Chronicle of Higher Education News. The Country That Stopped Reading. Years ago, school was not for everyone. Classrooms were places for discipline, study. Teachers were respected figures. Parents actually gave them permission to punish their children by slapping them or tugging their ears. But at least in those days, schools aimed to offer a more dignified life. Nowadays more children attend school than ever before, but they learn much less. They learn almost nothing. One cannot help but ask the Mexican educational system, “How is it possible that I hand over a child for six hours every day, five days a week, and you give me back someone who is basically illiterate?” Despite recent gains in industrial development and increasing numbers of engineering graduates, Mexico is floundering socially, politically and economically because so many of its citizens do not read.
The first step in his plan to improve education? She ought to be behind bars, but education reform with a focus on teachers instead of students is nothing new.