EduShyster reports here on the comings and goings at ALEC.
ALEC is a super-secret rightwing group sponsored by major corporations, whose members include about 2,000 state legislators who want to advance the corporate agenda.
In this post, EduShyster notes that scores of corporations abandoned ALEC after it got so much bad press following the Trayvon Martin murder in Florida (ALEC supports stand your ground laws of the sort found in Florida). But as the publicity-shy corporations bailed out, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute joined.
I was a founding member of TBF, and was sorry to hear the news. Although I left the board in 2009, I always thought that TBF tried to be center-right, not far-right. ALEC is far right. On education issues, they are awful. ALEC loves privatization. It writes model laws for vouchers and charters. It loves online learning and opposes any regulation of online providers. ALEC hates unions. It opposes certification for teachers or any form of rights, job security, or due process for teachers.
ALEC writes laws that would put an end to public education and the teaching profession. Some states have laws that were written by ALEC. It is surprising that ALEC is treated by the IRS as if it was not a lobbying organization. It is.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
this prize winning journalist in Maine was able to bring the facts to the public.
July 3, 2013
“Special Report: The profit motive behind virtual schools in Maine”
Documents expose the flow of money and influence from corporations that stand to profit from state leaders’ efforts to expand and deregulate digital education.
By Colin Woodard cwoodard@pressherald.com
Staff Writer
This story originally was published on Sept. 2, 2012. Portland Press Herald
find these journalists and THANK THEM!!!!
their occupation is also being destroyed for being true journalists.
Another one is Jonathan Pelto in CT and in NJ we have another good one.
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Part 1
I don’t think the Fordham Institute has EVER been “center-right.” Although that may be their pretext. Fordham has always been “ideologically conservative.” That ideology has always skewed the “facts” even as the Institute claims faithfulness to “quality research.”
The Institute has given awards to conservative “researchers” like Paul Peterson, Eric Hanushek, and Terry Moe.
Paul Peterson thinks public education “reform” consists of more charter schools, more testing, merit pay, and vouchers. Peterson is a man who put former Reagan Education Secretary William Bennett in the same category as Horace Mann and John Dewey as education “reformers.” Peterson is a fellow at the conservative Hoover Institute. His cronies there include “scholars” like Eric Hanushek, who infamously tried to debunk the Tennessee STAR class-size study because there were no achievement tests given to pre-kindergartners as “baseline” data BEFORE they started school.
Chester Finn, top dog at Fordham, admits that in the very short time he taught, he was a horrible teacher. Yet he pushed hard for NCLB and its test-based “accountability,” he supports Common Core, and he now sees fit to tell others what education “reform” looks like. It looks just like the kind envisioned by Paul Peterson, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Business Roundtable, and the other corporate “reformers.”
Fordham’s Board of Trustees includes Chester Finn, Rod Paige (who presided over a massive cheating scandal as superintendent in Houston, and like Arne Duncan, was a failure as Secretary of Education), Caprice Young of the right-wing Arnold Foundation, and Stefanie Sanford (who was once a director of policy for Rick Perry [yes, THAT Rick Perry], worked at the Gates Foundation, and now is the resident policy wonk at the College Board).
Where does Fordham get its money?
Major funders of Fordham include the following:
the Broad Foundation (known for its free market” “data-driven “ approach to “reform”);
the Walton Foundation (a big-time promoter of “competitive pressure,” i.e. school vouchers);
the Gates Foundation (a promoter of charters and “merit” pay, and Common Core.);
the Hoover Institute (the conservative “think” tank that pushes laissez-faire economics, puts out “research” by such ideologues as Eric Hanushek, Paul Peterson, Carolyn Hoxby, and is funded by conservative organizations groups like the Koret Foundation and the Bradley Foundation…Chester Finn is a “senior fellow” there);
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Part 2
* Ohio Business Roundtable (a group that promotes the myth that higher standards and achievement are critical to “competitiveness” and demands more tax cuts for big business);
* Koret Foundation ( Here is it’s foundational philosophy: “Milton Friedman believed that America’s broken educational system lies at the heart of our nation’s troubles, and directed his own foundation to work solely on the promotion of market-based K-12 education reform. The Koret Foundation agrees with Dr. Friedman.”);
* Bradley Foundation (an organization that purports to fund “wisdom, morality, and personal character” but which funds conservative causes and ideas almost exclusively, leading some to call it “the country’s largest and most influential right-wing organization.” It also funds the conservative American Enterprise Institute, the Manhattan Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, and the Hoover institute.);
* the Kern Family Foundation ( based on what it calls “the traditions of free enterprise…ordered liberty and good character.” The Kern Foundation applauds Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute for explaining in his book The Battle, the “free enterprise is fundamentally a system of moral values such as honesty, courage, diligence, thrift and service to others.” Tell that to all of those who were hurt and cheated and swindled –– and left without homes and jobs –– because of the rampant fraud and corruption on Wall Street and in corporate boardrooms.)
So, the Fordham Institute is right-wing, indeed. That it is now openly aligned with ALEC is disturbing, not so much because of Fordham itself, but because of who (see above)– and what (the Common Core) – Fordham is tied to tightly.
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Sounds like a marriage made in heaven. Now they can quit sneaking around acting like they weren’t interested in each other.
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LOL !! 🙂
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Tobacco firms such as Reynolds and pharmaceutical firms such as Bayer benefit directly from ALEC tort reform measures that make it harder for Americans to sue when injured by dangerous products.
Sounds like some kind of terrorism to me.
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A lot..
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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.
http://youtu.be/WheNIUTddT0
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