ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council) is the corporate-controlled organization that is pulling the strings on behalf of the privatization movement.
Its next meeting will be held in Washington, D.C., on December 6 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel on H Street. Here is the agenda. If any reader of this blog attends, please send a report about the model laws that are adopted to destroy public education, reduce the status of the teaching profession, and mine the public treasury on behalf of private corporations.
Its model legislation for charter schools, vouchers, eliminating tenure and collective bargaining, and promoting virtual learning, has been adopted in state after state, especially where reactionary governors and legislatures are in control. ALEC has a detailed plan to privatize public education and create profits for entrepreneurs.
True conservatives do not support ALEC’s well-coordinated attack on public education. True conservatives respect the traditional institutions that have made America a great country. True conservatives do not blow up democratic institutions.
Keep us informed about the doings of this shadowy but powerful organization, whose members include some 2,000 state legislators, and whose donors include America’s largest corporations.
To learn more about ALEC, read ALEC Exposed, a website to tracking its activities and goals.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
A few thousand of us here in Chicago turned out to give them a hearty welcome. I hope DC will give them a similar (if not larger) reception.
Ahaa! Here it is on the Alec Education Agenda…
Early Intervention Program Act….School Funding that Follows the Child, School Finance and School Choice… what I have been saying for 2 years…
ALEC is positioning to monetize our preschool children.
Make no mistake, ALEC racketeers are salivating over the Universal Preschool bill introduced in Congress (Strong Start For America’s Children Act).
What an opportunity to open the floodgates of public tax dollars following the child to their for-profit or fake non-profit corporate managed charter preschool center!
The next ripe market for Hedge Fund operators… our 2,3,4 and 5 year olds!
As I type this, the nation’s youngest children are being viewed as commodities in the free market. The vice grip of data collection, accountability and standards are squeezing children who are still crying for their mommies as they step into the world of their preschool classroom, eager, excited but still shaky and tentative.
Read about the new Teaching Standards Gold for evaluating preschoolers by state standards in Louisiana… a new effort by Louisiana to assess how well pre-schoolers are developing, and eventually to hold early childhood education centers accountable, much in the way that public elementary and secondary schools are evaluated and given letter grades. It is a pilot program now, but state officials plan to expand it to all school systems by 2015.
Teaching Standards Gold will be a euphemism for the gold plated ALEC membership cards passed out to state legislators across the country as they adopted another wave of ALEC legislation aimed at co-opting our preschool children for hedge fund market portfolio investment opportunities. Watch for the A – F ranking sure to be rolling out for our nations preschools like a gangplank to the preschool charters that will be mushrooming across the country.
http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2013/11/preschool_standards_tool_teach.html
http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2013/10/john_white_discusses_early_chi.html
Stressed pre-school teachers complained last Tuesday to Louisiana state Superintendent of Education John White about the pressures of implementing Louisiana’s new assessment program for publicly funded early childhood centers. They said they are being rushed to evaluate students with a tool that is new to them.
“There is such a broad set of indicators for the first checkpoint. We’re eight weeks in and only just getting them to stop crying for mom,” teacher Shawn Tolliver told White during a meeting at Fannie C. Williams Charter School. White’s visit to eastern New Orleans school is part of a day-long tour of local schools.
Educators’ questions and concerns mostly focused on the new program’s assessment method, called Teaching Standards Gold, and larger issues of early childhood funding. “I’m concerned about the voice of folks serving kids under four,” said Melanie Bronfin, director of the Louisiana Partnership for Children.
Sound familiar? Common Core for thumbsuckers, how charming…
I can hear those suburban Moms now saying, “Bring it On!
Ready, Set, Go!
White collar pirates?
This bit caught my eye
Page 47
3. Legislators should consider several options when designating which agency or organization will administer the program. It may be expedient to designate the agency in charge of foster care and other social services. Alternatively, legislators may choose to create a new small agency to oversee the program if they are concerned about the hostility the program would face from the existing state education department. An additional alternative would be to allow for this program to be contracted out to a nonprofit organization to administer the program
Thank you! As I am seeing proposed legislation from a senator in our state on student funding following the student.
“Student Achievement Backpack Act”- the name sounds harmless. But careful reading highlights problematic issues with it. This giant repository of student data (here we go again) will include teacher information including “…name, years of experience, degree, license and endorsement”
And how is this relevant to the student’s “learning profile to better inform instruction and personalize education” and to “assist in diagnosing a student’s learning needs”?
Sounds like another way to track and rate teachers if you ask me. They always sneak that in, don’t they?
Nowhere does it mention ensuring accuracy of the stored information or assurance of a method of correcting errors. Nor does it mention an opt-out choice for parents. Remember how important parent “choice” is – sometimes.
And all this compiled in a online cloud- let’s just hand the hackers the code and save them time.
Hmmmmmmm. Just looking around the room. Put up your hand if you think Diane is slowing down. Yup. Just what I thought. Not a single hand up. Well, as I read to my students today, “A superhero works the hardest when things are tough.” (Paraphrased from Thank You, Sarah: The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving—Laurie Halse Anderson). Stand up if you’d like to thank our Superhero and hope that she’ll take a day off tomorrow. Yup, I knew you’d all be standing. Thank you, Diane, the Woman who is striving to save education, joy in learning, and democracy. (BTW, it only took Sarah Hale 38 years and five presidents to have Thanksgiving declared a national holiday. Let’s hope this takes less.)
Agree, I am so thankful for Diane. I truly believe she is Superwomen. I have led so many people to this blog because I believe in her mission to save public education. Together, our voices are strong and we can join together to keep our public schools public.
Yes, yes, yes!!
Reblogged this on Naked Teaching and commented:
Nothing sacred. Nothing safe. Our schools, our children for corporate profit.
Nothing sacred. Nothing safe. Our schools, our children for corporate profit.
Hi everyone,
I’d like to share a talk I recently gave to the School Board of Palm Beach County, FL about the excessive testing going on in our public schools and who is profiting by it.