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Sunday, January 27, 2013

Privatizing Public Education, Higher Ed Policy, and Teachers - Alec Exposed

Privatizing Public Education, Higher Ed Policy, and Teachers - Alec Exposed:

Increasing Profits for School Companies, Undermining Teachers, and Promoting "Conservatives" on Campus

Privatizing Public Education, Higher Ed Policy, and Teachers
This page reveals how ALEC bills would privatize public education, crush teacher's unions, and push American universities to the right. Among other things, these bills make education a private commodity rather than a public good, and reverse America’s modern innovation of promoting learning and civic virtue through public schools staffed with professional teachers for children from all backgrounds.Through ALEC, corporations have both a VOICE and a VOTE on specific state laws to change the American education system. Do you?


How are corporations undermining K-12 public education in these bills?

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Through ALEC, corporations, ideologues, and their politician allies voted to spend public tax dollars to subsidize private K-12 education and attack professional teachers and teachers' unions by:
To see a full list of these bills, click here.



The "Voucher" Strategy and Requiring Tax Subsidies for Private For-Profit Schools

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For almost 20 years, a top priority item for ALEC has been the privatization of public schools through school vouchers. Like many ALEC efforts, this one was first implemented in Wisconsin. ALEC has dozens of bills related to this topic, along with books and analysis. in 1993, ALEC gave its first "Adam Smith Free Enterprise Award" to school privatization advocate and funder Richard DeVos. In the early 1990s, under the leadership of longtime ALEC member Tommy Thompson, Wisconsin was the first state in the nation to implement a voucher program using public funds to send children to private schools. This experiment was limited to low-income students in the Milwaukee School District. Although recent tests have revealed that voucher students performed worse in math and reading than public school students, ideological proponents of privatization are nonetheless pushing to expand the Milwaukee program to other areas of the state, as well as to higher-income families.
Tracking the ALEC school voucher agenda, Governor Walker's 2011 Wisconsin budget expanded voucher schools throughout Milwaukee County and to the Racine school district, lifted the cap on participation, and increased income eligibility to 300% of the federal poverty level. Other ALEC-originated school choice bills are also in the works for Wisconsin, including the Charter School Reform Bill (AB 51-SB 22) and the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (AB 94). To learn more, click here.
Have any of these bills been introduced or enacted in YOUR state?