American Legislative Exchange Council
ALEC is a corporate bill mill. It is not just a lobby or a front group; it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wishlists to benefit their bottom line. Corporations fund almost all of ALEC’s operations. They pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve “model” bills. Click here for a list of ALEC connected corporations.
ALEC sponsored bills include:
Career pathways to be assigned to students starting in kindergarten. Pathways will have curriculum aligned to the pathway and will be selected for the student based on assessments. Here is a link to Georgia’s legislation passed in 2012.
Mandated online courses for high school students with only state approved courses allowed. Parents have no say in what online courses their student may take. School districts will pay for the courses even though the class is offered in their “brick and mortar” schools. Fewer teachers needed with online learning. Here is a link to Georgia’s legislation passed in 2012.
Charter School legislation to create school run by unelected councils, rather than elected school boards. Charter schools use public tax dollars but are not accountable to the taxpayers. Link to Georgia’s Charter School Commission enabling legislation.
ALEC’s Decision on Common Core Standards
It’s a decision that isn’t really a decision.
Washington, DC – Today, the board of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), after considering anti-Common Core legislation introduced by the American Principles Project (APP), Goldwater Institute and the Washington Policy Center last summer, delayed a decision on whether to endorse the legislation until their next meeting.
“ALEC’s delay in endorsing the resolution is troubling and plays into the strategy of the multi-billion dollar private entities that are pushing the Common Core,” said APP’s Emmett McGroarty. ”This issue has been before ALEC for almost a year. The resolution was approved by the ALEC Education Task Force overwhelmingly last December, and ALEC has discussed it at three of its national meetings. The well-financed private entities and the federal government are moving forward with their implementation of the Common Core, and Americans have been cut out of the process.”
Dr. Tony Bennett, the Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction, presented the pro-Common Core case to the board of ALEC. Dr. Bennett is also on the Board of Directors of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), one of the two trade associations managing the Common Core Standards (along with the National Governors Association). Additionally, he is the Chairman of Chiefs for Change, an initiative of Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education. The Foundation for Excellence in Education and CCSSO have received $1,000,000 and $70,000,000, respectively, from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the primary force financing and pushing the Common Core.
Robert Scott, Texas Commissioner of Education, presented the case for the resolution to the board, which then deliberated behind closed doors. State Rep. Dave Frizzell of Indiana, ALEC’s National Chairman, reported that the board found that there was much to like about the legislation but decided to send it back to the Education Task Force due to concerns about some of the language. He stated that the board would forward the details of those concerns to the task force.
What is there to “like about the legislation”? It’s bought and paid for by special interests and controlled by special interests as well. It’s tainted and circumvents the legislative deliberations. If ALEC likes legislation developed and controlled by special interests which is then foisted on the American taxpayer and taxpayers and states are mandated to live by those special interests’ plans, that may tell us all we need to know about ALEC.
Why should some “concerns about the language” kick it back to the Education Task Force? If the process is rotten, it doesn’t matter if the language is changed or not.
It’s lipstick on a pig. Change the lipstick or the language, the educational reform model is still the same pig. And that pig is getting fatter every day with Jeb Bush and Bill Gates money at the trough.