{"id":479,"date":"2012-09-21T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-09-21T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/q-why-are-so-many-states-pushing-charter-schools-now-a-alec.html"},"modified":"2012-09-21T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-09-21T12:00:00","slug":"q-why-are-so-many-states-pushing-charter-schools-now-a-alec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/q-why-are-so-many-states-pushing-charter-schools-now-a-alec.html","title":{"rendered":"Q: Why are so many states pushing charter schools now? A: ALEC"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\nMichigan, Massachusetts,<\/a>\nand\n\n<\/a>\nNew Jersey<\/a>,\nplus Georgia.\nWhy are so many states attempting pro or con charter school referendums\nthis year?\nBecause many states have a push for charter schools,\nespecially\n\nLouisiana.<\/a>\nWhere’s that coming from, at the same time in so many states?\nALEC, that’s where.\n<\/p>\n

\nEd Anderson wrote for The Times-Picayune 12 January 2011,\n\nGov. Bobby Jindal says charter school proposal is based on Florida initiative<\/a>,\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nJindal said his proposal will be fashioned on\n\na Florida law known as\n“Charter-Schools-in-the-Workplace Initiative”<\/a> which also has been\nintroduced in 14 other states.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nExcuse me?\nWhich “also has been introduced in 14 other states”?\nThen it’s not just a Florida law, is it?\nAnd who introduced it?\n<\/p>\n

\nMattreichel wrote for FireDogLake 5 April 2012,\n\nJindal Puts Louisiana’s Schools Up for Sale: ALEC’s Education Reforms Rammed Through<\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n\n

\n

\nIn attempting to identify the instigators of this agenda, the story\nbegins and ends with the shadowy American Legislative Exchange\nCouncil (ALEC), a conduit between corporate boardrooms and elected\nofficials willing to enact their agenda of austerity and\nprivatization. The non-profit evades lobby disclosure requirements\nby presenting itself as an advocate of rather innocuous ends:\n\u201cthe Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited\ngovernment, federalism, and individual liberty,\u201d according to\ntheir website. In reality, their initiatives stick to a neo-liberal\northodoxy reminiscent of the structural adjustment programs long\nimposed on the global south by the International Monetary Fund (IMF)\nand World Bank. As the economic elite has seen its supply of\nexploitable poor countries dry up, they have refocused their\nattention on the United States, using mechanisms like ALEC as to\nhelp enact many of the same policies on states with governors and\nlegislators firmly in their pocket. These policies include prison\nprivatization, stripping collective bargaining rights, reducing or\neliminating environmental protections, and enacting regressive tax\nlaws.\n<\/p>\n

\nLouisiana has been a principal focal point of ALEC’s education\nagenda in recent years, as best evinced in the decision to hold\ntheir annual meeting in the soupy August heat of New Orleans last\nyear. Governor Jindal led a plenary session at the conference, and\nwas joined in attendance by no less than 24 members of the state\nHouse, according to source material gathered by the Center for Media\nand Democracy (CMD). Among them was Noble Ellington, a recently\nretired Republican representative who presided as National Chairman\nof ALEC at the time. In an interview with Democracy Now that week,\nhe stated that it did not matter that corporations amounted to such\na dominant presence at the ALEC meeting, because elected officials\nwere in attendance as well: \u201cWe represent the public and we\nare the ones who decide. So the tax-paying public is represented\nthere at the table, because I’m there\u201d.\n<\/p>\n

\nThat model might work if the taxpayer were the politician’s sole\nbenefactor. However, campaign disclosure records show that some 50\nmembers of the state House together raised more than $500,000 in\ncampaign funds from ALEC member corporations during the last cycle.\nThis fact alone ought serve as sufficient evidence of the\nfoolhardiness of Ellington’s characterization of lawmakers as\nindependent arbiters. However, yet more proof is immediately\navailable on the home page for the Louisiana Legislature. There, one\nfinds a link to the ALEC website: an outrageous illustration of how\nembedded corporate governance has become. That someone thought it\nremotely appropriate to put the link in place and no one else found\nit potentially offensive speaks to a widespread acceptance of the\nprimacy of business interests in the public sector. The political\nelite sees no inherent problem with a bargaining table composed of\ncorporations, the politicians they support with vast campaign\nlargesse, and an empty chair where the public ought be.\n<\/p>\n

\nAfter all, removing the public from the public is precisely the\nintent of these reforms. The initial wave followed a devastating\ncrisis, a la Naomi Klein’s \u201cShock Doctrine,\u201d and ensuing\nreforms have effectively institutionalized the crisis in Louisiana.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nWhere we are, they first tried school “unification”\n\nto create a budget crisis<\/a>\nthat would degrade public schools, leading to handovers to private-run schools.\nIn Louisiana, they could skip that step because Hurricane Katrina\nprovided the disaster.\nIn other states, they are using other rationales.\nBut the end goal is the same:\nto degrade or eliminate public schools and to promote private schools\nfor private corporate control of education.\n<\/p>\n

\nIn Georgia, privatized education proponents have chosen a more indirect\nroute, but if you want to know what’s ahead if that charter school referendum\npasses in November, read the rest of matreichel’s article.\n<\/p>\n

\nWe already knew\n\nALEC is behind Georgia’s charter school referendum.<\/a>\nALEC Exposed has\n\nlinks to a long list of ALEC education model bills<\/a>\nincluding\nALEC’s model Charter Schools Act<\/a>,\nwhich begins:\n<\/p>\n

\nThis legislation allows groups of citizens to seek charters from the state\nto create and operate innovative, ooutcome-based schools.\nThese schools would be exempt from state laws and regulations\nthat apply to public schools.\nSchools are funded on a per-pupil rate, the same as public schools.\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nThis is very like what’s happening in Georgia, except\nthe charter school referendum would rebrand private charter schools\nas public schools,\nand those rebranded privatized schools\n\nwould get more<\/em> money per pupil than public schools;\nmoney that would come from local sales and property taxes.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nCan ALEC really play us for such rubes in Georgia that they can get us\nto approve a charter school referendum that is actually worse<\/em>\nthan ALEC’s model legislation?\n<\/p>\n

\nVote No on the charter school referendum in November!\n<\/p>\n

\n-jsq\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michigan, Massachusetts, and New Jersey, plus Georgia. Why are so many states attempting pro or con charter school referendums this year? Because many states have a push for charter schools, especially Louisiana. Where’s that coming from, at the same time in so many states? ALEC, that’s where. Ed Anderson wrote for The Times-Picayune 12 January […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[140,40,15,49,1700,8,2,72,20,1105,1177,1106],"tags":[8744,1231,1677,1702,1485,8717,8705,8721,1230,8838,8701,8699,8730,1448,8702,8710,8815,1701,12,7,8822,383,1233,6,8816],"class_list":["post-479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alec","category-community","category-education","category-elections","category-esplost","category-georgia","category-government","category-incarceration","category-law","category-lcboe","category-t-splost","category-vboe","tag-alec","tag-amy-carter","tag-bert-brantley","tag-bobby-jindal","tag-charter-school","tag-community","tag-education","tag-elections","tag-ellis-black","tag-esplost","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-incarceration","tag-jay-shaw","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lcboe","tag-louisiana","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-t-splost","tag-taxes","tag-tim-golden","tag-valdosta","tag-vboe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-7J","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}