This article by Álvaro Delgado Gómez originally appeared in the December 30, 2025 edition of Sin Embargo.
Editor’s note: Ultra-right winger and tax scofflaw Ricardo Salinas Pliego owned businesses which were seeking to profit from substantial contracts for school textbooks, which explains part of the material basis for his hostility towards the New Mexican School educational reforms and new textbooks (introduced by Marx Arriaga in his role at the Secretariat of Education), beyond his ideological commitments.
Mexico City. Marx Arriaga Navarro, Director of Educational Materials at the Ministry of Public Education (SEP), asserted that the controversy surrounding the signing of educational agreements with international organizations and private foundations stems not only from the participation of external actors, but also from the support of governments affiliated with Morena, which perpetuate practices that contradict the educational project promoted by the Fourth Transformation.
In an interview with Álvaro Delgado on the program Los Periodistas which is broadcast through the YouTube channel of SinEmbargo Al Aire, Marx Arriaga indicated that the entities that signed the agreement are Aguascalientes, Chihuahua, Durango, Baja California, Coahuila, Yucatán and Quintana Roo, states that he described as conservative.
“We should also include Veracruz, which signed the agreement. There are some states that are clueless; just because the government or its leaders are from Morena doesn’t mean that all institutions have a progressive vision. We see that in the day-to-day operations of many institutions, old practices continue to be replicated. In this case, an old practice in the education sector is delegating the State’s responsibility for citizen formation to third parties.”
He said that after that signing, a dispute arose within the Ministry of Public Education about how far these agreements advance educational privatization.
He recalled that Mexico has a defined legal framework, derived from the reform of Article Three, the General Law of Education and the implementation of the new 2022 curriculum.
Marx Arriaga Navarro
“These organizations are breaking the law and creating a new educational system that continues what Aurelio Nuño and Peña Nieto left behind during their six-year term. This happened with the signing on December 5th. Then there was a complaint from Educational Materials to those states, and [Ricardo] Salinas Pliego brought up the issue, saying that the books are communist and that we need to return to the type of education that Aurelio Nuño and Peña Nieto proposed in terms of human capital, of workers.”
The Director of Educational Materials insisted that there are states whose participation is especially painful, due to their history of social struggle.
“It hurts to wonder why states like Veracruz are signing an Avon agreement for literacy,” he stressed.
In his opinion, what is observed today on social media is a clear ideological dispute: on one side, a conservative project promoted by Salinas Pliego; on the other, a progressive vision associated with the Fourth Transformation and the defense of public education.
In that context, he explained, Ricardo Salinas Pliego has increased his presence in the educational discussion by detecting cracks within the institutional apparatus itself.
Finally, Arriaga urged people not to oversimplify the conflict. “It’s been blown out of proportion, as if it were a dispute between people with whims for control of an institution. That’s not the case. We’re all colleagues, we all come from a left-wing background, but sometimes, institutionally, they don’t want to discard old practices,” he concluded.
Álvaro Delgado Gómez is a journalist who began his career as a reporter in 1986, and has worked in the newsrooms ofEl Financiero*,El Nacional, andEl Universal, as well as head of Political Information at the weeklyProceso. He is the author of many books, includingEl Yunque: The Far Right in Power;El Ejército de Dios; andEl engaño: Prédica y práctica del PAN.El amasiato: El acuerdo secreto Peña-Calderón y otras traiciones PANistasis his most recent book.*
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“Just because the government or its leaders are from Morena doesn’t mean that all institutions have a progressive vision,” the Director General of Educational Materials commented.
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