ALEC's 2012 Focus - Destruction of Education

again and more
- coming to your state legislature
- courtesy of the 2012 ALEC Annual Meeting just held in Salt Lake City.

Found this blog enty about South Dakota ALEC Senator Dan Lederman
Lederman Loves ALEC, Covers for Radical Education-Wrecking Agenda

Sen. [Dan] Lederman says the primary focus of this year’s ALEC meeting was how to get a better education system for the same or less money. I’m betting the emphasis was on “less.” An effective public education system is the greatest practical and ideological threat to the plutocracy Lederman and ALEC serve. ALEC pursues the entirely radical agenda of starving the public schools and bringing the education of our children under private corporate control.

And if you want to hear this ALEC member - in his own words, say that more cuts to education is the 2012 goal of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC),

- you can hear his radio snip  >>>>>here<<<<<

- choose the third audio file

ALEC has said repeatedly over the past 5 months that they are getting out of the "social issues" arena with the ALEC agenda - but it is all in the interpretation.

For those of us who view education as a social issue - we should be very afraid of what the ALEC educational agenda will be.

Let’s see now – what has ALEC been spouting for the last 5 months. 

April 17 - ALEC’s 2012 National Chairman and Indiana State Representative David Frizzell released a statement indicating that the group would go back to focusing on economic issues only.

 “We are eliminating the ALEC Public Safety and Elections task force that dealt with non-economic issues, and reinvesting these resources in the task forces that focus on the economy,” Frizzell said. “The remaining budgetary and economic issues will be reassigned.”

“While we recognize there are other critical, non-economic issues that are vitally important to millions of Americans, we believe we must concentrate on initiatives that spur competitiveness and innovation and put more Americans back to work.”

July 25 - ALEC disbanded its Public Safety and Elections Task Force earlier this year. That group produced some of ALEC’s most controversial model bills, including voter identification legislation and a "stand-your-ground" law, backed by the NRA, which drew national attention after the fatal shooting of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.

"Something positive has come out of this [attention] in that ALEC hasn’t changed its mission at all," said Utah Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, who is on the ALEC Board of Directors. "It’s just re-emphasized what its mission is, that is free markets, limited government and federalism."

And their agenda from the annual meeting held last week includes:

July 25 - Inside the hotel Wednesday, legislators and private-sector members met in a series of subcommittees to discuss and refine ALEC’s model legislation. Afternoon sessions looked at how to curb frivolous lawsuits and control Medicaid costs.

In one session, Imagine Learning, a Provo-based company that makes educational software that Utah schools have bought to help non-English speakers, boasted of the success of its software in teaching special-needs students.

Sessions Thursday include "Can Tobacco Cure Smoking?" and a forum on pension reform.

Those sound like social agendas to me.

By Mark Pocan, July 26, 2012

July 26 - Even before I left, I received an email from ALEC National Chairman Rep. David Frizzell, stating, “In April, ALEC announced that we refocused our work strictly toward policies of a free-market, limited government nature. ALEC is not a social policy organization — and that is why we clarified our mission, doubling down on the issues that matter most to Americans of all political stripes. I’ll restate that ALEC disbanded the Public Safety and Elections Task Force that dealt with issues of a non-economic nature, rescinding the non-economic model legislation along with it.”

July 29 - McDaniel said that the organization was also rewriting its bylaws and mission statement at the Salt Lake City meeting. In his own opinion, he said, ALEC had gotten off track by getting into social issues.

"ALEC is refocusing on its founding principles — Jeffersonian principles, free enterprise, less government," McDaniel said. "Those social issues are not part of ALEC's mission."

From Think Progress

Here is a short list of ostensibly economic measures ALEC has supported in the past:

•State union-busting measures

•Repealing minimum wage laws

•Privatizing public lands

•Repealing capital gains taxes

•Repealing the estate tax

•Fighting any efforts to address manmade climate change while touting “the many benefits of atmospheric CO2 enrichment”

•Repealing paid sick day laws around the country

•Requiring a super-majority to raise taxes

•Pushing rules that deem that kids eating rat poison is an “acceptable risk”

ALEC FOCUS – again and again

free enterprise, less government

policies of a free-market, limited government nature

emphasized what its mission is, that is free markets, limited government

we must concentrate on initiatives that spur competitiveness

AND 

Don't forget the ALEC ethos - of hating government because they view government goods and services as being provided under a governmental "monopoly" - at the detriment of ALEC Corporate Profit Sector members revenues (corporate revenues that provide the overall funding for ALEC): 

ALEC Business Plan 1996

  …  will publish the fourth annual Report Card on Education in 1997. It is our most quoted work and makes the compelling case for revolutionary change in our monopoly education system .

From the 1997 ALEC Annual Meeting

The basic problems are a centralized governmental education monopoly   …  . True reform is possible if we can curb the teacher unions, implement charter school legislation, and get school voucher programs passed.

From a December 1997 ALEC publication describing the “Efficiency in Government Act”:

Efftciency cannot be achieved if government is permitted to act as a monopoly, with no competitive incentive to reduce costs or improve services.

From the introduction of the ALEC  2002 “Crisis in State Spending: A Guide for State Legislators”

To be sure, care has to be taken not to create private monopolies as invidious as the existing public government monopoly, but there are ways this can be done.

And you might want to take a quick trip through this report published the end of July.  At the end they imply that a larger report is coming out soon that could be of major importance to all of fighting this fight.

Profiting from Public Dollars: ALEC’s Privatization Agenda

The American Legislative Exchange Council has been a major force in pushing for the privatization of public services and assets. They actively promote privatization that allows corporate takeover of public functions. This agenda is evident in ALEC’s model bills. ALEC works with its corporate members to draft model bills that state legislators can introduce and push in their states.   …  The bills also have the potential to generate lucrative sources of revenue for ALEC’s corporate sponsors.

James Adams on the “The American Dream”

“That dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”

And the key to that dream is - EDUCATION.

NOT an agenda  of “free enterprise, less government” overall destruction of public education – to enhance corporate profit.

So my question to you folks is  … 

Are you ready

To battle ALEC pro-business, free-market, less government agenda

AND

Fight ALEC legislators uwho want to use your hard earned tax dollars

    to provide profits for ALEC education profit sector members

       while ALEC legislators shut down your public schools.

ALL ALEC legislative members/alumni

    must NOT be elected or re-elected in November.

Get out there and

vote NO TO ALEC

destruction of public schools!!!!