Education reform approved in Mexico

A plan to overhaul Mexico's public education system has been ratified by 18 of the country's 31 states, allowing it to be enacted by President Enrique Pena Nieto, officials confirmed this week. The law, which is supported by Pena and was approved by Congress last month, calls for creation of a professional system for hiring, evaluating, and promoting teachers without the "discretionary criteria" currently used in a system in which teaching jobs often are purchased or inherited. "The goal of the reform is a quality education, and for this, there are two big things (needed): evaluating professional teachers, and the body that will evaluate the system," said Senator Juan Carlos Romero Hicks, the president of the Senate's Education Commission, who confirmed the reform's approval Wednesday