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Today, a committee in Georgia Senate will discuss
the Parent Trigger
Bill which has already passed the House. The bill will
enable disgruntled parents of low performing school to fire the teaching and
administrative staff and turn the school over to a for-profit charter
management company paid with school district money.
House Bill 123 bill did not originate in Georgia.
A similar parent trigger bill is before the Florida legislature. And you
guessed it, the Florida bill did not originate in Florida. The same can said of
the parent trigger bill in Oklahoma. If you wonder just what the parent
trigger bill really is, follow this link to Fund Education
Now, an amazing website created by three parents and education
advocates whose understanding of school reform research is far beyond what our
legislators use to improve education.
As these Florida education
advocate say, “something is being done to public education”
and its important that politicians who are making it possible for public funds
for education to move to the corporate sector realize that they are going to be
challenged.
The bills were written by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC),
a republican
right-wing bill mill. The parent trigger bills moving in and out of
the legislatures in Georgia, Florida, and Oklahoma were written by AlEC. The
legislators in these states only had to fill in the dates, the name of their
states, and sign the legislation as if it were their own. ALEC is a
corporate-funded organization that works behind closed doors to create model
bills that in the end favor corporate interests over the interests of the
public sphere. It’s goal is to promote the privatization of government services
and that includes the public schools.
Schools
and universities would call this plagiarism. Maybe it’s simply
copying with permission. In either case is shows complete disregard for the
citizens they represent. To some extent, the legislators are being dishonest,
especially when they try to rationalize or explain the reason for the bill.
They tell us that they are on the side of parents and their children, when in
fact they are using children for the financial gain of private charter firms.
These
elected legislators have no integrity in the way they are performing their responsibilities.
In this case, the law they are trying to pass is not based a real or perceived
need at the local school level. If it was, we would have
data on the number of disgruntled parents who are marching and rallying to fire
the staff and hire a charter management company. It’s simply not happening.
Why don’t they write their own legislation? Groups, such as ALEC,
do all the work. The thinking of these legislators is shallow. All they have to
be able to do is read from a menu of model bills on the ALEC website, select a
bill that they like, meet with national organization representatives and their
lobbyists, and then send the bill to a house and senate committee in their own
state.
Model Bill Menu–A One Stop Service Station for
State Legislators
The
American Legislative Exchange Council says it provides a “unique opportunity
for legislators, business leaders and citizen organizations” to develop model
policies based on academic research, existing state policy and proven business
practices (American Legislative Exchange Council 2013). It’s a goldmine for legislators who take
the side of corporate interests over the citizens they represent. If a
legislator is a member of ALEC (there are about 2,000 state representatives on
the roll), then you must realize that only 2% of the budget of ALEC comes from
these legislators dues, and the rest comes from corporate sponsors. There are
so many corporate sponsors to list. Here is a link to a page where you can scroll through the hundreds
of corporate sponsors.
On
this page, you can get access to brief descriptions of model bills, acts and
amendments. There are about 600 model bills on this page! I decided to
scroll through the hundreds of bills, and select some that relate to education.
I’ve also included several model bills that impinge of science and
environmental education.
As you read through the bills that I’ve selected,
it is clear that ALEC is in the business
privatizing schools, and undermining teachers. As I wrote in an earlier
post, there is a clear attempt to commercialize education and
exploit children and schooling further undoing the higher values of family,
community, environmental integrity and democracy.
Over on the Center for Media and Democracy ,
in an exposé outlining the way ALEC is undermining education in a democratic
society. Following are some ways that ALEC is working to undermine public
education.
Look
for these in the bills that follow:
▪
Offering
vouchers with universal eligibility
▪
Tax
credits to parents who send their children to private schools
▪
Preying
on parents with children with special needs by using federal funds to subsidize
untested for-profit schools
▪
Segregating
children on the basis on disabilities, race, and parental income.
▪
Removing
charter school authorization from local school districts and giving it to a
state appointed commission
▪
Staffing
schools with uncertified teachers with little experience
▪
Making
it almost impossible for teachers to get tenure by basing it on student test
score improvement
▪
Supporting
right-wing ideology by requiring courses that are propaganda forums
▪
Promoting
climate change denial
1.
Charter School Growth with Quality Act–establish a state charter school commission to
serve as charter authorizer. This act became law in Georgia last year with the
help of outside billionaires sending money to the pro-bill organization headed
by the legislator who pushed the bill through the Georgia legislature. The bill
reinstated a commission that the Georgia Supreme Court had ruled
unconstitutional. It was a get back by the republicans who had their feelings
hurt. The bill was opposed by John Barge, the republican Superintendent of
Education. Barge was called a turncoat and liar by members of his own party.
He’s to be admired.
4.
Endangered
Species Resolution–urges Congress to amend the
Endangered Species Act to require a stronger role for the states and stronger
consideration of the social and economic consequences of protecting species
5.
Environmental
Literacy Improvement Act–this is a good one.
Teaching about the environment must be designed to “acquire” knowledge, taught
in a “balanced” way (you know, if evolution, then evolution must be examined critically),
not designed to change any student behavior, attitudes or value (this is the
best one–what is the purpose of learning?) By the way, this is the bill that
created an Environmental Education Council, except no one can be on the
committee if they have expertise in environmental science!).
6.
Environmental
Priorities Act–An assessment of all environmental priorities
based on “good science” and “sound economics” shall be undertaken by people
without a background in environmental science; the Environmental Priorities
Council will have 2 politicians, a state administrator selected by the
Governor, a member of the chamber of commerce, and an economist. No members
should have backgrounds in environmental science. Remember, the ALEC bills are
based on “academic research.”
7.
Founding Philosophy and Principles Act–A bill requiring all students to take and pass a
course in America’s founding philosophy based on The Creator-endowed rights of
the people. It appears to be endorsing a propaganda type course, and for me it
glaringly omits the key words used in the Environmental Literacy Improvement
Act, and that is “critical thinking.” The content of this course is not be
questioned. The bill promotes right-wing ideology.
8.
Founding
Principles Act–basically the same as the previous act requiring
students to learn that in a short time, the 13 colonies became the greatest and
most powerful nation on earth. More right-wing ideology.
9.
Free Enterprise Education Act–this is another humdinger. A course in economics (no complaint
here), but based on the idea that to get out of the Great Recession, which was
caused by illegal and immoral behavior of well-educated adults in the financial
and housing industry, students must take a course that tells them how the free
enterprise system works! Ideology at work again.
10.
Great Teachers and Leaders Act–teacher tenure will be based on student growth on academic
tests, and tenure can be removed if the teacher has two consecutive bad years.
This bill endorses unsubstantiated claims that teacher effectiveness can be
measured using student academic test scores. It is an anti-teacher and
anti-adminstrator bill that further supports the degradation of public school
educators. Shame on any legislator that supports this bill.
11.
Hard Science Resolution–you must read this one. This bill requires that any government
regulation have a strict and absolute basis in hard scientific fact and cut any
arbitrary and imprecise regulations that might harm the free-maker competition
and consumers.
12.
Higher Education Transparency Act–In this bill, colleges and universities must
make available on their website all syllabi, curriculum vitae of each
instructor, a budget report, distribution of last grades, and the college must
also submit a report to the governor. All of this information is already
available on higher education institutions websites. This is a bill that
encroaches on academic freedom, and adds a new role for the governor, and that
is to evaluate undergraduate courses in paleontology!
13.
Indiana Education Reform Package–It calls for charter schools, school
scholarships (vouchers), teacher evaluations and licensing, teacher collective
bargaining (none), turnaround academies and textbook act.
14.
Parent Trigger
Act–Enables parents or teachers (50% +1) take over
the school and replace it with a charter school. The movement is deceptive and
fraudulent and is simply a way to open the doors of struggling schools to
charter management pirates.
There you have it. Only 14 of the more than 600
bills on the ALEC website. It no wonder that our legislators don’t write their
own legislation. They don’t have to. All they have to do is: Go Ask ALEC.
What is your opinion about state legislators making
use of the model bills on the ALEC website, and then introducing them in their
own state legislature as if they were the authors, and that they were
introducing the bill to resolve an important state issue?
References
American Legislative Exchange Council. (2013). Model
Legislation. In American Legislative Exchange Council. Retrieved March 19,
2013, from http://www.alec.org/model-legislation/.
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