ALEC is the fringe-right American Legislative Exchange Council, which advocates for school privatization and elimination of unions, due process, and the teaching profession. Its hero is Betsy DeVos, who is working daily to bring ALEC’s extremist agenda into the mainstream.
ALEC publishes an annual report card on education, evaluating the states not by test scores or quality of education or results, but by the degree to which they have privatized their public schools and diverted funding to nonpublic schools.
The world according to ALEC is upside down.
The number 1 state is Arizona, even though it has low scores on NAEP and a very low high school graduation rate.
The number 2 is Florida, also with an abysmal graduation rate.
Number 3 is Indiana, where privatization reigns supreme, and spending is low.
The District of Columbia, one of the lowest performing districts in the nation, with the biggest achievement gaps, ranks number 6.
Far behind D.C. and other contenders is Massachusetts, with the nation’s highest test scores and a graduation rate of 89%.
Why, according to ALEC, the state of Alabama and the District of Columbia are far, far better than Massachusetts.
And even funnier, ALEC says the worst state in the nation is Nebraska. It has no charter schools, no vouchers. It has a graduation rate of 94%. Just awful!
The ALEC report card is the direct opposite of the Network for Public Education report card, which graded states in relation to their support for public schools. ALEC’s #1 state, Arizona, received an F. ALEC’s #51 state, Nebraska, came in second in the nation.
What a hoot!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“So while the new edition of the Education Report Card grades states across six categories – academic standards, charter schools, homeschool regulation burden, private school choice, teacher quality, and digital learning – two of the factors composing the new education policy grade, charter schools and private school choice, were weighted more heavily because they represent the parent-centered, choice-driven future of education in the 21st century. Our new GPA-based grading and ranking system compares the states based on how their education policies measure up to the demands of that bright future.
While some states have risen to the top of the heap, no state earned higher than a B+ in 2016. There is room to grow; to trust more families instead of regulators, and to ensure that every student has an equal opportunity at the quality, individualized education that 21st-century success requires.”
They’re ‘agnostics!’ Agnostics in the sense that the more charter and private school vouchers, the better the score, so not ‘agnostic’ at all, really.
ALEC is really pushing ed tech product. They’re like a quasi-sales force for that industry.
I though they were believers in “markets”? Why the huge push to bully public schools into spending billions on these products? Don’t ed tech companies have their own salespeople?
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ALEC does seem to be in neck-deep with the online school promoters. Maybe this is due to the fact that with current online models the financial harvest is typically up front — funding for each student enrolled as opposed to funding for each student who successfully completes the program.
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No discussion about ALEC would be complete without this parody of the Schoolhouse Rock’s “I’M JUST A BILL”, which cleverly and accurately provides a description for the lay person of exactly how ALEC operates:
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In ALEC’s state-by-state “report card,” all 50 states (plus Washington, D.C.) are ranked 1-51.
However, when it comes the metrics that any sane person would think should be the criteria for judging whether or not a state’s schools are of high or of low quality …
— academic outcomes and test scores,
— rates of high school graduation, and numbers of high school graduates,
— college preparedness and acceptance; and
— rates of college graduation, and numbers of high school graduates…
… all of those things ARE NOT CONSIDERED IN ALEC’s RANKING. They’re completely ignored, in favor of other factors.
Huh?
Yeah, that’s right.
“ALEC Report Card on American Education” is almost all about whether the state allows charters and vouchers, and also virtual schools, and how little accountability is imposed upon those schools. The states which hold privately-managed charters and voucher-funded private schools to the least accountability are at the top, such as Florida, which is ranked No. 2, right after Arizona, which is at No. 1:
(Florida is on p. 17 of the above link, while Arizona is on p. 10 )
Oh, I almost forgot. The other key factor in a state’s ranking is how much a state spends on education —* the less the better*.
The more your state cheaps out on funding schools … the higher your ALEC score (with a state’s low NAEP test scores being totally ignored).
The more your state taxes/spends on funding schools … the lower your ALEC score.(with extremely high NAPE test scores being totally ignored.)
ALEC loves the former because this starves the traditional public schools —- starves them into low achievement that ALEC and its bought-and-paid-for politicians can then use to justify privatization, charters, vouchers, etc.
ALEC hates the latter because THEY KNOW this will lead to higher academic achievement, that will slow their efforts to privatize schools, and expand vouchers, charters, etc.
ALEC: *Damn those states with academically successful schools! They’re making it harder for us to privatize their schools!!!
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ALEC’s ridiculous rankings show their cards and what is important to them. It is about privatization which they euphemistically call “choice.”
That is why DeVos, the Amway queen, gave the address at the ALEC conference in Colorado, Birds of a feather and such!
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“— academic outcomes and test scores,
— rates of high school graduation, and numbers of high school graduates,
— college preparedness and acceptance; and
— rates of college graduation, and numbers of high school graduates…”
All are output indicators. To judge a school and the teaching and learning process that goes on inside one must take into consideration the input side (yes, I am aware of the business language being used but in and of itself that language is neither bad nor good, may or may not be appropriate, etc. . . .)
Are the inputs sufficient so that the purpose of public education which is to promote the welfare of the individual so that each person may savor the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the fruits of their own industry be fulfilled?
Outputs are a distraction, especiall the false and completely invalid indicators of “academic outcomes and test scores”, the completely manipulable graduation rates/number of high school graduates and their supposed “college preparedness and acceptance” (which completely disadvantages the already SES disadvantaged) and the spurious “rates of college graduation” as is the K-12 has any control over what a student does when he/she leaves public schooling. Bogus, totally bogus output indicators are a complete joke!
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Steven Singer’s Huffpo headline, “The Problem with Public Schools… Strategic Disinvestment”. “…the fire sale wish list of the Koch’s, Waltons, Gates, and other billionaires… (the schools the public sacrificed to build for their communities) “,
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What’s not hilarious is that AARP Nevada tweeted from the recent ALEC conference in Denver (after AARP liars claimed they were leaving ALEC)- Source- Stand Up to ALEC
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I find it interesting that their rankings of public school choice don’t include open enrollment, which Nebraska has. A woman at the NPE Conference last year had a whole session about it: since people in Nebraska can choose whatever public school they want, they never saw the need for charters or vouchers. Open enrollment is a form of school choice, why aren’t they factoring it in? I guess because at the end of day everyone who uses “open enrollment” still ends up with their child in a democratically-controlled school, which is exactly what ALEC is against.
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The Nebraska state board of education is one of two state boards that is listed as a funder of Public Agenda (Gates). The other state is the embarrassing Ohio. Shame on both.
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Florida has open enrollment, charters and vouchers, and under the guidance of Jeb Bush, this is not enough. They want to burden public schools to make them collapse.
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Yeah – and CT is a C- because we don’t have enough charters (ugh) and no choice programs.
Thank you and NPE for directly taking on this public education destruction machine.
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I wonder if the term “corporate reform” is not sufficiently explicit.
Should we speak instead about the DPE (Destroy Public Education) movement?
Or the PED (Public Education Destruction) movement?
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How about EPS? End Public Schools
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simple to say and active voice is better: The Destroy Public Education movement is… led by …. But also check out what else DPE may stand for..
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This ALEC REPORT is the quintessential report describing IMPLEMENTATION v. OUTCOMES. Not to beat a dead horse but the former is the reason Denver Public Schools is praised in report after report. However, each report then goes on criticize DPs for its academic outcomes: CRPE, Brookings, ERS, even David Osborne and his PPI/EdNext reports. I have tried to point this out whenever possible in my blog posts. What a joke when you give high marks for punitive business model (portfolio management) implementation, when anyone with any honesty or thoughtfulness knows an education system’s first responsibility should be to educate. Fake criteria. Fake results. Very powerful organization. So very sad.
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Yes. Denver has indeed fallen to the “alternative facts” model of arguing an endless need for yet more school reform. As with ALEC, up is down and red is blue.
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Drumroll…
Noel Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error”
“In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.” Swacker
To wit:
academic outcomes defined by test scores
rates of high school graduation determined by test scores
numbers of high school graduates determined by how many passed the tests
college preparedness and acceptance as determined by test scores
rates of college graduation, and numbers of high school graduates, as determined
by test scores
The “like disolves like” (chemistry) approach, may not work in this case.
Trying to disolve ALEC bullshit with testing bullshit produces a greater pile
of bullshit.
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What isn’t so funny is that ALEC essentially owns a majority of state legislatures. Which is why their warped view of education has so much credence in the US.
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bingo.
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Fake report card. Fake data.
Obviously.
But it will nonetheless be used to bludgeon what remains of the defense and defenders of public education.
As constantly re-stated, being on the right side hardly matters. It’s about the narrative.
Fake things like this bolster and reinforce their narrative to the not-tuned-in masses.
If you are thinking that “oh, their house of cards built on fake data, deceit, lies, and a universe of false and misleading information will inevitably crumble on its own weight!!”…….well no. That just like a fun little morality play we tell ourselves. Large structures of deceit and awful, lie-based policies and institutions based on those lies and deceit routinely endure and even thrive in our society:
– privatized health insurance industry
– private oil and energy industry
– Harvard Business School and all other Business schools
– a huge part of our financial industry
– a huge part of our military and defense industry
– all of Apple’s marketing
– a whole host of religious institutions large and small
– etc etc.
The list goes on….
So yeah, lets not think that the lies will come back to haunt them or that there will be some pendular reaction to this. Those are ahistorical lies we tell ourselves to salve the hard edge of truth that our educational system in the US will, in perhaps a decades time, give or take, be privatized, monetized, and in the control of our and other nations finest billionaires.
Note that none of the failures we catalog here ever add up to a social or political reaction. Soon enough education will be free of political or social movements being able to effect it.
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I think that these seeming “inevitabilities” can lead to inaction, no resistance, and hasten the unbridled and absolute rule of the billionaires. I agree that your scenario is likely, and more likely sooner in the absence of organized opposition. In the US that means being vigilent about who is elected and who is trying to control voter registration, the press, the courts, and the “commons” in every community.
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Totally agree with you.
Agree that a strong organized push on our political representatives is our only path.
I contend that the threats facing us and seemingly culminating right now against us were quite legible 8-10 years ago. Our unions were uniquely positioned to lead this requisite organizing. That didn’t happen. Now we are trying to mobilize outside of the power and structure of unions. Some successes but mostly not. We really need to think about precisely that. How are we going to organize and mobilize at this late hour and without the traditional left-wing organizing stalwart of unions? How are we going to field a proper counter-narrative? These questions are the center of our fight.
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ALEC wants all corporate charter schools and/or vouchers (no community based, democratic, transparent, non-profit, traditional public schools where teachers, students and parents have rights) and if ALEC succeeds in achieving its agenda, it will brag in annual reports through the traditional corporate media about the high HS graduation numbers.
Let’s look at what that bragging will look like.
ALEC will claim a 100-percent graduation rate but only 76-percent (or less) of 17/18 olds in the country will earn HS degrees on time. If ALEC managed to also privatize the U.S. Census, we will never hear about this.
The other 12-million children that left (for whatever reason) before finishing HS, and because there will be no reasonable equivalent HS degree to earn by age 25 without passing a secretive, for profit, corporate created, high stakes test with a passing score that no one knows about, most of those children will never earn a high school degree. In reports from ALEC, those 12-million children for each generation will be ignored as if they don’t exist. And if many of those forgotten and ignored children end up in prison as adults, the private sector, for profit, corporate prisons will not be required to report how many Americans are locked up so no one will know.
That is a snapshot of what ALEC wants for the people of the United States.
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Repeating my take on a previous post by Jack re: the ALEC report card:
I was wondering if the ALEC report card would prove to be an upside-down-version of rankings based on test scores & grad rates, such as one sees at USN&WR, wallethub, etc. But no! For example, 4 states usually placing in the top 5 per trad’l ankings are MA, Conn, NH, NJ. ALEC ranks them as MA #32, Conn #34, NH #43 (!), NJ #14..
All of them get F on ‘school choice allowed’. All get A on standards. The differences lie in the 3 other categories.
The diffs betw & MA & Conn are slim. Both score B- on ‘Teacher quality/policies [would that be VAM?]. Even tho’ lower-ranked Conn edges out MA on [less] “homeschool regs burden”, & “digital learning”, MA edges Conn out on “charter schools”, presumably looser charter law, which apparently counts more heavily.
Poor old NH. Their homesch regs & digi-learning falls w/n the same C/D territory as MA & Conn. Apparenly they got busted down to the 40’s because of a D in “teacher quality/ policy”, just not hi-stakes-VAMming hard enough.
And how did NJ emerge smelling like a rose, w/their ALEC rank just 10 slots below trad’l rank? Well, their digi-learning is same as Conn, but their teacher VAMming is a bit less rigid than either MA or Conn. It’s just because… they get an A for homeschooling! No reg burden at all! (Here in NJ you can homeschool however you want, then go get a GED. If you want a NJ diploma, that’s another story).
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where can i find the data on arizona grad rates?
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