Dussel, Tiramonti, and Birgin 2000

Dussel, Ines, Guillermina Tiramonti, and Alejandra Birgin. 2000. "Decentralization and recentralization in the Argentine educational reform." in Educational knowledge: Changing relationships between the state, civil society, and the educational community Thomas S Popkewitz, New York: State University of New York Press.

 

 

 

• looking at the reforms as a result of power relations (155) using spatial metaphors
•  "the official discourses on decentralization democratic statements are mainly articulated in terms of a populist philanthropism." (158)
• creation of the "needy" subject (159)
• the needy is no longer seen as one who should be represented (by collective groups, unions, etc), but should have a relationship directly with the state, social services, etc.
• this involves an important social reorganization, getting rid of these collective representation mechanisms
• Social Plan initially ranked the 10,000 schools in the nation, gave a ton of money to the lowest 1000
• families are expected to be a part of the bureaucratic control of the decentralized system (164)
• the needy and other programs remap the system where some students get more, liek Affirmative Actions, which is kind of OK theoretically, but changes the relations between people in schools and communities in important ways (162-3)...think of how some nutrition programs are given to poor students, while everyone else in the school doesn't get them (166)
• 
  

Tello 2013

Tello, César. 2013. "Las políticas docentes y la perspectiva sindical en Argentina, México y Chile: debates y negociaciones. Los casos de CTERA, SNTE y el Colegio de Profesores en los últimos veinte años." Educar em Revista, (48), 149-166.

• Introduction
• in the 1990s education systems started being changed to follow neoliberal ideas, but in the 200s some governments began putting the state back in charge of education (150-151)
• Chávez (2010) showed:
• continued neoliberalism: Mexico, Peru, Costa Rica, Colombia, and others (151)
• concertacion: Arg, Brazil, Guatemal, Uruguay, Paraguay (152)
• rupture from neoliberal: Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela
• argument seems to be that the historical relationship between the unions and government in Mexico and Chile can help us understand what happened in those cases, but that in Argentina the more recent political scenario is explanatory (152)
• the debate: World Bank versus the unions
• teachers unions said reforms would make teaching worse, make salary go down, working conditions worse
• IFIs thought teachers needed someone to hold them accountable, finally, like parents, pushed for school autonomy (154)
• specifics of each case
• Chile
• has had decentralized education since 1990, thanks to the military dictatorship (156)
• unions helped kick out Pinochet
• the Colegio de Profesores was traditionally a group that sought to limit conflict, negotiate, but started acting more like a real union when they got some ability to do so after Pinochet left in 1991 (156-157) 
• the union traded improved salaries for some accountability measures with Lagos, but then subsequently demanded Bachelet and Pinera change the education system (157-9)
• but suggests this is more about the awakening of the union and its demanding what it was promised at the start of democracy (159)
• Mexico
• SNTE is super powerful in education sector, thanks ot historic relations with the PRI (160)
• change in relations and mobilization with SNTE came when PAN in power, though union tried to make-up with PRI in 2012, article doesn't know about EEG getting arrested, but it sstill uncolear ot author if old allinace will be renewed or not (161)
• Argentina
• anti Menem hard in 1990s (162)
• Marcha and Carpa Blancha made thema national force (162)
• friends with Ks, for a while, thanks to laws that gave them tons of money and national negotiations, but when this started to break down they had more strikes (162)
• Conclusions:
• in Chile, union was against the dictatorship and onyl after 20 years of alliance with those parties decided to break from them (163)
• in Mexico union never conronts the government, except as an oligarchic group
• in Argentina union was agisnt the government but has now been friends with Ks and moderated between 2003 and 2011

Althusser 1972

• Lenin wrote that philosphy teachers are petty-bourgeois lapdogs of the capitalists, teaching their ideology (33), Althusser apologizes for this, suggesting that teachers are bad only when they are caught up in the system, and some have been able to escape it (68-69)
• the reproduction of labor poewr is done through, in addition to paying wages, the capitalist education system which has two important functions (131-132):
• teaching students the skills they need to literally do a certain job
• inculcating the norms and submission of their class position (132-3)
• "...the reproduction of labour power requires not only a reproduction of its skills, but also, at the same time, a reproduction of its submission to the rules of the established order, i.e. a reproduction of submission to the ruling ideology for the workers..." (132) and also teaching the exploiters how to exploit (133)
• ideological state apparatus: essentially the way the ruling ideology of the capitalist class is transferred to the rest of society...it contains in it the same contradictions that the class struggle has (149-150)
• during feudal times this was mainly the Church, although other organizations also played a part (151)
• educational stat apparatus became the most important one under the capitalist mode of production, replacing the Church (152)
• some may suggest stht forms of democracy and political compeittion are actually more important, but capitalism has existed under lots of different poiltical regimes, education is the one constnt between many of them (153)
• schools are the place where sills/knowledge are drummed into students wrapped in the ideology of the ruling (capitalist) class (155)
• many other organizations can do this drumming, even soccer teams, but none are obligatory like school is (156)
•  this works because the school is assumed to be a neutral realm, not one controlled by ideology (156)
• suggests some teachers can fight the system, but most siply don't even realize they are a cog in this machine (157)

Nardacchione 2012

• In Neuquen in 1997 protets against Menemismo came through alliances between piquteros and teachers (2)
• on the one hand they were unhappy with unepmloyment, etc
• on the other hand they were trying to defend public education
• this allowed the union to push against provincialization in a national way, create a political movement, and demand national support for public edcuation as a universal justice demand
• provincialization caused
• wages to go down (3)
• working conditions to get worse
• CTERA found itself unable to coordinate its demands to the national level, stuck in a fragmented opposition
• some governments started paying teachers under the table, meaning they did not contribute to obras sociales (4)
• CTERA had trouble of articulating provincial demands at the national level
• for example: SUTEBA would strike, but SADOP and FEB didn't help
• Provincial crises
• at first the provincialization of education caused a drop in militancy and strikes, but eventually problems at the province level made the edcuation adn fiscal crisis worse (5)
• fiscal crisis occurred in many provinces because the national government was an important source of money for the provinces (5)
• not only were education budgets low, but they were set up irrationally (6)
• this strong problem a the provincial level led to deepening and expanding labor protest at the provincial level
• soon the teachers in some provinces were striking more against general issues facing society as a whole, not just for specific issues in regard to their own salaries or working conditions (7)
• this general protest, combined with the fact that it was happenign in many different provinces and the fact that there was some violence result in the re-nationalization of the conflict in 1997 (7)
• when other unions didn't join SUTEBA protests, they found allies outside the union sector, and eventually with UCR and FREPASO (8)
• The nationalization and politicization of the conflict
• the first is a recentralization of the deabte, the second is a move away from technical questions to social/citizenship ones (8)
• the CTERA wanted to do a national strike in 1996, but was having trouble convincing its uniosn to follow, and to get the government to talk to them...the government eventually agreed to talk about these things... (10)
• but hte union in Nequen decided to go on strike anyway, it was a broad colaition against lowering salaries across public sector workers, and the closing of YPF...
• violence to clear roadblock, bystander killed by police (10)...
• in response to this violence, CTERA called  anational strike (80% adhesion) and quit negotiating with teh government (11)
• BIG strike with lots of help, carpa blanca, and after this the idea of nationalizing education demands became a reality (11)
• this also helped the politicization of the cause, as non-union groups joined the fight after this (11-12)
• national ministry wanted to focus the talks on techinical aspects of teaching, while CTERA changed the topic to political and social-economic role of teaching (12)
• CTERA starts doing a lot of social actions, whole eudcation question became way bigger than just a union issue (13)
• 
  

Chiappe 2012

Chiappe, María Mercedes. La conflictividad laboral entre los docentes públicos provinciales: 2006-2010. Diss. 2012.
this isn't the right cite. find the correct one.

• paper about docente labor conflict 2006-2009
• understand the growth and important of national strike in 2008, as well as the development of provincial strikes (295)
• how do salary demands affect other education budget demands
• political alignment between CTERA and the national government
• history
• conflict itn eh 1990s was mostly against reforms adn fiscal adjustments (296)
• in teh late 1990s CTERA moderated demands because they were a part of the government, but then the workers autoorganized their own protests (297)
• teachers demands were not linked to greater politicization post-2003, had already been doing stuff, by post 2003 were demanding work related things
• national state after 2003 began to retake its role as the head of education, even if the provinces were technically still in control of everything (298)
• theory: 298-300
• data
• most conflicts between 2006 and 2009 were strikes, second most common thing were mobilizations (300-1)
• teachers had lots of strikes, not the most of any public sector group, but had way more teachers involved than any other group (and even more after that if you include indiviudal days not worked around the strike among workers who technically weren't out on strike (301-2)
• salary demands are most common (303, 305)
• generic salary demands are also more common than specific demands (305)
• work conditions the most important non-wage demand
• state-level conflicts are more likely than in other industries, which makes sense (306)
• seems like private sector teacher demands are also at state level, which is a bit unusual int eh private sector in general
• see more conflicts with between government/ERs and a coalition of trade unions (307), because education workers are often in different unions (308)
• 5 unions
• CEA:no national confed
• UDA, AMET, SADOP (private): CGT
• CTERA: CTA
• the complex array of unions creates very different union/government relations in different provinces (311)
• CTERA doesn't have the top-down control that other national confederations have (312)
• 2010: big drop in strikes compared to 2009 (312-3)
• DIFFERENCES IN CONFLICT LEVEL by province see 314
•  doesn't seem to be any relation between improvements, level of salary and conlifct levels (216-317)
• CTERA found some common ground with Nestor adn Cristina, so the focus came to be extending federal law implementation at the provincial level (321)
• CTERA stopped doing so much striking, became actions done more by base unions at the provincial level
• when education went down to the provincial level, that meant that provincial governments had the power to determine pay, etc, but also the legality of strikes among the teachers (322)
• differeing levels of institutionalization of rules about these things, though its too early to tell if they are affecting conflict levels (323-326)
• after creation of the paritaria nacional seems like conflict is lessening, though  we can't say for sure quite yet (328), and no other factors seem to have an effect (328)
• this law says that the federal governmetn will pay teachers if the province can't afford the national minimum set
• CTERA might be moderating its provincial level conflicts to focus on this national tool
• thsi national law seems to be a strong tool for province level unions (329)
• Conclusion
• CTERA and government seem to been in alliance, thats to Partiaria Nacional, and that this probably has had the effect of limiting conflict (330)
• 
  

Bordonaro and Huirton 2006

Bordonaro, Nora Garro, and Ignacio Llamas Huitrón. "Los trabajadores urbanos de la educación en los sectores público y privado, 1996-2002." DE LA GARZA TOLEDO, Enrique; SALAS, Carlos (Comp.) La situación del trabajo en México (2006).

• about teacher sin Mexico, comparing public versus private
• public employment in schools is a political question, private schools are more of a market relation (293)
• data from a national survey
• public schools are still major education (294)
• teachers are only 2.7% of urban working population (296)
• teachers in private schools average younger at every level (300)
• supports idea that public school positions are more stable (300)
• except for primary level, number of hours per week is longer for public educators (302-3), and by 2002 average hours for all had dropped (303)
• teachers who work less than 35 hours per week: primary public way higher than primary private, but every other level priavte has more part-time workers than public (304)
• private teachers are WAY more likely to have temporary contracts (304)
• teachers in public schools make more money (306-7), and their salaries were more consistent, though the gap narrowed in many cases by 2002 (307)
• overall wages per hour have been pretty flat since 1995, but at least steady in real terms (306-307)
• number employed in private schools grew a large proportion between 1996 and 2002, but still a small overall part of education sector (308)
• 
  

Perazza 2011a

Perazza, Roxana. 2011a. Relaciones de consenso y cooperación. El caso argentino. Desafíos desde la política pública. El Cotidiano, Julio-Agosto, 121-126.

• since 2003 government-teacher union relations have been really important in decisions around education (121)
• Governments in Latin America need to improve and expand education systems (122)
•  state is retaking its role as important garantor of education rights of its citizens (122)
• the state has had many responses to teachers unions, sometimes it ignores them, somtimes it works with them
• one big reason why unions have been included in negotiations over education policy is because teachers unions have gotten into politics
• but education reforms also produce tensions in teh relationship between government adn unions
• teacher careers, training, and promotion has been a place where governments have attempted to confront teachers unions
• but despite this, it is important to note that some of the things that need reofrming would actually be good for teachers, like (123)
• less ridigity in what is taught
• new demands are being made of teachers, especially given the massive influx of students
• reforms could be made that respect labor rights and actually allow teachers to have access to professional improvement
• ANALYSIS: reforms aren't bad in themselves, but seem to be resisted by teachers unions because they can be double-edged
• the post dictatorship period in argentina until 2003 was all about cuts for teachers (123)
• marcha blanca in 1988 and and carpa blanca in 1997, fought Menem (123-124)
• in 2003 everthign changed, and the president made laws that made the teachers happy (124)
• now national and provincial governments get together and talk with teachers when there are problems
• BUT teacher protest and strikes continued in a few places, some provinces had to borrow money from teh central government to pay teacher salaries (124)
• but though Argentina has started to rely on consensus with teachers, many of the old problems of education still exist (124-125)
• yet strikes still occur... (125)
• and unions in governmetn face an intersting tadeoff that can rsult in radicalization of the base
•  also inequality complicates everything, and improved education policy isn't the answer, needs to be coupled with better economic and social policy (126
• governments should try to bild consensus with teacehrs unions and give restitution if some of their historical demands are not met (26)
• 
  

Gindin 2011

Gindin, Julián. 2011. "La Tradición Sindical y la Explicación de las Prácticas Sindicales: Conclusiones de una Comparición Internacional Sobre los Docentes delSecotr Publico." Revista Latinoamericano do Trbalho, año 16 no. 26, 119-143.

• Introduction
• comparing Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico throughout the length of the 20th century
• this article proses the idea of "teacher unionism of the base", which is defined by a gravitation of the unions to the union base (in teachers unions), labor demands as the axis of activity, and open collective conflict with the government (120)
• this article presents how the union tradition can explain how a union works
• seven elements go into structural elements of the union (121)
• political relation with the state
• expansion and development of education system
• local work realities
• ideas of decent employment
• recruitment of teachers
• gender
• social image of the public school and teacher
• history of the union is also a key part of how/what a union does, as it often informs values and norms of the union
• its a little bit working class culture, a little bit union history
• two parts to the idea of "sindicalismo docente de base (122)
• union base includes leaders whose power is not taken by upper level leaders
• willingness to have open and strong conflict with, opposition to the government
• uses critical junctures to compare time periods that aren't actually the same across countries (123)
• notices three junctures:
• one, the existence of some sort of group that says it will represent workers (124)
• two, that group must become the representative of a large base of teachers
• three, consolidation of sindicalismo docente de la base, where the union is able to free or reorganize itself as independent from the state
• Critical junctures in teacher union history
• first, unions in Mex, Arg, Brz form as part of popular mobilization for democracy against the oligarchy (125)
• for Argentina this was the first radical government, Revolution in Mexico, and jsut before Estada Novo in Brazil (125-126)
• groups become solid as opposed to small, marginal
• these weren't necessarily unions, just teachers groups
• second, these groups became real unions, attached to a base
• either through state of mobilization of the teachers themselves (127-8)
• in Mexico it seemed like teachers were mobilizing themselves, but int he end the state was able to impose  union (128)
• in Argentina Peron started to organize through state, but coup meant that teachers ended up mobilizing themselves
• Brazil teachers mobilized themselves weakly and failed to consolidate in the face of government repression (128, 130)
• third, unions serve the base, can count on leaders in the base, are autonomous from government
• Mex: 1974-83, with CNTE emerging and the SNTE, for the first time, using its power within the SEP to not implement government changes (131-132)
• for Argentina and Brazil this happened in the 1980s with the return of democracy, both places unions willing to mobilize against the government (132)
• THE KEY IS A NETWORK OF LEADERS AMONG THE BASE
• Brazil uniosn join PT, but it becomes unclear if uniosn serve party or vice versa (133)
• SNTE plays politics, but its clear that union does so as a pragmatic way to gain power, since it doesn't succumb to too many political demands (133)
• national strikes are rare in Argentina, but happen at the state level depending on union history and political situation (133-4)
• conclusions
• union tradition is a mediating factor between teachers demands and union actions (134)
• union tradition is a legacy of critical junctures, and as such is also... (135)
• a mechanism of that explains path dependence (135)

Fischman 2007

Fischman, Gustavo E. 2007. "Persistence and ruptures: The feminization of teaching and teacher education in Argentina." Gender and Education 19.3: 353-368.

 

 

 

• Apostles and second mothers
• normal schools, when they were set up, were dominated by women, both as teachers and students (353-354)
• paradigmatic images of teachers were mothers and/or lay missionaries devoting their lives to the (social and religious) reproduction of students (354-356)
• teachers were seen as similar to middle class ousewives (355)
• this idea of teachers as second mothers and the dominant position of normal schools persisted until the military dictatorship in the 1960s (356)
• reform under the dictatorship actually raised training for teachers, made the normal schools on level with tertiary education, but reinforced the feminization of teaching (356-8)
• male experst produced lessons, women taught them, men were always higher administrators (357)
• but lack of university degree meant teachers were still seen as semi-professionals, not professionals (358)
• democracy again
• schools and teachers were supposed to play an important role in the refoundation of democracy, but economic crisis pushed education spending and reform to the back burner (359)
• 1988: seven small strikes eventually become one 47 day strike for better wages and conditions (359)
• but print opinion turned against them, and they lost hte strike
• enrollment in teacher education programs nationwide dropped, and CABA saw an approx 40% drop (Braslavsky and Birgin 1995)
•  of course, open enrollment in universities and massive drop in teachers' salaries also happened at same time...
• Menem signed law that demanded all teachers have a university degree (360)
• "Yet it is fair to say that the old representation of teachers as enlightened and heroic figures was replaced by depictions of educators as bureaucratic and mediocre (361)
• teachers salaries still low, normal schools start complaining theat there students are increasingly coming from the poorer segments of society (362)
• strike in May 1997, government and media suggest teachers are betraying their students by not working (362)
• images of teachers as a second mother were invoked, part of expectations of (some of ) the public
• conclusion
• women are in positions of leadership in the ministry of education, unions, and research centers (363)
• calls women in education a zone of "equality' because women make up such an important part of the system (363)
• motherhood is still a strong image in edcuation, but Madres de Plaza de Mayo and Evita at least make this a complicated identity, one that can be politically strong (364)
• composite image is a person who teaches and serves out of a sense of altruism (365)
• 
  

 

 

Kosack 2012

Kosack, Stephen. 2012. The Education of Nations : How the Political Organization of the Poor, Not Democracy, Led Governments to Invest In Mass Education. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• Chapter 1:
• education is important for development, development without education leads to low-road economies (3)
• Argument: Government will choose to expand quality education based on two factors: (3-4)
• a tight but flexible skilled labor market, with little ability to attract skilled foreign workers
• government engagement in political entrepreneurship of the poor...that is, government subsidized collective action on the part of poor people
• looks at Ghana, Taiwan, Brazil to show theory
• (7-8) governments don't seem to invest in education based only on the needs of businesses...shows some poorer countries spend way more on tertiary education than they should
• most scholars think democratic regimes are more interested in educating citizens. This book suggests that overall and throughout recent history regime hasn't been as important a variable as others think (9-10)
• he suggests that it is less the regime type and more the existence of collective action demanding education that will result in education spending (11)
• the key is political entrepreneurship, where collective actions problems and costs are overcome (12-14)
• government needs the support of a "vital constituency", and political entrepreneurship will determine if the poor are part of this constituency or not (14-15)
• employer demands for labor (skilled, unskilled, trained by govt or not) also affect govt motivations for providing education (15-16)
• (17) 3x3 matrix of when government will provide mass education. short story: any time poor are part of the vital constituency (either as part of it or as all of it) AND when employers need workers in a flexible skilled labor market
• Chapter 2: the government's educational goals
• education is NOT a public good (24)
• education as "bad collateral" (Milton Friedman), and thus banks don't want to invest in individual's education (26)
• demands of families
• the richer the family, the more they can afford education, the more they want government to subsidize TERTIARY/higher levels of education, and low enrollments overall (30-31)
• poor families are the opposite, they can't afford much of anything, so they want govt to spend lots of money on primary (and maybe every other level, too), high enrollments at every level (30-31)
• demands of employers:
• three types of demands for worker training:
• none: from biz that either doesn't need skilled workers or can import them (34)
• broad: biz needs skilled workers, can't import them, and wants a lot of them to lower wages of skilled workers (35)
• selective: biz needs skilled, can't import, and can't expect wages to be lowerd (thanks to unions or govt employment or sthg) (35)
• type of education system created depending on vital consituency:
• bottom up = more spending on primary, when VC is only poor
• all levels = equal spending, when VC is cross-class
• top-down = more spending on tertiary, when VC is elites (45-48)
•  
• see also 69-71
• chapter 3
• lots of tools in the governments use, like fees, buildings, outsourcing, to point educational resources toward the vital consituency (49-60)
• but constraints like budget size, inherited school systems, and need to keep social peace affect how govts allocate schooling resources (61-67)
• chapters on Taiwan, Ghana, and then...
• Brazil!
• Vargas era
• cross class alliance, Vargas as the political entrepreneur for the poor, but not the VERY poor (228-230)
• Vargas and his direct successors created an All-Levels system, but enrollment was limited so basically only those in the vital constituency (workers, middle class) had access to education (about 42% enrollment rate, rural sectors had low enrollment) (235)
• middle class had the access, also had high quality teachers, making the eudcation system pretty nice, but tradeoff was that it didn't serve many people (236-7)
• some intra national differences during the dictatorship, state-level becomes important when federal level politics are sort of cut off (253-254)
• top-down education system built between 1964 and 1990 to serve the agricultural elites who were the vital consituency (254-267)
• education projects were also a great way to dole out jobs in a clientelistic style, meanign rural landowners used education spending more for the sake of remaining in power than for actual education...foreign education grants were essentially wasted funding these patronage networks (259-262)
• soem equalizing after return to democracy, post 1990, but system still retains many of the private school advantages, better track for elites, it just opened up primary schools to more people (278-287)
• analysis stops at 2000, so doesn't include PT's rise to power, not sure how that affects the edcuation system
• Conclusion:
• regime type does not predict improvements in mass education, at times democracies don't fund education and yet autocrats do (300)
• could be that pro-poor collective action is what spurs any sort of pro-poor policymaking, rather than relying on ideological feelings of the leaders or some sort of platform: if the poor take to the streets adn demand things, they are more likely to get them! (302-4)

Carnes 2014

• Theory (chapter 1)
• questions on differences between labor codes and stability of labor codes are interrelated (20)
• Argument(s)
• higher skill levels lead to, in the long term, more protective and generous laws governing individual employment relations
• greater organizational potential relates to, in the short to medium term, political action and better collective laws
• short term disruptions are fragile, likely forced by undemocratic governments or bait and switch
• overall, economic constraints (skills) are the foundation of laws, and political action (unions) can change them in the medium term (21)
• typology of labor regimes: variation in indivdual and collective law (27-29)
• Corporatist =individual high + collective high = mex and arg
• Encompassing = individual low + collective high = peru
• Professional - individual high + collective low = chi and uru
• Market = no regulation
• Labor policies that last and achieve consensus do so because their provisions are consonant with the prevailing economic order (32)
• "skill distributions are entrenched in local economic institutions, and as a result tend to be very slow to change." (33)
• relative ratio of high to low skill workers will affect labor law (35)
• lots of high skill workers = individual protections, job stability
• lots of low skill workers = high employment favored over protections
• strong labor movement improves hand of workers demanding labor legislation (36-40)
• earlier laws, political history, international institutions, and national political regimes also affect labor law promulgation (40-42)
• same typology as above, except repalce indiv protxns with "skill endowment" and collective protxns with "union/organizational strength" (42-44)
• also, even though regime may change, labor law may create feedback loop to constrain transformations in skill endowment, legislation: meaning corporatism begets groups that are good at corporatism, etc. (path dependence) (43-46)
• chapters 2 and 3 code, quant analyze labor codes...looks pretty cool.
• 
  

Murillo 1999

Murillo, M. V. (1999). Recovering political dynamics: Teachers' unions and the decentralization of education in argentina and mexico. Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 41(1), 31-57. 

• this draws out some of the same ideas in her 2001 book, but looks at differences in education reform in Mexico and Argentina, noting the reforms occurred differently due to variation across partisan identities (of the unions), organizational fragmentation (in the unions) and leadership competition (both for union and government officials) (31)
• education reform became an important issues because education was seen as
• important to developing human capital, increasing social equity, and consolidating young democracies (33) see footnote 6 for some citations
• the public felt the edcuation systems were becoming inadequate to mee the countries' needs
• The suggestion made by many groups is that decentralized education is more responsive to local needs, and thus more efficient than hihgly centralized education systems (33-34)
• BUT unions can play an important role in enhancing or sabotaging reforms (34)
• Public sector unions:
• public sector militancy is often more visible to the general public, which would suffer from loss of delivery of public goods thanks to strikes (35)
• "Indeed, strikes often serve the dual purpose of demanding higher wages from the government and mobilizing public opinion to call for greater budget allocations for public services." (35)
• teaching is labor intensive, teachers are distributed across the country, and they can have a great affect on public opinion (36)
• a large proportion of education budgets is directed to salaries (36)
• decentralization reforms in Mexico and Argentina
• The SNTE suppressed it's opposition to decentralization and the government met some of its demands (38)
• CTERA kept unsuccessfully resisitng decentralization and was ignored by Menem (38)
• Stats:
• Law 1,420 of 1881 established free public edcuation and compulsory primary education for all Argentina (39)
• initially the federal government centralized education, by 1952 feds controlled 42.7% of primary, 64.8% of secondary, and 82.5% of vocational schools (Paglianetti 1991)
• military started to decentralize
• By 1987 the national jurisdiction had only 1.9 % of primary schools, 44.7% of secondary schools, and 37.8% vocational schools (40)
• 1991 law enacted in 1992, Law 24,049, transfered all the rest of the schools to provincial jurisdiction (40)
• history of teachers unions (42-43)
• CTERA was with CGT and PJ int eh 1980s, but broke with Menem in 1991 and formed CTA (42)
• CTERA has been strong at province level, but never really centralized enough to be strong national presence (43)
• reform
• most teachers unions rejected Menem's reform (44)
• feared financing would be hurt
• also concerned with declining real wages and wage dispersion once bargaining became decentralized
• teachers struck and demonstrated against reform
• government officials ignored militancy and demands (45)
•  decentralization DID enhance CTERA's position over other competing union confederations (45)
• CTERA joined UCR to form coalition, but meant they found few allies among the mostly PJ provincial governors who didn't want to ally with enemy party (46)
• also competition over teachers weakened all unions, meaning government had no desire to offer concessions (46)
• explaining the difference between SNTE and CTERA
• SNTE was PRI, and not fragmented, CTERA was opposition and fragmented (47-48)
• why not get allies where you can? not really a full explanation here
• conclusion:
• party loyalty can speeed reforms but hinder their effectiveness (see Murillo 2001) (49)
• when there is leadership competition, as there was for SNTE, government will make concessions to keep their leader in power
• CTERA had neither leadership competition (it seems) AND teachers unions were fragmented -- seems a bit weak here

Carlson 1987

Carlson, D. (1987). Teachers as political actors: From reproductive theory to the crisis of schooling. Harvard Educational Review, 57(3), 283-307.

• Article about critical theories of schooling
• In critical theory, most have seen teachers as witting or unwitting servants of the state, and thus capitalism (283)
• "...schooling must be heavily impositional...I mean that it must be imposed, in an authoritarin manner and against some resistance, upon students, whose schooling prepares them for the lower rungs of a high inequitable social and labor hierarchy..." (283)
• in this case school is not seen as a leveling instrument, but an instrument of reproductive labor, in that it produces workers and ingrains capitalistic social theory into students 
• BUT teachers are not unwitting, and their reproductive role makes their job much harder (284)
• thus they are bureaucratized and watched, to make sure they produce the right sort of product/student
•  efficiency thus heightens the contradictions experienced by teachers, who are caught between teaching knowledge and the demands of the state to produce worker bees
• Critical theories about schooling:
• de-schooling (285-287)
• liberate schools from the (capitalist) state, use vouchers! (286)
• but efficiency may be better for capital (287)
• structural functionalism and teaching
• middle classes, including teachers, help alienate workers (288)
• "Teachers supervise, discipline, and indoctrinate future workers in the service of capital. Structural-functionalists generally argue that because members of this class serve as agents of capitalists interests and do not directly add anything of value to what is produced by human labor, their work cannot be considered 'productive.'"
• but under socialism this job would become productive because their are contributing socially beneficial skills and knowledge
• also the middle classes are proletarianized (289)
• new techonologies deskill labor (290)
• their labor is intensified
• and finally they become eminently replaceable
• But teachers are not merely puppets of the state (291)
• any movement to reform schools, really, bmust begin with the "...recognition that the state, and state schools, are strongly, in not directly, determined by the reproductive needs of capital..." (291)
• Proletarianization suggests that workers increasingly identify with the political interests of the working class (292)
• teachers can make their own culture through everyday practices (293)
• and they can resist and capitulate to pressurs in paradoxical ways, not deterministic ones (293)
• history of teahers' unions in USA (295-304)
• Conclusions
• if teachers have to do the dirty work of clas formation, then their roles must be carefully circumscribed (304)
• reproductive work demands a great deal of top-down control (306)

Gindin 2008

Gindin, J. 2008, "Sindicalismo docente en México, Brasil y Argentina: una hipótesis explicativa de su estructuración diferenciada", Revista mexicana de investigación educativa, Abril-junio 2008 volume 13 number 37, p 351-375.

• Argument: the fundamental variable that explains the difference between the cases in Brazil/Argentina and Mexico is the relationship with the sate established at the period of consolidation of labor relations systems (353)
• Argentina
• CTERA created in 1973 (367)
• generally CTERA has been pretty fragmented and weak
• in 1987 there was a split in the CTERA, half were under a UCR leader and half under a PJ leader
• but the PJ half essentially dissolved after it started and lost a big national strike in 1988 (367-8)
• CTERA helped create CTA (368) and bolstered its own power by allowing for leadership at every level to be elected directly, making them the most centralized of the teachers unions (369)
• White tent in 1997 against Menem (369)
• stayed up unti lthe UCR-led coalition won in decemeber 1999
• CTERA got close to NK after his election, but this closeness allowed the teachers to be a sort of internal opposition and still be militant (370)
• the differenc ein that the SNTE was a mediator between teh government and teachers, while in ARgentina and Brazil the government(s) didn't incorporate teachers into the coproate system, and simply ruled them directly when it wanted to. (370-371)
• the mobilization of the 1980s restructured Argentina and Brazil docente unions, while it didn't have this effect on teh SNTE (372)
• said another way, SNTE in Mexico was part of corporatism, and not in Arg and Brazil
• author suggest this starting point helps us understand current teachers' unions