mexico, page-7

Some may be curious why President Calderon announced an extension of the Safe Schools Program to 14,000 schools (from the previous 8,000) when implementation in the original 8,000 has not commenced (apart from a pilot in 53 NL schools). After all, the announcement to commit to testing in the original 8,000 schools was made 13 months ago.

I think the answer is that the July 3 2007 original announcement was premature. Perhaps it was political. But no-one had worked out how it would be implemented and that gave the opponents considerable latitude to derail the program.

Hence its slow start. However, the successful trial in NL seems to have helped the pro-testing lobby to turn the corner. There is good knowledge about how it can work now. Perhaps the 'testing of waters' in one State was always the strategic intention.

Make no mistake about Calderon's speech. The 'safe schools' content may have been in the last paragraph - but the content of such a symbolically important speech (first day of the new school year) would have been very carefully thought out.

I think we'll see in the 2008-09 school year what we were hoping to see in 2007-08.

The following link to an article about the original launch of the program gives a good insight into the premature nature of the original announcement - how it confused States and schools - and prompted opposition.