Unfortunately, corruption is a way of life in Mexico. And labor unions, as much as any institution, demonstrate that fact. The National Union of Education Workers or SNTE (Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educacion), is a case in point: for decades, the 1.4 million-member labor organization has represented a huge obstacle to school reform in Mexico — and less directly, to immigration reform in the U.S.

Running this behemoth with an iron fist and a greased palm is one Elba Esther Gordillo Morales, a woman whose ability to strike fear into opponents has even current Mexican President Felipe Calderon walking softly. A new report published by the Washington, D.C.–based Center for Immigration Studies — called “‘Jimmy Hoffa in a Dress’: Union Boss’s Stranglehold on Mexican Education Creates Immigration Fallout” — reveals just how tight her union’s grip has been on that nation’s public schools. Actually, the main title seems somewhat unfair — to Jimmy Hoffa. Not even at his most ruthless did the late Teamster leader steal funds or wield political influence on the scale enjoyed by Ms. Gordillo and her cronies.

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“Mexican education” is something of an oxymoron. Mexican students placed dead in reading, math, and science test scores in a 2006 triennial survey of ninth-graders sponsored by the 30-nation Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (Finland, South Korea, and Canada ranked highest). This despite a 47-percent increase in education spending by the Mexican government during 1995–2004 and educational spending as a share of national income standing at 6.4 percent, a level exceeding that of most OECD nations.

Poor education is a contributing factor to the migration of so many Mexicans to the United States, legal or not. And American taxpayers are paying a steep price: in 2004, we spent about $12 billion on federal, state, and local government aid for pupils residing unlawfully in the five states with the most illegal immigrants, a figure that surely has risen since. Remember, Mexico is the country of origin of roughly 55 percent of all U.S. illegal immigrants, according to survey data from the Pew Hispanic Center.

Why does Mexico lag so far behind? To some extent, the answer lies in the fact that Mexican culture does not place nearly the premium on education found in such countries as the U.S., South Korea, or Germany. But a major portion of the blame must be placed on home-grown Mexican institutions, especially the SNTE and its leader, Ms. Gordillo.

Nicknamed by friend and foe alike as la Maestra, Elba Esther Gordillo Morales was born in 1945 in Chiapas — Mexico’s southernmost state, and one of its poorest. Her maternal grandfather struck it rich running a distillery, somehow finding the time to father 46 children, 41 of them out of wedlock. A classic domestic tyrant, he disowned Gordillo’s mother upon her marrying a policeman. Widowed at a young age, the mother lived hand-to-mouth as a school teacher.

Her daughter, the future union leader, herself married young and was widowed at age 18. She became a teacher in one of Mexico City’s poorest neighborhoods, and soon enough became politically active, joining a dissident faction within the SNTE, the Revolutionary Vanguard. The group routinely denounced its incumbent leader Carlos Jonguitud Barrios for corruption and ineptitude. Jonguitud responded by hiring and (allegedly) bedding her. Over the years she rose through the ranks of the union — conniving along the way to oust her benefactor — and the then-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), serving in various government posts.
In the 20 years since she’s headed the union, first as secretary-general and then since 1994 as “lifetime president,” Elba Gordillo and her handpicked lieutenants have made sure that SNTE continues to do what it does best: generating revenues, rewarding friends, and punishing enemies. Mexican sociologist-turned-journalist Jorge Zepeda Patterson has called her the “Darth Vader of Mexico.” Cruella DeVil might be a more apt analogy. She controls a $60-million-a-year organization and its more than 50 locals with little or no dissent. She’s won some lucrative concessions. More than 9,000 teachers took full leave last year to engage in political and/or union activism, teaching no classes. Another 14,000 teachers enjoyed “leaves of absence” while retaining their jobs.