At the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C., on Friday, December 1, members of the Education Task Force of the American Legislative Exchange Council got an earful when education activist Sabrina Joy Stevens infiltrated their closed-door meeting to confront the ALEC members on their own turf.
This two-minute video is well worth watching, especially for the part where one of the task force members mansplains to Stevens that she doesn't understand how ALEC really works. Why, the task force doesn't set policy, he says, implying that Stevens had chosen the wrong target.
In reality, ALEC's task forces draft policy recommendations that are taken up by the national body.
Stevens wrote on her YouTube posting:
On November 30, 2012, I had the rare and deeply disturbing experience of witnessing part of the American Legislative Exchange Council's Education Task Force meeting: a closed-door policy-shaping session open only to the state legislators who help to pass them, the corporate lobbyists who pay big money to shape and sponsor them-- and scrappy activists like me, who are no longer willing to cede our policy-making processes to unaccountable, undemocratic organizations who hide from the people their decisions ultimately affect. Here's me speaking from my heart as a teacher driven from the classroom into activism by destructive policies like theirs.
Education Task Force meeting: a closed-door policy-shaping session open only to the state legislators who help to pass them, the corporate lobbyists who pay big money to shape and sponsor them-- and scrappy activists like me, who are no longer willing to cede our policy-making processes to unaccountable, undemocratic organizations who hide from the people their decisions ultimately affect. Here's me speaking from my heart as a teacher driven from the classroom into activism by destructive policies like theirs.
Adele M. Stan is AlterNet's Washington correspondent. She co-edited, with Don Hazen, the AlterNet book, Dangerous Brew: Exposing the Tea Party's Agenda to Take Over America. Follow her on Twitter: www.twitter.com/addiestan . Send tips to: adele@alternet.org
Stevens formerly worked as a teacher in Denver, Colo., and in another capacity with students in Philidelphia, Penn. She took her ALEC mission on as a "rogue operation" she says, wholly on her own. She is currently employed by the American Federation of Teachers.
At the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C., on Friday, December 1, members of the Education Task Force of the American Legislative Exchange Council got an earful when education activist Sabrina Joy Stevens infiltrated their closed-door meeting to confront the ALEC members on their own turf.
This two-minute video is well worth watching, especially for the part where one of the task force members mansplains to Stevens that she doesn't understand how ALEC really works. Why, the task force doesn't set policy, he says, implying that Stevens had chosen the wrong target.
In reality, ALEC's task forces draft policy recommendations that are taken up by the national body.
Stevens wrote on her YouTube posting:
On November 30, 2012, I had the rare and deeply disturbing experience of witnessing part of the American Legislative Exchange Council's Education Task Force meeting: a closed-door policy-shaping session open only to the state legislators who help to pass them, the corporate lobbyists who pay big money to shape and sponsor them-- and scrappy activists like me, who are no longer willing to cede our policy-making processes to unaccountable, undemocratic organizations who hide from the people their decisions ultimately affect. Here's me speaking from my heart as a teacher driven from the classroom into activism by destructive policies like theirs.
Education Task Force meeting: a closed-door policy-shaping session open only to the state legislators who help to pass them, the corporate lobbyists who pay big money to shape and sponsor them-- and scrappy activists like me, who are no longer willing to cede our policy-making processes to unaccountable, undemocratic organizations who hide from the people their decisions ultimately affect. Here's me speaking from my heart as a teacher driven from the classroom into activism by destructive policies like theirs.
Stevens formerly worked as a teacher in Denver, Colo., and in another capacity with students in Philidelphia, Penn. She took her ALEC mission on as a "rogue operation" she says, wholly on her own. She is currently employed by the American Federation of Teachers.
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