Mexican president signs education reform

The legislation, which is widely expected to weaken Mexico's powerful teachers' union, was approved earlier by congress and the majority of state legislatures. The reform was a plank of a pact signed between Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party and the two main opposition parties

It seeks to create a system of uniform standards for teacher hiring and promotion based on merit, and will allow for the first census of Mexico's education system.

Because the 1.5 million-member National Union of Education Workers union controls the education system, no one knows exactly how many schools, teachers or students exist. The payroll is believed to have thousands of phantom teachers and once included the leader of a major drug cartel in the western state of Michoacan, who had last been in the classroom a decade earlier. The state later canceled his teacher checks.

Another goal of the reform is to raise the level of Mexican students who complete middle school to 80 percent and the number who complete high school to 40 percent. The reform also extends learning hours in some 40,000 public schools.

"Professional merit must be the only way to be hired, remain and advance as a teacher, director or supervisor ... and success will not be subject to discretional criteria," said Pena Nieto after signing the law, accompanied by members of his Cabinet and opposition leaders.