ALEC Target: Public Schools

ALEC doesn't like public schools. "The mission of ALEC’s Education Task Force," their web site proclaims, "is to promote excellence in the nation’s educational system, to advance reforms through parental choice, to support efficiency, accountability, and transparency in all educational institutions, and to ensure America’s youth are given the opportunity to succeed." Of course, their principal target is public school teachers and their unions.

Speaking of transparency, last year I was able to view the titles of ALEC-sponsored legislation drafted to achieve conservative goals in state legislatures. It was pretty easy to see, for example, which of the many bills pushed through North Carolina's legislature by the new Republican majority had originated in ALEC, because they used the same title. "Faithful Presidential Electors," for example, absorbed a lot of legislative attention. When was the last time you heard of a presidential elector not voting for the presidential candidate to whom he was pledged? It's pretty rare.

Anyhow, a lot of Alec's bills deal with public schools and particular the charter movement. After all, "our schools are failing and we have to do something." Today I wasn't able to find ALEC's list of bills.

Fortunately, the Center For Media And Democracy has established a web site to expose ALEC's legislative agenda: http://www.alecexposed.org
The site provides a road map to ALEC's agenda. It verifies, for example that voter ID laws came right out of ALEC's game plan. As did Wisconsin's anti labor provisions, its assault on public workers, and the rest of Governor Walker's radical agenda.

A lot of this session's bills in the North Carolina legislature likewise had nothing to do with the concerns of North Carolinians - and a lot to do with the concerns of ALEC's corporate sponsors.