Greivences and a little background of Ayotzinapa

I can't speak to all their grievances, but among them have been demands for guaranteed immediate placement as teachers upon graduation and refusal to be subjected to competency testing. Their most frequent and recurring demands for way too many years for which they repeatedly close highways and extort or ask for money from drivers have been for more money and better services for their school including better meal plans. They commonly steal buses and vehicles to transport themselves to their protests, although in the most recent episode in Iguala I believe they were allowed to contract buses (I don't know if they actually paid anything) in exchange for promising not to harm the buses or their drivers.

These schools, known as "normales rurales", were established during the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas (1936-1940). There were originally 36 of these schools established around the country. Today I believe only 16 of them remain in operation, 9 here in the state of Guerrero, including the Escuela Normal Rural "Raúl Isidro Burgos" de Ayotzinapa. The schools select their students from among the indigenous populations of the region, the most important requirement simply being having extremely limited economic resources.

Perhaps they once actually fulfilled their established function, but in recent decades the quality of education in Guerrero has become the poorest in the nation, and as most parents in our state know, our children have simply not been receiving anything close to a decent education from the teachers we have, which include among them graduates from these types of schools.