education as the key to
escape impoverishment and “pull yourself by the bootstraps” as many westerners say, doesn’t
serve autochthonous students. In fact, these children have the lowest achievement levels with
more than 80% falling below the basic level needed to progress. One in four indigenous are
illiterate. “Very few of our students attend university or even attend high school. And those who
do, find jobs outside and don’t return,” says a man from the Nahua town of Amatlán. So, a
grander question begs, how does one of indigenous background seek other opportunities when
the system prohibits them to do so?
Patricio Solís, a leading expert at the College of Mexico, says, “our education [Mexico’s]
is designed to reproduce inequalities rather than compensate for them. The children with the
most needs get the worst services, like tele-secondary schools [a distance learning model where a
reduced number of teachers rely on video and audio materials to teach the curriculum]. I’ve seen
no evidence that the situation is improving.” Amatlán’s only primary school is a telecom system
where students come into the classroom, watch a couple of clips on basic addition or math
problems and are expected to understand content and apply it equally as if a teacher had taught.
As hard as it is already, it’s very rare for students to learn; hence why one-fourth of indigenous
students are illiterate. According to the OECD’s 2016 Income Inequality Update, Mexico ranks
second in being the most unequal country – topped by newcomer Chile. I want to echo the words
of my host mother that kindly invited me into her, “It’s disappointing that even after hundreds of
years, we are still being colonized. Just that this time, it’s being done by our own people.”

Ghost Teachers in Government Payroll
Yes, believe it or not, there is such thing as a ‘ghost teacher’. When I spoke to teachers,
many were surprised while others who are aware of it, were furious. A chemistry teacher from a
nearby high school said in a brief conversation how importance his job is to him, “it’s
inappropriate that people are being paid by the government under the title of being a teacher
where they had never had a single day in the field… They will never understand the power a
good teacher holds and how that can change the future of one child, a couple hundreds of
children, a nation, and a world.” Ghost teachers are anonymous persons on the payroll of public
schools without actually entering a classroom or performing the work. These people are often
submitted by some high executive in the government chain. Though principals and school
directors may not be in agreement, some may not actually even be aware of what is truly
happening, and when questions are asked, a common answer is given, “it’s information above
your paygrade.”
President Enrique Peña Nieto’s flagship policy that won him the 2012 presidential
elections was an education reform. The government introduced mandatory testing for all
teachers, promising them promotions and raise in salaries were based on performance and not
favors (Lakhani, 2015). When the first-ever education census was conducted shortly after,
revealed was the thousands of illegally plaid salaries to union workers, administrators, ghost
teachers, retirees, and even the dead. According to lead investigator Marco Fernandez, though
illegal, no one has been sanctioned yet. Fernandez says, “The new education model needs money
to succeed… How will the government fund more teacher and technology if it’s still spending
millions of dollars on corrupt posts, and failing to punish those responsible?”
Conclusion
Corruption is a primary source to why education is not equally distributed in Mexico’s
educative system. The lack of accountability and discipline for those who abuse the system acts
as a promoting factor and thus in whole robs a student from their right to quality learning. Fraud
and theft of education funds often go unsanctioned and another student is robbed of their right.
Families and parents are finding the “voluntary contribution” increase in the last few years and
fear how they can educate their children not to mention other essential fees such as
transportation, meals, school supplies, uniforms, and class field trips. “It angers me that a
government can charge us what is rightfully ours,” says a teacher colleague, “I have a full-time
job, but I still don’t make enough.” Let’s not forget the payments to ghost teachers as an illegal,
but acceptable act in the system; no one has been sanctioned yet. Of OECD’s 35 countries,
Mexico ranks last in education (Lakhani, 2015). According to statistics, even the poorest children
of Vietnam outperforms Mexican students. The lack of federal resources in public schools are
preventing students from truly focusing on their studies or even attending schools – rapid
population growth and not enough schools.
Needless to say, the high levels of inequality function as a re-oppressive system to keep
low- and working-class Mexicans from economic and intellectual growth. This toxic level of

inequality, if not controlled, will lead to an uneducated and impoverished population that will
ultimately bring Mexico down in economic growth in the near future. Ortega concludes to me in
powerful words, “It’s hard to believe a country will invest in their short-lived futures and not that
of my generation. Mexico will never grow to its highest potential.”
It’s been a long school day at middle school Alta Vista. Students are finally out of
classes. It’s 7:30pm and some are heading home to have dinner with families, while others are
heading to work at stores as night stockers. Whatsoever, these students have the longest days.
Those who go home probably work in the morning, washing car windows at stop lights or selling
flowers on street corners. They must do what it takes to pay a meal for their stomach and pay for
their transportation to and from school. These students understand that their families are not at
fault for their hard work. They see their fathers work 12 to 14 hour shifts and their mothers
waking early in the morning to make and sell tortillas. They saw their older brothers and sisters
do the same thing. It’s no longer a decision, a choice, it’s a must and you must do it well. Story
of a student.
Author’s Note: Why did I chose this topic?
This conversation can be a book of it on its own. Education is one of my greatest passions
to where I have placed long-term goals for myself. I’m a dreamer. I want to see good and quality
education in the places where people don’t go, so that even students of the most isolated towns in
Siberia or isolated villages of Southeast Asia can still have the opportunity to change their way
of life, if they so choose to. The act here isn’t to spread a western education as done so in the
past, but to share with the world an opportunity for intellectual growth. Each mind is a world of
its own. One of Aristotle’s favorite sayings quote, “The roots of education are bitter, but its fruit
is sweet.” I believe that the outcome of an educated international community is one of the many
first steps we can take towards ending world problems such as global warming, environmental
control, and overhunting among others.
Throughout my two years in Mexico, it’s been a great pleasure to have become a part of
the community. As I reflect on this research project, I remember days of just pure sorrow and
effort depravedness. I felt a heavy ache on my heart to right something unfortunate, but
important to discuss. I truly hope this research has brought new perspectives to you as the reader.

Works Cited
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/16/fugitive-mexican-governor-javier-duarte-
arrested-alleged-corruption/
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