Cashing in on Kids: 139 ALEC Bills in 2013 Promote a Private, For-Profit Education Model
July 17, 2013 | Common Dreams | Brendan Fischer
Despite widespread public opposition to the education privatization
agenda, at least 139 bills or state budget provisions reflecting
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) education bills have been
introduced in 43 states and the District of Columbia in just the first
six months of 2013, according to an analysis by the Center for Media and
Democracy, publishers of ALECexposed.org. Thirty-one have become law.
News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch has called public education a "a $500
billion sector in the U.S. alone that is waiting desperately to be
transformed."
But this "transformation" of public education -- from an institution
that serves the public into one that serves private for-profit interests
-- has been in progress for decades, thanks in large part to ALEC.
ALEC boasts on the "history" section of its website
that it first started promoting "such 'radical' ideas as a
[educational] voucher system" in 1983 -- the same year as the Reagan
administration's "Nation At Risk" report -- taking up ideas first
articulated decades earlier by ALEC supporter Milton Friedman.
In 1990, Milwaukee was the first city in the nation to implement a
school voucher program, under then-governor (and ALEC alum) Tommy
Thompson. ALEC quickly embraced
the legislation, and that same year offered model bills based on the
Wisconsin plan. For-profit schools in Wisconsin now receive up to $6,442
per voucher student, and by the end of the next school year taxpayers
in the state will have transferred an estimated $1.8 billion to
for-profit, religious, and online schools. The "pricetag" for students
in other states is even higher.
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