Gay Adelmann, a parent activist in SAve Outlr Schools Kentucky, lists the state legislators who take their marching orders from ALEC and the names of their opponents.
https://forwardky.com/alec-backed-legislators-running-kentucky/
ALEC is a radical libertarian group funded by the Koch brothers, the DeVos family, and major corporations. Their goal is to shrink government, eliminate regulation, and lower taxes.
As Adelmann shows, several key Republican legislators carry water for ALEC, introducing ALEC model legislation as if it were their own.
On education issues, ALEC is pro-privatization, favoring charters and vouchers.
The ALEC puppets are being challenged by civic-minded opponents. She provides a handy lists of the ALEC minions and their challengers.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
First and foremost, ditch Mitch.
A recent study that took into account unemployment rate, job growth, per-capita GDP, GDP growth, average weekly wages, and wage growth ranked Kentucky 48th among 50 states. This state is a really good example of one where voters CONSISTENTLY vote against their own interests–for the folks who will take away their access to jobs programs, consumer protections, healthcare, good education, student loans, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, opioid treatment, and so on.
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Hurtle the Turtle
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Great rallying call: Hurdle the Turtle, Ditch Mitch.
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Comment awaiting moderation, and I didn’t even use the K word! LOL.
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But you did use the M word. K is more malignant in the long term, M in the short term, but with long term consequences. 🤓
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I would like to see the term “libertarian” and “neo-liberarian” freed from any link to so-called free markets. Markets are not at all free. There is nothing liberal or liberating about ALEC, the go-to place for legislation designed to benefit corporate interests and diminish the whole idea of a common good shaped by citizens who are not at the center of profit-seeking.
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Markets are not free to those who are systemically denied access to them. It’s time to stop letting these people dominate discourse with their Orwellian Newspeak.
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We Need a “Watch Your Language” Movement
Example:
In an era of monopolies and vast concentrations, in a few hands, of most wealth and income, in an era in which MOST PEOPLE are systemically denied access to markets, it is Orwellian Newspeak to talk of “free markets.” There’s nothing “free” about markets that most people can’t even dream of participating in.
It’s time to stop allowing right-wing extremists to dominate our discourse with intentionally misleading terminology.
Devil’s Dictionary Entry
free market. One dominated by a few wealthy monopolists and accessible only by their toadies and sycophants in the economic upper stratosphere
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“Purchase of sprawling former ECOT headquarters gives Columbus City Schools some fancy amenities including an executive office with a fur tapestry wall, stainless steel barn door entrance, and large private bathroom with stone wall.
It’s not the intricate tile work, the wood floors, the fur wallpaper, the “barn doors” that roll open to executive offices, the hand-pounded steel sink and stone counters, the carved wood wall, the futuristic lobby or even the full-size movie theater.
The thing that really stands out from a tour of the now-dark, dirty and vacant former ECOT headquarters on the South Side is its size — 138,457 square feet of labyrinth.
The building is a shuttered testament to a billion-dollar state educational experiment gone awry — all paid for with tax dollars diverted from hundreds of school districts across the state. Its sleek, modern furniture, computer servers, file cabinets and large portraits of GOP politicians are now gone. But the former Southland Mall building at 3700 S. High St. is slowly coming back to life as part of Columbus City Schools, which scooped it up at a liquidation auction over the summer for $3.47 million including fees.”
Never would have happened without Ohio public school supporters bringing ECOT to the attention of the public.
This scam would have continued for another 20 years.
https://www.dispatch.com/news/20181105/former-ecot-headquarters-become-fancy-digs-for-city-schools
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This place stands as a mute but eloquent indictment
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The Akron Beacon Journal’s reporter, Rick Armon, wrote a fictional account of ECOT’s co-founder, David Brennan. In the obit, there was not one mention about ECOT and (1) the fleecing of Ohioans that has resulted in lawsuit brought by Ohio’s attorney general (2) the return of campaign donations by Ohio politicians nor, (3) the lawsuit filed by Dayton Public Schools and Hocking Local schools which makes the case the Republican attorney general can’t be trusted to diligently recover funds in his lawsuit.
Instead, the obit was an endorsement for school choice. Rick Armon belongs in journalism’s Hall of Shame.
When a person doesn’t want to speak ill of the dead, the person doesn’t write about the deceased’s founding of ECOT.
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Was Brennan a co-founder of ECOT?
He was White Hat. Lager was ECOT.
Right?
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Yes, Linda. I commented on this earlier. According to the ABJ, he’s still a successful businessman and philanthropist. As you noted, he did it public funds. Kind of like our Dear Leader’s family foundation. I’ll take your money, call it mine and the public won’t care.
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Yes, it was White Hat not ECOT. I assumed that’s what Linda meant and just wrote the wrong thing. I do that all the time.
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Easy to confuse grifters
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Anger led me to conflate Brennan and Lager. Thanks Diane and Greg for clarifying the rhetorical difference. When Chester Finn kicks the bucket, I’ll probably conflate him with Mike Petrelli. The groundwork has been laid by Nonpartisan Education Review in its research into Fordham’s chronology.
“ECOT (Lager) is dead and White Hat (Brennan) has left the state.” Lager lives and Brennan died last month. Rick Armon praised Brennan’s contribution to school choice. Lager and Brennan, interchangeable in Columbus’ charter school politics and in funding for Republicans, interchangeable in student and Ohio taxpayer damage.
Recovery of community taxes focuses on ECOT/Lager.
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The Koch brothers are 78 and 85 years old. How strong is the ALEC org? Can we just wait these 2 old fogies out, or have they lined up strong leaders behind them?
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