ALEC ED Task Force

<div>this refers to all alec education efforts</div><div>neglected?</div><div>=</div><div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/09/12/anti-muslim-fanatic-david-horowitz-speaks-influential-american-legislative-exchange-council" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/09/12/anti-muslim-fanatic-david-horowitz-speaks-influential-american-legislative-exchange-council</a></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">9/18</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="field field-name-field-long-text field-type-text-long field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; float: left; margin-right: 24.6094px; width: 865.891px; margin-left: 89.0469px;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even " style="box-sizing: inherit;">He was introduced as “one of America’s heroes.”</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit; float: left; margin-right: 0px; width: 865.891px; margin-left: 89.0469px;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even " style="box-sizing: inherit;">The man who took the stage in front of hundreds of state legislators at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)’s annual meeting this August was none other than <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/david-horowitz" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;">David Horowitz</a>, an influential leader and moneyman in the anti-Muslim movement.His presence at the event immediately sparked outrage. Dozens of progressive organizations in the following weeks launched a campaign to <a href="https://www.prwatch.org/news/2018/08/13390/broad-coalition-calls-corporations-drop-funding-alec-over-horowitz-speeches" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">pressure</a> corporations to stop supporting ALEC. In a <a href="https://archive.is/FPxoS" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">piece</a> published September 6, Horowitz blamed the backlash on his group, the David Horowitz Freedom Center, being included on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hate-map" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">hate map</a>.Horowitz has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/20/donald-trump-david-horowitz-stephen-miller-family-separation-border-policy" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">ties</a> to the Trump administration and is a pivotal figure connecting anti-Muslim extremists and politicians. The ALEC invitation provided him with yet another powerful platform.<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0.83em 0px;">Horowitz’s virulent, conspiratorial rhetoric</h2>Horowitz adopted his usual conspiratorial tone in front of the influential group of policymakers. He turned to his favorite topics:<blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; border-left: 4px solid rgb(216, 216, 216); margin: 2em 86.5781px; padding: 0px 1em;">At the K-12 level, school curricula have been turned over to racist organizations like Black Lives Matter and terrorist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood. … Ludicrous doctrines dear to the left like ‘gender fluidity’ and ‘white skin privilege’ are being taught to first graders.</blockquote>Horowitz has in the past <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/david-horowitz" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">compared</a> the multiracial, nonviolent Black Lives Matter movement to the Ku Klux Klan and regularly raises the specter of “islamofascism.” The “real race war,” he has <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/ron-desantis-spoke-event-hosted-white-race-war-theorist-1113110" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">declared</a>, is against white people.To solve this “political subversion of our schools by an anti-American left,” Horowitz proposed “a code of ethics” that he wrote for K-12 teachers:“All we need is a state legislature to pass it. It’s just based on the Hatch Act and it would bar teachers from taking partisan positions in the classroom.”The Hatch Act is a 1939 law banning political speech for government executive employees.<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0.83em 0px;">ALEC and Horowitz’s shared priority: free speech bills</h2>Horowitz has made a name for himself through extreme-right institution building. His <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/david-horowitz" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">David Horowitz Freedom Center</a> (DHFC) and its affiliated online magazine, FrontPage Mag, have become a repository of anti-Muslim and extreme-right ideologies. DHFC, which SPLC lists as an anti-Muslim hate group, sees its mission as confronting “the efforts of the radical left and its Islamist allies to destroy American values.” It has partnered with the likes of white nationalist enabler Milo Yiannopoulos to take on American campuses, as both took up the banner of defending free speech from what they called college campuses’ censorship.ALEC, in turn, is a conservative and libertarian network that brings together state legislators and powerful corporations to draft sample legislation across the country. <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/alec-exposed-koch-connection/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;">Its funders include</a> the conservative billionaire brothers, Charles and David Koch. ALEC has helped author pro-business and regressive model legislation enabling <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/08/20/alec-launches-effort-protect-gerrymandering-judges/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;">gerrymandering</a>, <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/08/07/alec-sets-table-gerrymandering-union-busting-protecting-fossil-fuels-privatizing-schools/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;">union-busting</a>, school privatization and voter suppression.Horowitz and ALEC have a common cause. ALEC has long pushed for restrictions on protests in schools and universities by drafting so-called “free speech” bills in various states, <a href="http://archive.is/SRhIL" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">citing</a> anti-LGBT Christian legal powerhouse <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/alliance-defending-freedom" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">Alliance Defending Freedom</a> as an influence. The effort, now popular on the far right, is based on a <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/8/31/17718296/campus-free-speech-political-correctness-musa-al-gharbi" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">mythical</a> “campus free speech crisis,” and seeks to quell non-violent opposition to on-campus speakers, conservative speakers in particular.ALEC’s <a href="http://archive.is/5PQEj" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">model</a> “free-speech” legislation does <a href="http://archive.is/SRhIL" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">not</a> go as far as other conservative groups’ bills. Sample free speech legislation drafted by the Koch-funded <a href="https://onefacultyoneresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Free_Speech_Legislation_Primer-1.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">Goldwater Institute</a>, for example, pushes for student protesters’ <a href="http://www.unkochmycampus.org/mar-1-2017-protest-ban-sold-as-free-speech/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">expulsion</a>. However, the <a href="http://archive.is/SIsnh" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">public head</a> of ALEC’s Center to Protect Free Speech, Wisconsin State Senator Leah Vukmir, <a href="http://legis.wisconsin.gov/senate/05/vukmir/media/1101/17-2443_1.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">promoted</a> a bill (SB 351) that sanctions those who “infringe on the rights of others to engage in or listen to expressive activity,” making clear the bill’s attempts to silence dissent. The bill <a href="https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2017/proposals/reg/sen/bill/sb351" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">failed</a>.<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0.83em 0px;">A mouthpiece for ALEC’s call for a constitutional convention</h2>At the conference, Horowitz emerged as a cheerleader for one of ALEC’s most ambitious projects.ALEC is one of the key drivers behind efforts to get two-thirds of the states to call for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/11/conservatives-call-for-constitutional-convention-alec" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">a constitutional convention</a> under Article V of the Constitution, to permanently amend the document with changes favorable to its causes. Under its guidance, 28 of the necessary 34 states have already passed articles calling for a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/conservative-state-legislators-plot-ways-to-get-washington-under-control/2017/07/21/94c0fbcc-6e21-11e7-b9e2-2056e768a7e5_story.html?utm_term=.2c27902f9047" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">balanced-budget</a> amendment.At the event, Horowitz came out as a vocal supporter for a constitutional convention, which he called the only way to put an end to “the greatest institutional threat to constitutional order” — the power of the Supreme Court. He claimed the court had overstepped its powers by banning official prayers in public school (Engel v. Vitale), legalizing abortion (Roe v. Wade) and passing marriage equality ( Obergefell v. Hodges). He told the assembled state legislators:<blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; border-left: 4px solid rgb(216, 216, 216); margin: 2em 86.5781px; padding: 0px 1em;">The convention of the states is your chance, and probably your only chance, to do something about this to reform the court as necessary, to prevent the federal government from extruding its powers into areas which it was never designed to do, to prevent it from destroying individual freedoms through socialist programs like Obamacare. The convention of the states is your opportunity to leverage your powers.</blockquote>This too would be beneficial to ALEC, which has also sought to curtail judicial power to advance its <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/08/21/alec-launches-effort-protect-gerrymandering-judges" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;">own interests</a>, especially after parts of its model <a href="https://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/06/11607/us-supreme-court-strikes-down-parts-alec-immigration-law" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;">legislation</a> have been struck down by the Supreme Court.A constitutional convention, Horowitz further mused, is “made for the Trump era. It provides an opportunity to follow the examples of our president’s boldness.”<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0.83em 0px;">Horowitz’s growing political influence meets ALEC’s affinity for bigots</h2>Horowitz has seen his influence grow during the Trump presidency, as more and more of his allies joined the administration. He has <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/06/21/stephen-miller-driving-force-behind-muslim-ban-and-family-separation-policy" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">longstanding links</a> to Stephen Miller, the architect behind many of the White House’s anti-immigrant policies. The DHFC also organizes lavish conferences like the annual “Restoration Weekend.” These events bridge together anti-Muslim extremists like <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/pamela-geller" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">Pamela Geller</a> with powerful political figures. Past attendees have included Jeff Sessions, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), former White House advisers Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka, and Florida gubernatorial candidate <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/ron-desantis-spoke-event-hosted-white-race-war-theorist-1113110" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">Ron DeSantis</a>.ALEC is a highly secretive group, so it’s hard to say if this was the first time Horowitz took the stage at one of its events. Still, when he started his speech, he called the CEO of ALEC, Lisa Nelson, an “old friend.”Regardless, it is not the first time ALEC served an anti-Muslim and nativist agenda. As <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/02/12/foia-documents-reveal-how-anti-muslim-groups-use-idaho-state-representative-eric-redman" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;">Hatewatch</a> reported, at an ALEC conference in 2016, anti-Muslim Idaho state representative Eric Redman met with Christopher Holton, a staffer with the anti-Muslim hate group <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/center-security-policy" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;">Center for Security Policy</a>. Both have proposed so-called anti-Sharia bills, legally redundant efforts that foment a sensational fear of Islam and American Muslims subverting American law.ALEC, generally, has had a long history of collaborating with anti-immigrant and racist legislators, on top of <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/alec-exposed-rigging-elections/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;">pushing</a> out voter suppression bills and challenges to direct democracy. One of the most regressive pieces of anti-immigrant legislation the nation has known, Arizona’s SB 1070 can be attributed to the group. Passed in 2010, SB 1070 <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-arizona-law-20160915-snap-story.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;">allowed</a> law enforcement officers to check people’s immigration status if they suspected they were undocumented, and stop and arrest them without a warrant. The law, which incentivized racial profiling, sparked waves of protest and legal challenges. It also prevented undocumented people from seeking jobs.The bill was <a href="https://www.npr.org/2010/11/09/131191523/how-corporate-interests-got-sb-1070-passed" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;">sponsored</a> by virulent <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/aclu-emails-from-author-of-arizonas-sb-1070-prove-racial-motivation-9b674f07c551/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;">anti-immigrant</a> then-state senator Russell Pearce, and written with input from <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/10/1595617/-The-architect-of-the-most-racist-law-in-modern-American-history-has-been-named-to-Trump-s-team" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;">Kris Kobach</a>, now Kansas’s secretary of state. Kobach is an anti-immigrant activist who worked as a <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/20161118/kris-kobach-lawyer-americas-nativist-movement" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;">lawyer </a>for the legal arm of the anti-immigrant hate group <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/federation-american-immigration-reform" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;">Federation for American Immigration Reform </a>(FAIR) and has long <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/voter-fraud-witch-hunt-kansas/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;">fought</a> for voter suppression.Pearce also submitted the bill to ALEC’s Public Safety Task Force, on which he sat alongside the private prison corporation Corrections Corporation of America. The bill was redrafted there, and would ensure that the crackdown on undocumented people would funnel money directly into the private prison industry that detained them, with which politicians behind SB 1070 had a number of existing <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/article/6085/ties_that_bind_arizona_politicians_and_the_private_prison_industry" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;">ties</a>. The task force eventually accepted the law as “model legislation” to be replicated throughout the country. SB 1070 has since been gutted and its enforcement <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-arizona-law-20160915-snap-story.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;">weakened</a> due to legal challenges, with parts of it <a href="https://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/06/11607/us-supreme-court-strikes-down-parts-alec-immigration-law" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;">struck down</a> by the Supreme Court.One of ALEC’s founders, Paul Weyrich, long <a href="http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2012/08/16/alabama-or-bust-kris-kobach-and-the-exporting-of-alec-heritage-foundation-values/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">facilitated</a> the relationship between the prison industry, the nativist movement and legislators, and even <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=fyzsTGPTkOIC&pg=PA2&lpg=PA2&dq=paul+weyrich+Franz+Josef+Strauss&source=bl&ots=KmPtlxct8k&sig=6iv3_UMKuYriszjEV0jmeazvlAY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwisv7KS17XdAhUEv1MKHa9fCKsQ6AEwAHoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=paul%20weyrich%20Franz%20Josef%20Strauss&f=false" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">harbored ties</a> to famous Nazi collaborators. Apart from Pearce, ALEC members have included Daryl Metcalfe, the founder of <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/20110228/attacking-constitution-state-legislators-legal-immigration-anti-immigrant-movement" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">State Legislators for Legal Immigration</a>, which sought to abolish birthright citizenship and depicted immigrants as “invaders.” It also collaborated with FAIR.ALEC hasn’t shied away from associating with state legislators with ties to hate groups, and it’s telling that they welcomed a hate-group leader directly to their stage. The recording of Horowitz’s remarks clearly shows that he was greeted by an enthusiastic and receptive crowd. Horowitz even <a href="http://archive.is/FPxoS" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;">claimed</a> he received a standing ovation. By inviting an anti-Muslim bigot so openly, ALEC sends the message it remains comfortable associating with hateful figures.Wisconsin Rep. Chris Taylor, a Democrat and critic of ALEC who was in the room during Horowitz’s speech, <a href="https://www.prwatch.org/news/2018/08/13381/alec-disarray" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; background: transparent;">asked</a>:“[The] Horowitz’s of the world, who ALEC at least publicly has kept at a distance during my tenure, are now becoming part of the ALEC universe. Are ALEC supporters, including their corporate funders, willing to embrace this hate-mongering to continue to advance their corporate agenda?”</div></div></div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/09/12/anti-muslim-fanatic-david-horowitz-speaks-influential-american-legislative-exchange-council" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/09/12/anti-muslim-fanatic-david-horowitz-speaks-influential-american-legislative-exchange-council</a></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_Bill_of_Rights" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_Bill_of_Rights</a></div></div><div>=</div><div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/education/corporate-plan-groom-us-kids-servitude-wiping-out-public-schools">https://www.alternet.org/education/corporate-plan-groom-us-kids-servitude-wiping-out-public-schools</a></div><div>
</div><div>was the strike heard ‘round the country.West Virginia’s public school teachers had endured years of low pay, inadequate insurance, giant class sizes, and increasingly unlivable conditions—including attempts to force them to record private details of their health daily on a <a href="https://www.humana.com/go365/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">wellness app</a>. Their governor, billionaire coal baron Jim Justice, pledged to allow them no more than an annual 1% raise—effectively a pay cut considering inflation—in a state where teacher salaries ranked 48th lowest out of 50 states. In February 2018, they finally revolted: In a tense, four-day work stoppage, they managed to wrest a 5% pay increase from the state. Teachers in Oklahoma and Kentucky have now <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/oklahoma-kentucky-public-schools-close-thousands-teachers-strike-n861946" style="text-decoration-line: none;">revolted</a> in similar protests.<div id="TeadsNative" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It’s the latest battle in a contest between two countervailing forces: one bent on reengineering America for the benefit of the wealthy, the other struggling to preserve dignity and security for ordinary people.If the story turns out the way the Jim Justices desire, the children of a first-world country will henceforth be groomed for a third-world life.Gordon Lafer, Associate Professor at the Labor Education and Research Center at the University of Oregon, and Peter Temin, Professor Emeritus of Economics at MIT, help illuminate why this is happening, who is behind it, and what’s at stake as the educational system that once united Americans and prepared them for a life of social and economic mobility is wiped out of existence.The Plan: Lower People’s ExpectationsWhen Lafer began to study the tsunami of corporate-backed legislation that swept the country in early 2011 in the wake of Citizens United—the 2010 Supreme Court decision that gave corporations the green light to spend unlimited sums to influence the political system—he wasn’t yet clear what was happening. In state after state, a pattern was emerging of highly coordinated campaigns to smash unions, shrink taxes for the wealthy, and cut public services. Headlines blamed globalization and technology for the squeeze on the majority of the population, but Lafer began to see something far more deliberate working behind the scenes: a hidden force that was well-funded, laser-focused, and astonishingly effective.Lafer pored over the activities of business lobbying groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) – funded by giant corporations including Walmart, <a href="https://amazon.com/" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">Amazon.com</a>, and Bank of America—that produces “model legislation” in areas its conservative members use to promote privatization. He studied the Koch network, a constellation of groups affiliated with billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. (Koch Industries is the country’s second-largest private company with business including crude oil supply and refining and chemical production). Again and again, he found that corporate-backed lobbyists were able to subvert the clear preferences of the public and their elected representatives in both parties. Of all the areas these lobbyists were able to influence, the policy campaign that netted the most laws passed, featured the most big players, and boasted the most effective organizations was public education. For these U.S. corporations, undermining the public school system was the Holy Grail.After five years of research and the publication of <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100151780" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The One Percent Solution</a>, Lafer concluded that by lobbying to make changes like increasing class sizes, pushing for online instruction, lowering accreditation requirements for teachers, replacing public schools with privately-run charters, getting rid of publicly elected school boards and a host of other tactics, Big Business was aiming to dismantle public education.  The grand plan was even more ambitious. These titans of business wished to completely change the way Americans and their children viewed their life potential. Transforming education was the key.The lobbyists and associations perfected cover stories to keep the public from knowing their real objectives.  Step one was to raise fears about an American <a href="https://www.alec.org/issue/education/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">educational crisis </a>that did not, in fact, exist. Lafer notes, for example, that the reading and math scores of American students have remained largely unchanged for forty years. Nonetheless, the corporate-backed alarmists worked to convince the public that the school system was in dire condition.Step two was to claim that unproven reforms to fix the fictional crisis, like online learning, were sure to improve outcomes, despite the fact that such schemes go directly against hard evidence for what works in education and deny students the socialization that is crucial to a child’s progress. Sometimes the reformers said the changes were needed because of budget deficits; other times, they claimed altruistic aims to improve the quality schools.The Motivation: Keep the Masses Down as Inequality RisesIn Lafer’s view, their strategy had little to do with either.It’s one thing for big businesses to be anti-worker and anti-union, but also anti-student? Why would business lobbies deliberately strive to create what amounts to widespread education failure?It’s not hard to see how certain sectors in the corporate world, like the producers of online learning platforms and content, could cash in. But it’s harder to fathom why corporate leaders who don’t stand to make money directly would devote so much time and attention to making sure, for example, that no public high school student in the state of Florida could take home a diploma without taking an online course. (Yes, that’s now <a href="https://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/education/school-zone/os-new-law-florida-online-graduation-requirement-20160420-story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">law</a> in the Sunshine State).It’s about more than short-term cash. While Lafer acknowledges that there are legitimate debates among people with different ideological positions or pedagogical views, he thinks big corporations are actually more worried about something far more pragmatic: how to protect themselves from the masses as they engineer rising economic inequality.“One of the ways I think that they try to avoid a populist backlash is by lowering everybody’s expectations of what we have a right to demand as citizens,” says Lafer. “When you think about what Americans think we have a right to, just by living here, it’s really pretty little. Most people don’t think you have a right to healthcare or a house. You don’t necessarily have a right to food and water. But people think you have a right to have your kids get a decent education.”Not for long, if Big Business has its way. In President Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, they have dedicated partners in redirecting public resources to unregulated, privately owned and operated schools. Such privatization plans, many <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/education/318232-devos-voucher-plan-would-exacerbate-educational-inequality" style="text-decoration-line: none;">critics</a> say, will reinforce and amplify America’s economic inequality.U.S. public schools, which became widespread in the 1800s, were promoted with the idea that putting students from families of different income levels together—though not black Americans and other racial minorities until the 1950s—would instill a common sense of citizenship and national identity. But today, large corporations are scoring huge successes in replacing this system with a two-tiered model and a whole new notion of identity.Lafer explains that in the new system, the children of the wealthy will be taught a broad, rich curriculum in small classes led by experienced teachers. The kind of thing everybody wants for kids. But the majority of America’s children will be consigned to a narrow curriculum delivered in large classes by inexperienced staff —or through digital platforms with no teachers at all.Most kids will be trained for a life that is more circumscribed, less vibrant, and, quite literally, shorter, than what past generations have known. (Research <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2016/study-rich-poor-huge-mortality-gap-us-0411" style="text-decoration-line: none;">shows</a> that the lifespan gap between haves and have-nots is large and rapidly growing). They will be groomed for insecure service jobs that dull their minds and depress their spirits. In the <a href="https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/noam-chomsky-on-the-populist-groundswell-u-s-elections-the-future-of-humanity-and-more" style="text-decoration-line: none;">words</a> of Noam Chomsky, who <a href="https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/noam-chomsky-on-the-populist-groundswell-u-s-elections-the-future-of-humanity-and-more" style="text-decoration-line: none;">recently spoke about education</a> to the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), “students will be controlled and disciplined.” Most will go to school without developing their creativity or experiencing doing things on their own.The New Reality: Two Americas, Not OneEconomist Peter Temin, former head of MIT’s economics department and INET <a href="https://www.ineteconomics.org/research/experts/ptemin" style="text-decoration-line: none;">grantee</a>, has written a book, <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/vanishing" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Vanishing Middle Class</a>, which <a href="https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/america-is-regressing-into-a-developing-nation-for-most-people" style="text-decoration-line: none;">explains</a> how conditions in America are becoming more like a third-world country for the bulk of its people. He agrees with Lafer that the corporate-driven war on public schools is not just about money, but also about a vision of society.People like Betsy DeVos, he says, are following the thinking of earlier ideologues like James Buchanan, the Tennessee-born, Nobel Prize–winning economist who promoted current antigovernment politics in the 1970s. The “shut-the-government-down” obsession is really an extreme form of libertarianism, he says, if not anarchism.Temin also agrees that shrinking the horizons of America’s kids makes sense to people who follow this philosophy. “They want to exploit the lower members of the economy, and reducing their expectations makes them easier to manipulate,” says Temin. “When they aren’t able to go to college and get decent jobs, they become more susceptible to things like racist ideology.”In other words, dismantling the public schools is all about control.Buchanan was an early proponent of school privatization, and while he echoed the fears and frustration many Americans felt concerning desegregation, he typically made a non-race-based case for preserving Jim Crow in a new form. He argued that the federal government should not be telling people what to do about schooling and suggested that citizens were being stripped of their freedom. But as Sam Tanenhaus <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/the-architect-of-the-radical-right/528672/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">points out</a> in TheAtlantic, issues of race always lurked in the background of calls for educational freedom and “choice.” In a paper he co-authored, Buchanan stated, “every individual should be free to associate with persons of his own choosing.” Segregationists knew what that meant.Policies that end up reducing educational opportunities for those who lack resources creates inequality, and economic inequality reduces support for public schools among the wealthy. It’s vicious feedback loop.In his book, Temin describes a process that happens in countries that divide into “dual economies,” a concept first outlined by West Indian economist W. Arthur Lewis, the only person of African descent to win a Nobel Prize in economics. Lewis studied developing countries where the rural population tends to serve as a reservoir of cheap labor for people in cities — a situation the top tier works very hard to maintain. Temin noticed that the Lewis model now fits the pattern emerging in the richest country in the world.America, according to Temin, is clearly breaking down into two sectors: Roughly 20% of the population are members of what he calls the “FTE sector” (i.e., the finance, technology, and electronics sectors). These lucky people get college educations, land good jobs, enjoy social networks that enhance their success, and generally have access to enough money to meet most of life’s challenges. The remaining 80% live in a world nothing like this; they live in different geographies and have different legal statuses, healthcare systems, and schools. This is the low-wage sector, where life is getting harder.People in the low-wage sector carry debt. They worry about insecure jobs and unemployment. They get sick more often and die younger than previous generations had. If they are able go to college, they end up in debt. “While members of the first sector act,” Temin has <a href="https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/america-is-regressing-into-a-developing-nation-for-most-people" style="text-decoration-line: none;">said</a>, “these people are acted upon.”Temin traces the emergence of the U.S. dual economy to the 1970s and 80s, when civil rights advances were making a lot of Americans uneasy. People who had long been opposed to the New Deal began to find new ways to advance their agenda. The Nixon administration gave momentum to anti-government, free-market fundamentalist ideologies, which gained even more support under Reagan. Gradually, as free-market programs became policy, the rich began to get richer and economic inequality began to rise. Economist Paul Krugman has called this phenomenon the “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence(inequality)" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Great Divergence</a>.”But it was still possible to move from the lower sector to the affluent sector. The path was tough, and much harder for women and people of color. Yet it existed. Through education and a bit of luck, you could develop the skills and acquire the social capital that could propel you out of the circumstances you were born into.The dismantling of public education, as Temin sees it, will shut off that route for vastly more people. Like the privatization of prisons, which has increased incarceration rates and cut the mobility path off for more Americans, putting schools into private hands will land even more on the road to nowhere. Even those who were born into the middle class will increasingly get pushed back.The Future: Mobilization or Bloodshed?Temin relates that in human history, unitary economies are more the exception than the rule.In the U.S., there was the Jim Crow era, the Gilded Age, and before that, slavery, which was an extreme form of dual economy. But from the end of WWII through the 1960s, the country began to develop a unitary economy. The idea that everybody should have opportunities became more and more widespread. But there was a backlash, and America still dealing with it.In the Lewis model of the dual economy, there is still path to the upper sector, but Temin warns that America may be on the way to going one step further. “If you really prevent people from moving up, you get something that looks like Russia or Argentina,” he says. In these two-tiered societies, life is difficult for most people. Life expectancies for all but the affluent go down.Unfortunately, once you’ve developed a dual economy, getting out of it isn’t pretty. Temin notes that it often happens through devastating wars. “Sometimes the kings who are all cousins turn on each other,” he says. “Other times, the leaders sleepwalk into the war as Trump could possibly do with North Korea.”Such upheavals create instability that sometimes opens up the possibility of restructuring society for the benefit of more people. But it’s a painful, bloody process. Political mobilization can work, but it’s very hard to get various groups who are dissatisfied to join forces.Lafer points out that we don’t yet know how this story is going to turn out. “Politics remains forever contingent, never settled,” he says. “The struggle between public interest and private power will continue to play out in cities and states across the country; even with the heightened influence of money in the era of Citizens United, the power of popular conviction should not be underestimated.”The teachers in West Virginia and now other states across the country have turned the anger fueled by the corporate vision of the future in a positive direction. They are fighting back, peacefully, and winning something—not just money, but a sense of dignity suited to the job of preparing the country’s kids for life. It remains to be seen if the rights of the many can triumph over the selfishness of the few, and whether economic servitude will be the fate of the children of the wealthiest nation the world has ever seen. Lynn Parramore</div><div>
</div><div></div><div>charting aca freedom: NAS</div><div>
</div><div>We hope it will be helpful not only to scholars interested in how the debate has shifted in the 100+ years following the AAUP’s foundational 1915 Statement of Principles, but to legislators, jurists, all participants in the current debates, and members of the general public. Even those of us who follow these debates closely can struggle at times to recall the many different reasons that have been put forward for protecting academic freedom—or for limiting those protections. Our chart, of course, does not take the place of careful reading of the original statements. It is merely a handy way to keep in mind some key distinctions. We intend it as a public service.Its value lies in part in the highlighting of elements that are missing from some well-known and influential statements. For example, the AAUP’s 1915 Statement of Principles grounded academic freedom in the pursuit of truth, but the AAUP’s even more influential 1940 statement omitted the pursuit of truth, as did seven of the other nine statements analyzed in the chart.Only four of the ten statements call for sanctions against those who willfully violate the principles of academic freedom. Eight of the ten statements make no mention of tenure for faculty members—a surprising absence in view of how often tenure comes into the public discussion of academic freedom.We leave to the reader the discovery of other salient patterns and subtle differences.We release “Charting Academic Freedom: 102 Years of Debate” knowing that it is not complete. We have in hand three other documents that could be added: The John William Pope Center’s 2016 “Academic Freedom in the age of Political Correctness;” the University of Chicago’s 2017 “Report of the Committee on University Discipline for Disruptive Conduct;” and the American Legislative Exchange Council’s “Forming Open and Robust University Minds Act.” Doubtless there are still others we have not found. Our intention is to release a “2.0 version” of the chart that includes such additional items as seem broadly comparable. We also trust that readers will point out to us any errors that have crept into this first version of the chart so that we may correct them.</div></div><div>
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<div>neglected, revive a la betsy:</div><div>
</div><div><a href="http://www.alternet.org/education/devos-and-alecs-plan-american-education-ugly-unpopular">http://www.alternet.org/education/devos-and-alecs-plan-american-education-ugly-unpopular</a></div><div>
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</div><div>Secretary Betsy DeVos’ speech to the American Legislative Exchange Council <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/07/20/537958123/betsy-devos-latest-speech-draws-protests-even-before-she-speaks" style="text-decoration-line: none;">met with protests</a> before she’d even arrived in Denver. But teachers and activists aren’t the only ones objecting to the extreme, anti-public education agenda DeVos shares with ALEC. One of the great questions of our time is just how far to the fringe the right wing of the Republican Party can march before the business-minded set steps in and yanks the chain. ALEC’s education platform is providing a real-time test case.Virtually everything you need to know about ALEC’s education priorities is captured in the group’s most recent <a href="http://www.alecreportcard.org/app/uploads/2016/11/2016-ALEC-Education-Report-Card_Final_Web.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Report Card</a> on American Education. Here, “forward-thinking” states like Arizona reign supreme thanks to a ranking system that prizes freedom from the education monopoly above all. Arizona’s high school graduation rate may be a full 25 percent lower than my own adopted home state of Massachusetts (languishing at #32 on the ALEC scale), but at least students aren’t choked by burdensome homeschooling regulations. In fact, thanks to far-sighted lawmakers like Arizona ALEC state chair Debbie Lesko (ALEC lawmaker of the year '16), young Arizonans can now <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/07/us/school-vouchers-arizona.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">eschew school</a> for a buffet of “a la carte learning options,” paid for with pre-loaded edu-debit cards, a vision DeVos <a href="https://twitter.com/BetsyDeVosED/status/850176497222594560" style="text-decoration-line: none;">regards</a> as a model.The theme of this year’s state Report Card was the underfunding myth: “exposing the lack of a connection between funding increases and student performance.” (DeVos watchers will recognize this as one of her stock arguments.) It’s a claim based on ideology rather than <a href="http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2017/06/06/devos-says-school-spending-and-student-outcomes-arent-related-but-recent-research-suggests-otherwise/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">research</a>, but more importantly, more moderate Republicans no longer seem to be buying it. The <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/kansass-conservative-tax-experiment-is-dead/529551/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">revolt</a> against Governor Brownback’s deep tax cuts in Kansas included business leaders who worried that starving the schools threatened the state’s future workforce and imperiled their ability to attract workers to the state. In Arizona, which ranks 48th in the country in education spending, business leaders recently <a href="http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona-education/2017/06/10/arizona-business-leaders-want-big-tax-increase-teacher-salaries-education/378886001/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">announced</a> that they plan to press for a big boost for the state’s schools, including raising teacher salaries. The state that topped ALEC’s education ranking has a teacher shortage so severe that schools <a href="http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-education/2017/06/22/arizona-public-schools-teacher-shortage-classroom-experience/351033001/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">are hiring</a> teachers who lack any qualifications at all, even college degrees. It’s a sign of the times that the <a href="https://www.alec.org/meeting/2017-annual-meeting-denver-co/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">education agenda</a> at ALEC this year was almost exclusively focused on expanding private school choice: vouchers, education savings accounts and tax credit scholarships, a nifty way for big donors who share ALEC’s aversion to public institutions and the taxes that pay for them to undermine the former while avoiding the latter. All of that bipartisan happy talk about sending all kids to college and closing achievement gaps has largely disappeared. Instead, the ALEC agenda, indistinguishable from DeVos’ own, prizes school choice as an end unto itself. They envision a future where parents are freed—from the education monopoly, from regulation, from greedy unions, and most importantly, from schools—to navigate an education marketplace that abounds in choices. It is also replete with money making opportunities, but that is not something that appears on the ALEC press releases.As for how we’ll know when we’ve reached the future ALEC promises, as bright as the Arizona sunshine, well, that’s a bit vague. Trust families instead of regulators, goes the talking point. Or as DeVos’ spokesperson, Liz Hill, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/trump-wants-to-spend-millions-more-on-school-vouchers-but-whats-happened-to-the-millions-already-spent/2017/07/15/ab6002a8-6267-11e7-84a1-a26b75ad39fe_story.html?utm_term=.36b843893e72" style="text-decoration-line: none;">answered</a>when pressed about the lack of transparency in many voucher programs: parents don’t need “more data sets... A child’s progress—or lack thereof—is fully transparent to his or her parents.”Diminishing ExpectationsDeVos wasn’t listed among the ALEC <a href="https://www.alec.org/meeting/2017-annual-meeting-denver-co/speakers/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">headliners</a> this year, a line-up heavy on conservative has-beens like Newt Gingrich, William J. Bennett and Jim DeMint. But among this crowd she’s regarded as a conquering heroine. That’s because the right-wing in Michigan just realized a decades-long dream and a top priority for the DeVos family: not only did they succeed in making Michigan, the cradle of industrial unionism, a <a href="http://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/index.ssf/2015/01/michigan_union_membership_down.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">right-to-work</a> state, they also <a href="http://michiganradio.org/post/killing-teacher-pensions-and-striking-sweetheart-deal-lawmakers-go-full-orwell" style="text-decoration-line: none;">killed</a> teacher pensions. New teachers in the Mitten state, where teacher salaries <a href="http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2017/03/michigans_average_teacher_sala.html" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">dropped</a> for the last five years in a row, will now fund their own retirement. ALEC <a href="https://www.alec.org/article/alec-applauds-michigans-mpspers-pension-reform-efforts/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">called the move</a> a win for teachers and taxpayers, but didn’t mention the part where taxpayers will have to cough up at least $255 million to “fix” a problem that the anti-public school crowd largely created. Ending teacher pensions, one of the last remaining benefits the state’s once-powerful teachers unions could offer their members, will only hasten the unions’ demise. In the words of the old Mastercard commercial: “priceless."In a <a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781501703065?aff=alternet" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">new book</a> that examines the work of ALEC and other corporate lobbies in all fifty states, economist Gordon Lafer argues that the singular fixation upon crushing teachers unions is about much more than mere money. In virtually every community, schools represent the largest employer, providing something that is increasingly underheard of these days: decent wages, good benefits and the prospect of a retirement that doesn’t involve collecting cans. The presence of these large employers—schools, public universities, hospitals—raises the expectations of the public about what’s possible, Lafer argues. “ALEC’s vision of the future is actually really bleak,” Lafer told me recently. “That’s why so much of their legislative focus is on limiting what people are entitled to, especially in education.” The relentless effort to rid the world of teachers pensions, says Lafer, is also about lowering the expectations of everyone else.ALEC’s agenda for remaking public education in all 50 states can be distilled down to a single word: unpopular. Actually, make that two words: extremely unpopular. There is no constituency for blowing up the schools, swelling class sizes, replacing teachers with tablets and lowering the standards of who can teach. There is no real constituency for shifting money away from public schools to private religious institutions, which is why ALEC-backed voucher programs in states like Wisconsin and Indiana mostly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/how-indianas-school-voucher-program-soared-and-what-it-says-about-education-in-the-trump-era/2016/12/26/13d1d3ec-bc97-11e6-91ee-1adddfe36cbe_story.html?utm_term=.14351b645702" style="text-decoration-line: none;">benefit</a> students who’ve never attended public schools. The key to enacting a deeply unpopular agenda, as any ALEC-ster worth her salt can attest, is to keep the public as far away from it as possible, which is why DeVos’ hat tip to local control in her <a href="https://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/remarks-secretary-devos-american-legislative-exchange-council?utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_name=&utm_source=govdelivery&utm_term=" style="text-decoration-line: none;">speech</a> was so laughable. The states where ALEC has come closest to realizing its dream of defunding schools, shifting public monies into private coffers and crushing teacher unions are also the ones where efforts to preempt local democracy and shrink the voting franchise are in full flower.Teachers who <a href="http://www.alternet.org/activism/hundreds-protest-betsy-devos-ahead-alec-speech-denver" style="text-decoration-line: none;">gathered</a> in downtown Denver on the eve of DeVos’ appearance cited ALEC’s history of undermining local democracy and the Secretary of Education’s own antipathy toward public schools. As Suzanne Ethredge, who is president of the local teachers union, told the Denver Post: “My biggest fear is [DeVos] is going to destroy the public education system completely.”The irony is, of course, that the school privatization <a href="http://www.salon.com/2016/06/16/the_new_education_reform_lie_partner/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">experiment</a> that’s well underway in Denver has been the work largely of “progressive” education reformers, Democrats for Education Reform chief among them. The local teachers union is weak and getting weaker, not because of DeVos and the right wing but because of anti-union Democrats. DeVos isn't a fan of the Denver model—charter choice, in her view, is a weak substitute for the real deal: publicly funded vouchers for private religious schools. Her visit to Denver shone a spotlight on ALEC's extreme education agenda. Now it's up to Democrats who've embraced school privatization themselves to explain how they're different. <div wibbitz="embed-main-player" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="bio-new body_education" style="width: 630px; font-style: italic; line-height: 22px; height: auto; border-top: 3px solid rgb(223, 223, 218); clear: both; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="author-bio">Jennifer Berkshire is the education editor at AlterNet and the co-host of a biweekly <a href="https://soundcloud.com/haveyouheardpodcast" style="text-decoration-line: none;">podcast</a> on education in the time of Trump.</div></div>

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force

The <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Legislative_Exchange_Council" title="American Legislative Exchange Council">American Legislative Exchange Council</a> (ALEC) has eight <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Task_Forces" title="ALEC Task Forces">task forces</a>:

<ul><li>the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Civil_Justice_Task_Force" title="ALEC Civil Justice Task Force">ALEC Civil Justice Task Force</a>,</li><li>the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Commerce,Insurance_and_Economic_Development_Task_Force" title="ALEC Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force">ALEC Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force</a>,</li><li>the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Communications_and_Technology_Task_Force" title="ALEC Communications and Technology Task Force">ALEC Communications and Technology Task Force</a>,</li><li>the ALEC Education Task Force,</li><li>the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Energy,Environment_and_Agriculture_Task_Force" title="ALEC Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force">ALEC Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force</a>,</li><li>the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Health_and_Human_Services_Task_Force" title="ALEC Health and Human Services Task Force">ALEC Health and Human Services Task Force</a>,</li><li>the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_International_Relations_Task_Force" title="ALEC International Relations Task Force">ALEC International Relations Task Force</a>, and</li><li>the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Tax_and_Fiscal_Policy_Task_Force" title="ALEC Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force">ALEC Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force</a>.</li></ul>

(Until it was disbanded in April 2012, ALEC also operated a <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Public_Safety_and_Elections_Task_Force" title="ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force">Public Safety and Elections Task Force</a>,

which adopted such "model" bills as the "Stand Your Ground" bill or

"Castle Law" doctrine and the voter ID Act. Later in 2012, ALEC launched

the "<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Justice_Performance_Project" title="ALEC Justice Performance Project">Justice Performance Project</a>"

(JPP) in place of the Public Safety and Elections Task Force. The bills

associated with the JPP in task force materials obtained by the Center

for Media and Democracy and posted by ALEC appear to continue ALEC's

modus operandi of promoting the financial interests of the corporations

and special interest groups that fund it, such as the American Bail

Coalition, according to PRWatch.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-1">[1]</a>)

This article is about ALEC's Education Task Force. Corporations can join this task force for $2,500 a year.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-2">[2]</a> For model legislation crafted and adopted by the Education Task Force, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://alecexposed.org/wiki/Privatizing_Public_Education,Higher_Ed_Policy,and_Teachers">go here</a>. For task force directories and meeting agendas, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=8072485">go here</a>.

<h2>Contents</h2>

</div></div><div id="toc" class="toc">

<ul><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#2015_States_and_Nation_Policy_Summit_Substantive_Agenda">1 2015 States and Nation Policy Summit Substantive Agenda</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#2015_Annual_Meeting_Substantive_Agenda">2 2015 Annual Meeting Substantive Agenda</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#2015_Spring_Task_Force_Summit_Substantive_Agenda">3 2015 Spring Task Force Summit Substantive Agenda</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#2014_States_and_Nation_Policy_Summit_Substantive_Agenda">4 2014 States and Nation Policy Summit Substantive Agenda</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#2014_Annual_Meeting_Substantive_Agenda">5 2014 Annual Meeting Substantive Agenda</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#2014_Spring_Task_Force_Summit_Substantive_Agenda">6 2014 Spring Task Force Summit Substantive Agenda</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-7"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#2013_States_and_Nation_Policy_Summit_Substantive_Agenda">7 2013 States and Nation Policy Summit Substantive Agenda</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-8"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#2013_Annual_Meeting_Substantive_Agenda">8 2013 Annual Meeting Substantive Agenda</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-9"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#2012_ALEC_Winter_Task_Force_Summit_Substantive_Agenda">9 2012 ALEC Winter Task Force Summit Substantive Agenda</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-10"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#2012_ALEC_Spring_Task_Force_Summit_Substantive_Agenda">10 2012 ALEC Spring Task Force Summit Substantive Agenda</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-11"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#2011_ALEC_Winter_Task_Force_Summit_Substantive_Agenda">11 2011 ALEC Winter Task Force Summit Substantive Agenda</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-12"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#2011_ALEC_Annual_Meeting_Substantive_Agenda">12 2011 ALEC Annual Meeting Substantive Agenda</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-13"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#2011_ALEC_Spring_Task_Force_Summit_Substantive_Agenda">13 2011 ALEC Spring Task Force Summit Substantive Agenda</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-14"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#2004_ALEC_States_and_Nation_Policy_Summit_Substantive_Agenda">14 2004 ALEC States and Nation Policy Summit Substantive Agenda</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-15"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#2002_ALEC_States_and_Nation_Policy_Summit_Substantive_Agenda">15 2002 ALEC States and Nation Policy Summit Substantive Agenda</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-16"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#Co-chairs">16 Co-chairs</a>

<ul><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-17"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#Former_Co-chairs">16.1 Former Co-chairs</a></li></ul>

</li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-18"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#Subcommittees">17 Subcommittees</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-19"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#Individuals">18 Individuals</a>

<ul><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-20"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#Corporate.2C_Trade_or_Other_Groups">18.1 Corporate, Trade or Other Groups</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-21"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#Politicians">18.2 Politicians</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-22"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#Other_Named_Individuals">18.3 Other Named Individuals</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-23"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#Individuals_Formerly_Listed_as_Having_Ties_to_the_Task_Force">18.4 Individuals Formerly Listed as Having Ties to the Task Force</a></li></ul>

</li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-24"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#Staff">19 Staff</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-25"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#Articles_and_resources">20 Articles and resources</a>

<ul><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-26"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#Related_SourceWatch_articles">20.1 Related SourceWatch articles</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-27"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#References">20.2 References</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-28"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#External_resources">20.3 External resources</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-29"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#External_articles">20.4 External articles</a></li></ul>

</li></ul>

</div>

<h2>2015 States and Nation Policy Summit Substantive Agenda</h2>

The following "model" bills were proposed for the Scottsdale, Arizona conference:<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-2015SNPS-3">[3]</a>

<ul><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/ED-Mailing.pdf">Digital Teaching and Learning Program {Utah}</a>" (PDF, p. 4)</li><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/ED-Mailing.pdf">Dual Language Immersion Program {Utah}</a>" (PDF, p. 33)</li><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/ED-Mailing.pdf">Draft Growing Our Workforce Investment Now (Go Win) Act</a>" (PDF, 36)</li><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/ED-Mailing.pdf">The Great Schools Tax Credit Program Act (Scholarship TaxCredits)</a>" (PDF, 38)</li><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/ED-Mailing.pdf">The Parental Choice Scholarship Program Act (Means-Tested Eligibility)</a>" (PDF, p. 50)</li></ul>

Presentations and panel discussions to be held at the conference included:<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-2015SNPS-3">[3]</a>

<ul><li>"The Future of Blaine Amendments"</li><li>"God and Man Disinvited at Yale?"</li></ul>

<h2>2015 Annual Meeting Substantive Agenda</h2>

The following "model" bills were proposed for the San Diego, California conference:<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-2015Annual-4">[4]</a>

<ul><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/2015-06-23-Final-EDUC-35-Day-Mailing.pdf">Digital Teaching and Learning Program {Utah}</a>" (PDF, p. 6)</li><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/2015-06-23-Final-EDUC-35-Day-Mailing.pdf">Dual Language Immersion Program Act {Utah}</a>" (PDF, p. 28)</li><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/2015-06-23-Final-EDUC-35-Day-Mailing.pdf">The Great Schools Tax Credit Program Act (Scholarship Tax Credits)</a>" (PDF, p. 31)</li><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/2015-06-23-Final-EDUC-35-Day-Mailing.pdf">The Parental Choice Scholarship Program Act (Means-Tested Eligibility)</a>" (PDF, p. 43)</li><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/2015-06-23-Final-EDUC-35-Day-Mailing.pdf">Public Charter School Authorizing and Accountability Model Legislation</a>" (PDF, p. 55)</li><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/2015-06-23-Final-EDUC-35-Day-Mailing.pdf">The Education Savings Account Act</a>" (PDF, p. 75)</li><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/2015-06-23-Final-EDUC-35-Day-Mailing.pdf">Public Charter School Funding and Facilities Model Legislation</a>" (PDF, p. 88)</li><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/2015-06-23-Final-EDUC-35-Day-Mailing.pdf">Public Charter School Operations and Autonomy Model Legislation</a>" (PDF, p. 104)</li></ul>

Presentations and panel discussion to be held at the conference included:<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-2015Annual-4">[4]</a>

<ul><li>"Legislative Roundtable: Educational Savings Accounts" RUBIO?
</li><li>"Doing Less With Much Less and Getting More: Transforming American Higher Education"</li></ul>

<h2>2015 Spring Task Force Summit Substantive Agenda</h2>

The following "model" bills were proposed for the Savannah, Georgia conference:<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-2015STFS-5">[5]</a>

<ul><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/2015-STFS-ED-35-day-mailing.pdf">Draft of Tax Credit for Skilled Training Act</a>" (PDF, p. 6)</li></ul>

Presentations and panel discussions to be held at the conference included:<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-2015STFS-5">[5]</a>

<ul><li>"Impact of Charter Schools on Rural Southern Counties"</li><li>"Public Charter School Model Bills"</li><li>"Biometrics Applications in Education"</li><li>"Bringing the Concepts of Free Markets to Educational Content Purchasing"</li><li>"North Carolina - Digital Learning"</li><li>"The Great State of Texas - Overview"</li><li>"College and Career Readiness, Building a Global Workforce"</li><li>"Course Choice"</li></ul>

<h2>2014 States and Nation Policy Summit Substantive Agenda</h2>

The following "model" bills were proposed for the Washington, DC conference:<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-2014SNPSagenda-6">[6]</a>

<ul><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/ED_2014_SNPS_35_Day.pdf">Public Charter Schools Act</a>" (PDF, p. 8)</li><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/ED_2014_SNPS_35_Day.pdf">Draft of Public Charter Schools Funding Act</a>" (PDF, p. 31)</li></ul>

Presentations and panel discussions to be held at the conference included:<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-2014SNPSagenda-6">[6]</a>

<ul><li>"19th Edition Report Card on American Education"</li><li>"Charter School Working Group Update"</li><li>"Educational Savings Accounts - Education Reform Today"</li><li>"Public Charter School Act"</li><li>"States' Role in Protecting Student Information"</li><li>"Public Charter Schools Funding Act"</li></ul>

<h2>2014 Annual Meeting Substantive Agenda</h2>

The following "model" bills were proposed for the Dallas, TX conference:<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-2014Annual-7">[7]</a>

<ul><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/ED-35-day-AM-2014.pdf">Draft of Affordable Baccalaureate Degree Act</a>" (PDF, p. 8)</li><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/ED-35-day-AM-2014.pdf">Draft of Public Charter Schools Act</a>" (PDF, p. 9)</li><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/ED-35-day-AM-2014.pdf">Draft of Public Charter Schools Funding Act</a>" (PDF, p. 32)</li></ul>

Presentations and panel discussions to be held at the conference included:<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-2014Annual-7">[7]</a>

<ul><li>"Restoring Primacy to Public Higher Education: Federal Student Financial Aid Programs and the Law of Unintended Consequences”</li><li>"Review and Update: ALEC's Education Principles"</li><li>"Fiscal Notes Calculator"</li><li>"Report Card on American Education 19th Edition"</li><li>"Standardized Tests: A Study On Education Control Systems"</li></ul>

<h2>2014 Spring Task Force Summit Substantive Agenda</h2>

The following "model" bills were proposed at the Kansas City, Missouri conference:<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-2014STFS-8">[8]</a>

<ul><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/ED_STFS_35_Day.pdf">Draft of Student Futures Program Act</a>" (PDF, p. 7)</li><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/ED_STFS_35_Day.pdf">Draft of Teacher Quality Assurance Act</a>" (PDF, p. 10)</li><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/ED_STFS_35_Day.pdf">Draft of The Educational Choice Tax Program Credit Act (Scholarship Tax Credits)</a>" (PDF, p. 13)</li></ul>

Presentations and panel discussions to be held at the conference included:<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-2014STFS-8">[8]</a>

<ul><li>"Education Reform Presentation: The Best Course on Course Choice"</li><li>"Review and Update ALEC's Education Principles"</li><li>"Digital Learning Presentation: 1:1 Devices vs. High Quality Computer Assisted Instruction"</li><li>"Model Policy Discussion and Voting: Sunset Review"

<ul><li>"Credit Articulation Agreements Act"</li><li>"Inclusive College Savings Plan Act"</li><li>"Founding Principles Act"</li><li>"Online Learning Clearinghouse Act"</li><li>"The Public School Financial Transparency Act"</li><li>"Higher Education Scholarships for High School Pupils Act"</li></ul>

</li></ul>

<h2>2013 States and Nation Policy Summit Substantive Agenda</h2>

The following "model" bills were proposed for the Washington, DC conference:<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-2013SNPSagenda-9">[9]</a>

<ul><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://alec.org/docs/ED_2013_SNPS_35_Day.pdf">Student Achievement Backpack Act</a>" (PDF, p. 10)</li><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://alec.org/docs/ED_2013_SNPS_35_Day.pdf">Student Futures Program Act</a>" (PDF, p. 14)</li><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://alec.org/docs/ED_2013_SNPS_35_Day.pdf">Course Choice Program Act</a>" (PDF, p. 17)</li><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://alec.org/docs/ED_2013_SNPS_35_Day.pdf">Amendments</a> (PDF, p. 29) to the "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://alecexposed.org/w/images/7/72/2D3-Family_Education_Savings_Account_Act_Exposed.pdf">Education Savings Account Act</a>"</li><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://alec.org/docs/ED_2013_SNPS_35_Day.pdf">Amendments</a> (PDF, p. 41) to the "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://alecexposed.org/w/images/0/00/2D10-THE_FOSTER_CHILD_SCHOLARSHIP_PROGRAM_ACT_Exposed.pdf">Foster Child Scholarship Program Act</a>"</li><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://alec.org/docs/ED_2013_SNPS_35_Day.pdf">Early Intervention Program Act</a>" (PDF, p. 6)</li><li>"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://alec.org/docs/ED_2013_SNPS_35_Day.pdf">K-1 Technology-Based Reading Intervention for English Learners Act</a>" (PDF, p. 8)</li><li>Sunset Review of "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://alecexposed.org/w/images/b/bd/2E13-THE_PERSONAL_FINANCIAL_LITERACY_ACT_Exposed.pdf">Personal Financial Literact Act</a>"</li></ul>

Presentations and panel discussions to be held at the conference included:<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-2013SNPSagenda-9">[9]</a>

<ul><li>"School Funding that Follows the Child, School Finance, and School Choice Trends"</li><li>"National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Overview and Report Card on American Education"</li><li>"Course Choice, K-12, and Higher Education"</li><li>"Charter Schools Update"</li><li>"Student-Focused Funding Solutions for Public Education"</li><li>"Public Education Appropriations in North Dakota"</li></ul>

<h2>2013 Annual Meeting Substantive Agenda</h2>

The following "model" bills were proposed at the Chicago, IL conference:

<ul><li>"Student Data Accessibility, Transparency, and Accountability Act" -

(This act "would require the [State Board of Education/State Department

of Education] to make publicly available an inventory and index of all

data elements with definitions of individual student data fields

currently in the statewide longitudinal data system. The [State Board of

Education/State Department of Education] would be required to create a

data security plan, ensuring compliance with federal and state data

privacy laws and policies. Certain contracts would be required to

include privacy and security provisions. A Chief Privacy Officer will be

created within the State Department of Education whose primary mission

includes ensuring department-wide compliance with all privacy laws and

regulations. This bill adds new annual security and privacy reporting

requirements to the Governor and Legislature.")</li></ul>

<ul><li>"The Great Schools Tax Credit Program Act (Scholarship Tax

Credits)"- ("The Great Schools Tax Credit Program authorizes a tax

credit for individual and corporate contributions to organizations that

provide educational scholarships to eligible students so they can attend

qualifying public or private schools of their parents’ choice.")</li></ul>

<ul><li>"The Honest Transcript Bill" - ("The Honest Transcript Bill looks to

correct grade inflation by requiring all public colleges and

universities to include on student transcripts—alongside the individual

grade the student received for each class—the average grade given by the

professor for the entire class. This would help potential employers

learn whether a given high grade-point average signifies superlative

talent or merely that the student completed undemanding courses.")</li></ul>

<ul><li>"Informed Student Document Bill" - (Designed to "aid students and

their parents, the Informed Student Document Bill would publish the

following outcomes by which a state’s universities can be compared: 1.

“Sticker-price” tuition relative to other institutions; 2. Net price,

after grants and scholarships, relative to other institutions; 3.

Retention rate relative to other institutions; 4. Graduation rate

relative to other institutions; 5. Average student debt relative to

other institutions; 6. Loan repayment rates relative to other

institutions; 7. Employment potential relative to other institutions; 8.

Average starting salaries for each academic major (gleaned from

national employment surveys.")</li></ul>

<ul><li>"The Collegiate Learning Assessment Bill"- ("This model legislation

requires public colleges and universities to administer the Collegiate

Learning Assessment (CLA) to all students during their freshman and

senior years. The schools would also be required to publish the results,

broken down by academic majors.")<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-edann-10">[10]</a></li></ul>

Presentations and panel discussions held at the conference included:

<ul><li>"Digital Learning," presented by Ted Dabrowski for The Illinois Policy Institute</li><li>“The Student Loan Crisis and College Graduate Unemployment Problem,” presented by Dr. Richard Vedder, Ohio University</li><li>“Every Student Deserves a Quality Education: A Mother’s Story with Vouchers” presented by Erin Fulton</li><li>“School Choice Roundup” presented by Scott Jensen, American Federation for Children<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-edann-10">[10]</a></li></ul>

Additional "technical amendments" were proposed for the following acts:

<ul><li>Parental Choice Program (Universal Eligibility)</li><li>Parental Choice Scholarship Program Act (Universal Eligibility, Means-Tested scholarship Amount)</li><li>Military Family Scholarship Program Act<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-edann-10">[10]</a></li></ul>

<h2>2012 ALEC Winter Task Force Summit Substantive Agenda</h2>

The following "model" bills were proposed at the Washington D.C. conference:

<ul><li>"School Choice Directory Act" (Presented by Jonathan Butcher,

Goldwater Institute) (This proposal "requires the state department of

education to produce a catalogue of educational options available in the

state. The catalogue will provide a brief description of all

educational choices for students in K-12 as they apply to the state,

including (as applicable) open enrollment, charter schools, vouchers,

education savings accounts, homeschooling, and tax credit

scholarships.")<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-11">[11]</a></li></ul>

<h2>2012 ALEC Spring Task Force Summit Substantive Agenda</h2>

The May 2012 ALEC Spring Task Force Summit was held in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The following "model" bills were adopted at Charlotte and then were sent on to the ALEC board for approval:

<ul><li>"District and School Freedom Act" (presented by Jonathan Butcher of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Goldwater_Institute" title="Goldwater Institute">Goldwater Institute</a>)

(It "creates a mechanism for public school districts and schools to to

request exemption from state education standards and regulations...")<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-12">[12]</a></li></ul>

<h2>2011 ALEC Winter Task Force Summit Substantive Agenda</h2>

The following "model" bills were proposed at the Scottsdale conference:

<ul><li>"Local Government Transparency Act" (Presented by Collin Hitt,

Illinois Policy Institute) (This proposal "requires that a unit of local

government or school district having an annual budget equal to, or more

than, $500,000 must maintain and post on its website" an array of

information pertaining to the district.")</li></ul>

<ul><li>"Comprehensive Legislative Package Opposing the Common Core State

Standards Initiative" (Presented by Jonathan Butcher, Goldwater

Institute and Emmett McGroarty, American Principles Project) (This

proposal "rejects any policies and procedures that would be incumbent on

the state based on the Common Core State Standards Initiative.")</li></ul>

<ul><li>"Resolution Opposing Federal Intrusion in State Education Content

Standards" (Presented by Sen. Rich Crandall of Arizona) (This proposal

"vigorously opposes any effort by the federal government to deny the

authority of any state to set its own education academic content

standards or to attempt to overturn decisions made duly by a state

regarding any education standards deemed by the

constitutionally-designated authorities in that state to be in the best

interest of that state’s children.")</li></ul>

<ul><li>"The Founding Philosophy and Principles Act" (Presented by Sen. Don

Vaughan of North Carolina) (This draft proposes that schools emphasize

"the Founding Philosophy and the Founding Principles of our government

for a free people, which are found in the Declaration of Independence,

the United States Constitution, the Federalist Papers and the writings

of the Founders, and an understanding of their preservation.")</li></ul>

<ul><li>"Higher Education Capital Projects Transparency Act" (Presented by

Michael Poliakoff, American Council of Trustees and Alumni) (This

proposal "requires a public institution of higher education to develop

and promulgate procedures for maximum utilization of existing

facilities, to make data on the average weekly usage of classrooms and

laboratories available on its website in a format clearly comprehensible

to the public, and to hold public discussion of each proposed capital

construction project exceeding $10,000,000 in total cost, including, but

not limited to, evaluation of utilization of existing campus

instructional buildings for a period not less than the three years

preceding the construction proposal.")</li></ul>

<ul><li>"Academic Accountability in Higher Education Act" (Presented by

Michael Poliakoff, American Council of Trustees and Alumni) (This

proposal "requires all four-year institution of higher education that

receive state funding, including, but not limited to funding for

operating expenses, student financial aid, or capital projects to assess

annually student learning gains in core collegiate skills and to make

the results of this and related academic assessments prominently

available on its website.")</li></ul>

<ul><li>"Substantive Transparency in Education Act" (Presented by Emmett

McGroarty, American Principles Project) (This proposal "requires each

public school to make available to parents all current textbooks,

curricula, instructional materials, and instructional programs for

inspection by any parent or guardian of a child enrolled in that

school.")<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-13">[13]</a></li></ul>

<h2>2011 ALEC Annual Meeting Substantive Agenda</h2>

From the 2011 ALEC Annual Conference Program: the Task Force voted on

"several proposed bills and resolutions, with topics including: digital

learning, the Common Core State Standards, charter schools, curriculum

on free enterprise, taxpayers' savings grants, amendments to the

existing model legislation on higher education accountability, and a

comprehensive bill that incorporates many components of the landmark

school reforms Indiana passed this legislative session. Attendees will

hear a presentation on the National Board for Professional Teaching

Standards' initiative to grow great schools, as well as one on

innovations in higher education."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-14">[14]</a>

"Model" bills introduced at the meeting include:

<ul><li>Amendments to the "Higher Education Accountability Act" (sponsored by Dr. Hary Stille)</li><li>"Comprehensive Legislative Package Opposing the Common Core State Standards Initiative" (introduced but tabled) <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-15">[15]</a></li><li>"Resolution Adopting the 10 Elements of High Quality Digital Learning" (sponsored by Sen. Rich Crandall, Arizona)</li><li>"Free Enterprise Education Act" (sponsored by Roberta Philips, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/U.S._Chamber_of_Commerce" title="U.S. Chamber of Commerce">U.S. Chamber of Commerce</a>)<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EdMeetingAgenda-16">[16]</a></li><li>"Indiana Education Reform Package" (Presented by Rep. Cindy Noe of

Indiana) (This package is based on a "comprehensive set of K–12

education reforms adopted by the Indiana Legislature in the spring of

The components in this Act have created the nation’s largest

school voucher program, among other reforms.")</li><li>"Resolution Opposing the Implementation of the Common Core State

Standards Initiative" (Presented by Jonathan Butcher, Goldwater

Institute) (This resolution "rejects any policies and procedures that

would be incumbent on the state based on the Common Core State Standards

Initiative.")</li><li>"Resolution on Digital Learning" (Presented by Sen. Rich Crandall of

Arizona) (This resolution proposes adoption of "the Digital Learning

Council’s 10 Elements of High Quality Digital Learning" and requests

"that the Elements shall be incorporated as necessary though future

legislation as well as immediate state regulation, strategic planning,

guidelines and/or procedures on the part of the [State Education

Agency], local education agencies, and any other relevant public or

private bodies.")</li><li>"Charter School Growth with Quality Act" (Presented by David Hansen, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Association_of_Charter_School_Authorizers" title="National Association of Charter School Authorizers">National Association of Charter School Authorizers</a>)

(This proposal seeks to "expand quality public education opportunities

for all children by establishing a state public charter school

commission to serve as an independent statewide charter authorizer.")</li><li>"Taxpayers’ Savings Grants Act" (Presented by Marc Oestreich, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Heartland_Institute" title="Heartland Institute">Heartland Institute</a>)

(This proposal "establishes a program by which willing residents can

opt to receive less public funding for their child’s education, in order

to take that funding to a private school. The difference in the amount

slated for that child and the amount of the Savings Grant will be

considered taxpayer savings and not allotted to any other program.")</li><li>"Free Enterprise Education Act" (Presented by Roberta Zenn Phillips, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/U.S._Chamber_of_Commerce" title="U.S. Chamber of Commerce">U.S. Chamber of Commerce</a>)

(This proposal "mandates instruction in the free enterprise system, a

course that requires an interdisciplinary study of economics, political

science, history, geography, culture, and current events. This Act

requires a stand-alone course in the free enterprise system that lasts

at least one semester and a passing grade in order to receive a

certificate or diploma of graduation.")<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-17">[17]</a></li></ul>

<h2>2011 ALEC Spring Task Force Summit Substantive Agenda</h2>

The following model bills were proposed at the Ohio conference:

<ul><li>"Higher Education Transparency Act", (Sponsored by Michael

Poliakoff, American Council of Trustees and Alumni) (This proposal seeks

to require "a public institution of higher education to establish

uniform standards to make certain information available on the

Internet." Some of the required information includes: course syllabi,

instructor CVs, departmental budget information, grade distributions.)</li></ul>

<ul><li>"Performance Audit Act", (Sponsored by Harry Stille, Evergreen

Freedom Foundation) (This proposal seeks "to allows parents to use the

funds that would have been allocated to their child at their resident

school district for an education program of the parents’ choosing.")</li></ul>

<ul><li>"Education Savings Account Act", (Sponsored by Scott Jensen,

American Federation for Children) (This proposal states that "[p]ublic

higher education institutions function totally from the state

appropriations (taxpayer), student tuition and fees, gifts from donors,

awards for research and auxiliary funds or gifts through those

operations. It is imperative that these public funds expended are

accounted for in open transparency form to allow the general public and

students to see both the income and expenditures for which they are

paying. This Act would define the scope for outcome-based higher

education audits in part by seeking answers to questions relating to

institutions’ missions, structures, costs, and overall academic results.

This would create an open accounting for these public funds and their

efficient use in performance of the services of these public

institutions for the public benefit.")<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-18">[18]</a></li></ul>

<h2>2004 ALEC States and Nation Policy Summit Substantive Agenda</h2>

According to a February 2005 archive of ALEC's website:<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-ALEC2005-19">[19]</a>

<dl><dd>"Since the 2004 Annual Meeting, several legislators teamed up with the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Friedman_Foundation_for_Educational_Choice" title="Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice">Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation</a>, the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Alliance_for_School_Choice" title="Alliance for School Choice">Alliance for School Choice</a>, the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Justice" title="Institute for Justice">Institute for Justice</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/K12" title="K12" class="mw-redirect">K12</a>, and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Connections_Academy" title="Connections Academy">Connections Academy</a>

to form the School Choice Subcommittee. This Subcommittee met at the

States and Nation Policy Summit and recommended six strong model bills: <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://alecexposed.org/w/images/4/4a/2D23-Virtual_Public_Schools_Act1_Exposed.pdf">Virtual Public Schools Act</a>; <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://alecexposed.org/w/images/b/b1/2D11-THE_GREAT_SCHOOLS_TAX_CREDIT_PROGRAM_ACT_Exposed.pdf">Great Schools Tax Credit Program</a>; <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://alecexposed.org/w/images/e/eb/2D16-THE_PARENTAL_CHOICE_SCHOLARSHIP_PROGRAM_ACT_1_Exposed.pdf">Parental Choice Scholarship Program</a> (Means-tested Eligibility – Sliding-scale Scholarship Amounts); <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://alecexposed.org/w/images/2/20/2D17-THE_PARENTAL_CHOICE_SCHOLARSHIP_PROGRAM_ACT_2_Exposed.pdf">Parental Choice Scholarship Program</a> (Universal Eligibility—One Scholarship Amount); <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://alecexposed.org/w/images/8/84/2D21-THE_SPECIAL_NEEDS_SCHOLARSHIP_PROGRAM_ACT_Exposed.pdf">Special Needs Scholarship Program</a>; and <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://alecexposed.org/w/images/7/77/2D9-THE_FAMILY_EDUCATION_TAX_CREDIT_PROGRAM_ACT_Exposed.pdf">Family Education Tax Credit Program</a>

(Combination of Scholarship Tax Credits and Tuition Tax Credits). The

full Education Task Force passed all of these model bills unanimously.</dd></dl>

<dl><dd>"The Education Task Force owes a particular debt of gratitude to Wisconsin Representative <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Scott_Jensen" title="Scott Jensen">Scott Jensen</a>

for his leadership as the School Choice Subcommittee Chairman and to

Robert Enlow, the Task Force’s public sector chairman, for their vision

and diligent work on these model bills. This legislation is certain to

become the foundation of the school choice movement nationwide, due in

great part to the work of Representative Jensen and Mr. Enlow.</dd></dl>

<dl><dd>"The Education Task Force also welcomed <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mickey_Revenaugh" title="Mickey Revenaugh">Mickey Revenaugh</a>

of Connections Academy to her first States and Nation Policy Summit as a

private sector member. Before coming to her first ALEC meeting, Ms.

Revenaugh hit the ground running by working with <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Colorado_ALEC_Politicians" title="Colorado ALEC Politicians">Colorado Representative Don Lee</a>, Bryan Flood of K12, and the rest of the Subcommittee by helping craft the Virtual Schools Act. "<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-ALEC2005-19">[19]</a></dd></dl>

<h2>2002 ALEC States and Nation Policy Summit Substantive Agenda</h2>

According to a February 2005 archive of ALEC's website:<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-ALEC2005-19">[19]</a>

<dl><dd>"The Task Force had a very successful meeting as the guest speakers

addressed a standing-room-only crowd. Jeanne Allen from the Center for

Education Reform spoke on the need for charter school options and how

state legislators must pass laws to give these schools the autonomy they

need to be successful. Ron Packard, CEO and Founder of K12, shared the

overwhelming positive results of his virtual charter school program.

Lori Yaklin from the U.S. Department of Education discussed the choice

provisions in H.R. 1, the "No Child Left Behind Act." Dr. Edward Gordon

continued the discussion by addressing how to develop state guidelines

for supplemental service providers. Finally, Jennifer Mendez of the

Carpet and Rug Institute talked about the need to pass legislation or a

resolution to create healthy school environments. In addition, the Task

Force reported favorably on the Teacher Quality and Recognition

Demonstration Act. This legislation permits school districts flexibility

in the creation of new programs designed to attract and retain the

highest quality in educators."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-ALEC2005-19">[19]</a></dd></dl>

<h2>Co-chairs</h2>

<ul><li>Rep. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Greg_Forristall" title="Greg Forristall">Greg Forristall</a> (R-IA), Public Sector Chair<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-ALEC-20">[20]</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jonathan_Butcher&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Jonathan Butcher (page does not exist)">Jonathan Butcher</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Goldwater_Institute" title="Goldwater Institute">Goldwater Institute</a><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-ALEC-20">[20]</a></li></ul>

The <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Goldwater_Institute" title="Goldwater Institute">Goldwater Institute</a> is a conservative Arizona-based "<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Think_tanks" title="Think tanks">think tank</a>" and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/SPN_Members" title="SPN Members">member</a> of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/State_Policy_Network" title="State Policy Network">State Policy Network</a> (SPN). It is also an affiliate of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Franklin_Center_for_Government_and_Public_Integrity" title="Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity">Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity</a>.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-2013_list-21">[21]</a>

Jonathan Butcher, Goldwater's Education Director, sponsored "model"

legislation (the "District and School Freedom Act") at the 2012 ALEC

Spring Task Force Summit. The model bill was adopted and sent to the

board for approval.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-22">[22]</a>

Butcher also sponsored the "Resolution Opposing the Implementation of

the Common Core State Standards Initiative" during the K–12 Education

Reform Subcommittee Meeting of the task force during ALEC's 38th annual

meeting.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-23">[23]</a>

In 2010, Matt Ladner represented Goldwater on the Education Task Force.

He sponsored the "A-Plus Literacy Act" during the education meeting of

the 2010 States and Nation Policy Summit.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-24">[24]</a> The bill was passed by the public and private sectors unanimously.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-25">[25]</a>

<h3>Former Co-chairs</h3>

<ul><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/David_Casas" title="David Casas">David Casas</a> (R-GA), Public Sector Chair<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-26">[26]</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mickey_Revenaugh" title="Mickey Revenaugh">Mickey Revenaugh</a> (Co-Founder and Senior Vice President of State Relations, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Connections_Academy" title="Connections Academy">Connections Academy</a>)<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-27">[27]</a>, Private Sector Chair<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-28">[28]</a></li></ul>

<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Connections_Academy" title="Connections Academy">Connections Academy</a>

is a division of Connections Education LLC, a private school based in

Baltimore, MD that offers free online public school through contracts

with charter schools, school districts, or governmental entities. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Pearson" title="Pearson">Pearson</a> purchased Connections Education from Apollo Management, L.P. in 2011.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-29">[29]</a> The contracted schools have a higher graduation rate than some online schools, but still lower than traditional public schools.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-30">[30]</a>

Sylvan Ventures started Connections Academy in 2001. The company

started its first schools in 2001, and in 2004, Connections Academy was

sold to Apollo Management, L.P.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-31">[31]</a>

<ul><li>Lisa Gillis (Director of Government Affairs and School Development for <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.k12insight.com/">Insight Schools, Inc.</a>, now part of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/K12" title="K12" class="mw-redirect">K12</a> Inc.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-32">[32]</a>),<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-33">[33]</a> Private Sector Chair of the Education Task Force’s Special Needs Subcommittee<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-34">[34]</a></li></ul>

<h2>Subcommittees</h2>

<ul><li>Charter School Working Group<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-2014AMagenda-35">[35]</a></li><li>K-12 Education Reform Subcommittee<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-36">[36]</a><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-2013SNPSagenda-9">[9]</a><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-2014AMagenda-35">[35]</a></li><li>Higher Education Subcommittee<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-37">[37]</a><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-2014AMagenda-35">[35]</a></li><li>Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-2013SNPSagenda-9">[9]</a></li><li>Special Needs Subcommittee<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-38">[38]</a></li><li>Subcommittee on Science Fraud in the Classroom (or Subcommittee on Junk Science)<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-39">[39]</a></li><li>School Choice Subcommittee<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-40">[40]</a></li><li>Working Group on Transparency (joint with the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Tax_and_Fiscal_Policy_Task_Force" title="Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force" class="mw-redirect">Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force</a><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-41">[41]</a></li></ul>

<h2>Individuals</h2>

<h3>Corporate, Trade or Other Groups</h3>

<ul><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Alliance_for_School_Choice" title="Alliance for School Choice">Alliance for School Choice</a><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EduNOLA-42">[42]</a></li><li>American Principles Project (new as of 2011 ALEC Annual Meeting)<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EdMeetingAgenda-16">[16]</a></li><li>Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities (APSCU,

formerly the Career College Association, the for-profit schools trade

association)<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EduNOLA-42">[42]</a></li><li>Bridgepoint Education (a for-profit education services holding

company which owns for-profit, online and land-based Ashford University

and University of the Rockies),<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EduNOLA-42">[42]</a> terminated membership on April 16, 2013, according to an ALEC document.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-ALECboard-43">[43]</a> See <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Corporations_that_Have_Cut_Ties_to_ALEC" title="Corporations that Have Cut Ties to ALEC">Corporations that Have Cut Ties to ALEC</a> for more.</li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Connections_Academy" title="Connections Academy">Connections Academy</a><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EdMeetingAgenda-16">[16]</a> - has been a member, but a spokesperson told the Center for Media and Democracy in July 2012 that the company had cut ties with ALEC in order to align "our affiliations with organizations whose central focus is education."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-44">[44]</a> See <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Corporations_Which_Have_Cut_Ties_to_ALEC" title="Corporations Which Have Cut Ties to ALEC" class="mw-redirect">Corporations Which Have Cut Ties to ALEC</a> and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Corporations" title="ALEC Corporations">ALEC Corporations</a> for more.</li><li>Corinthian Colleges (owns and manages a collection of for-profit

career-oriented colleges in the United States and Canada including

Everest College and Everest University, Heald College and WyoTech).<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EduNOLA-42">[42]</a> According to a July 4, 2014 LA Times

article, "As part of an agreement late Thursday with the U.S.

Department of Education, Santa Ana-based Corinthian will sell 85 of its

campuses and wind down operations at 12 others."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-45">[45]</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Dell" title="Dell">Dell</a>, Inc. (new as of 2011 ALEC Annual Meeting)<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EdMeetingAgenda-16">[16]</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Foundation_for_Excellence_in_Education" title="Foundation for Excellence in Education">Foundation for Excellence in Education</a> (new as of 2011 ALEC Annual Meeting)<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EdMeetingAgenda-16">[16]</a></li><li>Freedom Foundation<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EduNOLA-42">[42]</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Heartland_Institute" title="Heartland Institute">Heartland Institute</a>, Member, K-12 Education Reform Subcommittee<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EdMeetingAgenda-16">[16]</a></li><li>Higher Education Research / Policy Center<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EduNOLA-42">[42]</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Illinois_Policy_Institute" title="Illinois Policy Institute">Illinois Policy Institute</a><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EduNOLA-42">[42]</a></li><li>Independence Institute<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EduNOLA-42">[42]</a></li><li>Innosight Institute (in its own words, "a not-for-profit,

non-partisan think tank whose mission is to apply Harvard Business

School Professor Clayton M. Christensen’s theories of disruptive

innovation to develop and promote solutions to the most vexing problems

in the social sector"<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-46">[46]</a>)<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EdMeetingAgenda-16">[16]</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Justice" title="Institute for Justice">Institute for Justice</a> Arizona Chapter<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EduNOLA-42">[42]</a></li><li>International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL, the online schools trade association)<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EduNOLA-42">[42]</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/John_Locke_Foundation" title="John Locke Foundation">John Locke Foundation</a><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EduNOLA-42">[42]</a></li><li>K12, Inc. (the nation's largest provider of online charter schools)<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EduNOLA-42">[42]</a></li><li>Insight Schools, Inc. (now a division of K12)<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EduNOLA-42">[42]</a></li><li>Kaplan Higher Education<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EduNOLA-42">[42]</a> (a for-profit education subsidiary of the Washington Post Company that announced in April 2012 it had cut ties to ALEC<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-47">[47]</a>)</li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Lumina_Foundation_for_Education" title="Lumina Foundation for Education">Lumina Foundation for Education</a><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EduNOLA-42">[42]</a></li><li>National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA), Member, K-12 Education Reform Subcommittee<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EdMeetingAgenda-16">[16]</a></li><li>National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS)<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EdMeetingAgenda-16">[16]</a> - announced in April 2012 that it had "decided to discontinue engagement with ALEC"<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-48">[48]</a></li><li>National Heritage Academies (a for-profit charter school management

organization headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with a collection

of 67 charter schools in the eight states and a separate network of

college preparatory high schools)<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EduNOLA-42">[42]</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/News_Corporation" title="News Corporation">News Corporation</a> (<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Rupert_Murdoch" title="Rupert Murdoch" class="mw-redirect">Rupert Murdoch</a>'s News Corp., which owns the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wall_Street_Journal" title="Wall Street Journal">Wall Street Journal</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Fox_News" title="Fox News">Fox News</a>, and others, and whose education division is called "<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#W">Amplify</a>")<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-49">[49]</a></li><li>Ohio University<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EduNOLA-42">[42]</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Oklahoma_Council_of_Public_Affairs" title="Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs">Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs</a> (new as of 2011 ALEC Annual Meeting)<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EdMeetingAgenda-16">[16]</a></li><li>Oklahoma Policy Solutions<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EduNOLA-42">[42]</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Pacific_Research_Institute" title="Pacific Research Institute">Pacific Research Institute</a><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EduNOLA-42">[42]</a></li><li>Scantron (for-profit educational testing and online tutoring company)<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EduNOLA-42">[42]</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/State_Policy_Network" title="State Policy Network">State Policy Network</a> (SPN, national network of state think tanks) Center for Education Excellence<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EduNOLA-42">[42]</a></li><li>Step Up For Students/ Florida Education Freedom Foundation<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EduNOLA-42">[42]</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Texas_Public_Policy_Foundation" title="Texas Public Policy Foundation">Texas Public Policy Foundation</a> (a <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/State_Policy_Network" title="State Policy Network">State Policy Network</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/SPN_Ties_to_ALEC" title="SPN Ties to ALEC">affiliate</a>)

- Dr. Thomas Lindsay, Director of Goldwater's Center for Higher

Education, is vice chairman of the Higher Education Subcommittee of the

task force as of November 2013.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-50">[50]</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/U.S.Chamber_of_Commerce" title="U.S. Chamber of Commerce">U.S. Chamber of Commerce</a> Institute for Legal Reform (new as of 2011 ALEC Annual Meeting), Member, K-12 Education Reform Subcommittee<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EdMeetingAgenda-16">[16]</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/U.S.Chamber_of_Commerce" title="U.S. Chamber of Commerce">U.S. Chamber</a> Campaign for Free Enterprise<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EduNOLA-42">[42]</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Washington_Policy_Center" title="Washington Policy Center">Washington Policy Center</a> Center for Education Reform<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-51">[51]</a></li><li>Wireless Generation (a for-profit online education, software and testing corporation), member 2007-2009,<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-RWPRW-52">[52]</a> listed as new ALEC member in 2012,<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EduCharlotte-53">[53]</a> (the company denies this).<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-RWPRW-52">[52]</a> The company was acquired by <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#N">ALEC member</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/News_Corporation" title="News Corporation">News Corporation</a> in 2010, and as of 2013 has been folded-in to News Corp's "Amplify" education division.</li></ul>

<h3>Politicians</h3>

<ul><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Nancy_Spence" title="Nancy Spence">Nancy Spence</a> (R-CO), Former Public Sector Chair<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-54">[54]</a></li><li>Rep. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Tyler_August" title="Tyler August">Tyler August</a> (R-32), Member</li><li>Rep. Sondra L. Erickson (R), Member</li><li>Rep. Pat Garofalo (R-36B), Member</li><li>Sen. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Glenn_Grothman" title="Glenn Grothman">Glenn Grothman</a> (R-20), Member</li><li>Rep. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Dean_Knudson" title="Dean Knudson">Dean Knudson</a> (R-30), Alternate</li><li>Rep. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Howard_Marklein" title="Howard Marklein">Howard Marklein</a> (R-51), Member</li><li>Rep. Carol McFarlane (R-53B), Alternate</li><li>Sen. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Gen_Olson" title="Gen Olson">Gen Olson</a> (R - 33), Member and former State Chair<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-55">[55]</a></li><li>Rep. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Jeremy_Thiesfeldt" title="Jeremy Thiesfeldt">Jeremy Thiesfeldt</a> (R-52), Alternate</li><li>Rep. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Evan_Wynn" title="Evan Wynn">Evan Wynn</a> (R-43), Alternate</li><li>Rep. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wes_Keller" title="Wes Keller">Wes Keller</a> (AK R-14)</li><li>Rep. Mike A. Ball (AL R-10), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Chad Fincher (AL R-102), Alternate<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Rusty Glover (AL R-34), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. John Robinson (AL D-23), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. John Daniel Burris (AR R-85), Alternate<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK2-57">[57]</a></li><li>Rep. Les V. Carnine (AR R-94), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK2-57">[57]</a></li><li>Rep. Karen Hopper (AR R-81), Alternate<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK2-57">[57]</a></li><li>Senate Majority Whip John Huppenthal (AZ R-20)<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Donna J. Hutchinson (AR R-98), Alternate<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Steve Court (AZ R-18, Majority Leader), Member</li><li>Rep. Chester Crandell (AZ R-5), Member</li><li>Rep. John Fillmore (AZ R-23), Member</li><li>Rep. Doris Goodale (AZ R-3), Member</li><li>Sen. Albert A. Melvin (AZ R-26), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Amanda A. Reeve (AZ R-6), Member</li><li>Sen. Rich Crandall (AZ R-19), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EdMeetingAgenda-16">[16]</a></li><li>Sen. Eddie Joe Williams (AR R-28), Member</li><li>Sen. Jimmy L. Jeffress (AR D-24), Member</li><li>Rep. Carole R. Murray (CO R-45), Member</li><li>Sen. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Nancy_Spence" title="Nancy Spence">Nancy Spence</a> (CO R-27), former co-chair<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EPA_Letter_for_Senate-58">[58]</a><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-59">[59]</a></li><li>Sen. Keith C. King (CO R-12), Member</li><li>Rep. Michael Molgano (CT R-125), Member</li><li>Rep. Timothy LeGeyt (CT R-17), Member</li><li>Sen. Anitere Flores (FL R-38), Member</li><li>Rep. Kelli Stargel (FL R-64), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. David S. Casas (GA R-103), Member</li><li>Rep. Mike Dudgeon (GA R-24), Member</li><li>Sen. Greg Goggans (GA R-7), Member</li><li>Sen. Johnny Grant (GA R-25), Alternate</li><li>Rep. Jan Jones (GA R-46), Member</li><li>Rep. Howard R. Maxwell (GA R-17), Member</li><li>Sen. Fran R. Millar (GA R-79), Member</li><li>Senate President Pro Tempore Tommie A. Williams (GA R-19), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Scott C. Bedke (ID R-27A), Member</li><li>Rep. Darrell Bolz (ID R-10B), Alternate<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Janice K. McGeachin (ID R-32A), Alternate<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Peter Nielsen (ID R-22), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Bob P. Nonini (ID R-5), Member</li><li>Rep. Roger L. Eddy (IL R-109), Member</li><li>Sen. David Luechtefeld (IL R-58), Member</li><li>Rep. Jerry Lee Mitchell (IL R-90), Member</li><li>Rep. Sandra M. Pihos (IL R-96), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Cindy J. Noe (IN R-87), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EdMeetingAgenda-16">[16]</a></li><li>Rep. David Yarde, II (IN R-52), Member</li><li>Sen. Carlin J. Yoder (IN R-12), Member</li><li>Sen. Nancy J. Boettger (IA R-29), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Greg Forristall (IA R-98), Member</li><li>Rep. Mary Ann Hanusa (IA R-99), Member</li><li>Rep. Kevin Koester (IA R-70), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Terry Calloway (KS R-3), Member</li><li>Rep. Steve Huebert (KS R-90), Member</li><li>Sen. Bob Marshall (KS R-13), Member</li><li>Rep. Joe McLeland (KS R-94), Alternate<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Marc C. Rhoades (KS R-72), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Sen. David P. Givens (KY R-9), Member</li><li>Rep. Jimmy Higdon (KY R-14), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Sen. Vernie D. McGaha (KY R-15), Member</li><li>Rep. Brad Montell (KY R-58), Member</li><li>Rep. F.L. (Ben) Waide (KY R-10), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK2-57">[57]</a></li><li>Sen. Jack Westwood (KY R-23), Alternate<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Sen. Kenneth W. Winters (KY R-1), Member</li><li>Rep. Addia K. Wuchner (KY R-66), Member</li><li>Rep. Jill York (KY R-96), Member</li><li>Rep. Joe Harrison, (LA R-51), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Frank Hoffmann (LA R-15)<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-HHS_Letter-60">[60]</a>, Member</li><li>Rep. Walter Leger, III (LA D-91), Member</li><li>Sen. Ben Wayne Nevers, Sr. (LA D-12), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK2-57">[57]</a></li><li>Sen. Brian D. Langley (ME R-28), Member</li><li>Del. Kathy Afzali (MD R-4A), Member</li><li>Del. William J. Frank (MD R-42), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Del. Nancy R. Stocksdale (MD R-5A), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Sondra L. Erickson (MN R-16A), Member</li><li>Rep. Pat Garofalo (MN R-36B), Member</li><li>Rep. Carol McFarlane (MN R-53B), Alternate</li><li>Sen. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Gen_Olson" title="Gen Olson">Gen Olson</a> (MN R - 33), former State Chair<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-61">[61]</a> and Education Task Force Member</li><li>Rep. Harvey A. Fillingane (MS R-101), Member</li><li>Rep. Noal Akins (MS R-12), Member</li><li>Rep. Herbert D. Frierson (MS R-106), Member</li><li>Rep. Scott Bounds (MS R-44), Member</li><li>Sen. Doug E. Davis (MS R-1), Member</li><li>Sen. Fredie Videt Carmichael (MS R-46), Member</li><li>Rep. Eric Burlison (MO R-136), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Sen. Jane D. Cunningham (MO R-7), Member</li><li>Rep. Scott D. Dieckhaus (MO R-109), Member</li><li>Majority Floor Leader <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Timothy_Jones" title="Timothy Jones">Timothy Jones</a> (MO R-89), State Chairman<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EPA_Letter_for_Senate-58">[58]</a><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-62">[62]</a>, Member</li><li>Rep. Mike Kelley (MO R-126), Member</li><li>Rep. Mark W. Blasdel (MT R-10), Member</li><li>Sen. Verdell Jackson (MT R-5), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Scott M. Reichner (MT R-9), Alternate<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Dan D Skattum (MT R-62), Member</li><li>Sen. Pete Pirsch (NE 4), Member</li><li>Sen. John M. Wightman (NE 36), Member</li><li>Sen. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Barbara_Cegavske" title="Barbara Cegavske">Barbara Cegavske</a> (NV R-8), ALEC State Chairman<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-63">[63]</a> and Education Task Force Member</li><li>Sen. Don G. Gustavson (NV R-2), Member</li><li>Sen. Maurice E. Washington (NV R-2), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Dan McGuire (NH R-8), Member</li><li>Rep. Kris Edward Roberts (NH D-3), Member</li><li>Rep. Will Smith (NH R-18), Member</li><li>Rep. Alonzo Baldonado (NM R-8), Member</li><li>Sen. Mark L. Boitano (NM R-18), Member</li><li>Sen. Gay G. Kernan (NM R-42), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Dennis Roch (NM R-67), Member</li><li>Rep. Bryan R. Holloway (NC R-91), Alternate</li><li>Rep. Linda P. Johnson (NC R-83), Member</li><li>Sen. Donald Ray Vaughan (NC D-27), Member</li><li>Sen. Tom Apodaca (NC R-48), Member</li><li>Rep. Brenda A. Heller (ND R-33), Alternate<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Sen. Karen K. Krebsbach (ND R-40), Alternate<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>House Speaker David Monson (ND R-10)<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EPA_Letter_for_Senate-58">[58]</a>, Alternate</li><li>Rep. Lisa M. Meier (ND R-32), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. David S. Rust (ND R-2), Alternate<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK2-57">[57]</a></li><li>Sen. Rich P. Wardner (ND R-37), Member</li><li>Rep. Julie Harhart (PA R-183), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Sandra J. Major (PA R-111), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Kathy L. Rapp (PA R-65), Member</li><li>Rep. Nan A. Baker (OH R-16), Alternate<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK2-57">[57]</a></li><li>Rep. John A. Carey, Jr. (OH R-87), Alternate</li><li>Rep. Cliff Hite (OH R-1), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Gerald L. Stebelton (OH R-5), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK2-57">[57]</a></li><li>Rep. Kristina D. Roegner (OH R-42), Member</li><li>Rep. Marlene Anielski (OH R-17), Member</li><li>Rep. Jabar Shumate (D-73), Alternate</li><li>Rep. Ann Coody (OK R-64), Member</li><li>Rep. Lee R. Denney (OK R-33), Member</li><li>Sen. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/John_W._Ford" title="John W. Ford">John W. Ford</a> (OK R-29), State Chairman<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-64">[64]</a> and Education Task Force Member</li><li>Rep. Sally R. Kern (OK R-84), Alternate</li><li>Sen. Jim Reynolds (OK R-43), Alternate<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. John Huffman (OR R-59), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Sherrie Sprenger (OR R-17), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Matt M. Wingard (OR R-26), member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Sen. James E. Doyle, II (RI D-8), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Sen. Hanna M. Gallo (RI D-27), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Sen. Beatrice A. Lanzi (RI D-26), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>House Majority Whip Joseph A. Trillo (RI R-24), Alternate<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. George M. Hearn (SC R-105), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Phillip D. Owens (SC R-5), Member</li><li>Rep. Phil M. Jensen (SD R-33), Alternate<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. James H. Merrill (SC R-99), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Tad Perry (SD R-24), Member</li><li>Sen. Todd J. Schlekeway (SD R-11), Member</li><li>Rep. Jacqueline Sly (SD R-33), Member</li><li>Rep. Kevin D. Brooks (TN R-24), Alternate</li><li>Rep. Harry R. Brooks, Jr. (TN R-19), Member</li><li>Sen. Dolores R. Gresham (TN R-26), Alternate</li><li>Rep. Phillip Max Johnson (TN R-78), Member</li><li>Rep. Ron Lollar (TN R-99), Alternate<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Sen. Randy McNally (TN R-5), Alternate<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. John D. Ragan (TN R-33), Alternate</li><li>Sen. Jim Tracy (TN R-16), Member</li><li>Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock (TX R-54), Alternate<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Rob Eissler (TX R-15), Member</li><li>Rep. Daniel H. Branch (TX R-108), Member</li><li>Rep. Geanie W. Morrison (TX R-30), Alternate<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Diane Patrick (TX R-94), Alternate</li><li>Sen. Florence D. Shapiro (TX R-18), Member</li><li>Sen. Margaret Dayton (UT R-15), Member</li><li>Rep. Keith Grover (UT R-61), Member</li><li>House Majority Whip Greg H. Hughes (UT R-51), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Sen. Scott K. Jenkins (UT R-20). Alternate<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK2-57">[57]</a></li><li>Rep. Merlynn T. Newbold (UT R-50), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Sen. Howard A. Stephenson (UT R-11), Member</li><li>Rep. Kenneth W. Sumsion (UT R-56), Alternate<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK2-57">[57]</a></li><li>Del. Robert Tata (VA R-85), Member</li><li>Del. Marvin Kirkland Cox (VA R-66), Member</li><li>Del. Mark L. Cole (VA R-88), Member</li><li>Del. R. Steven Landes (VA R-25), Alternate</li><li>Sen. Stephen D. Newman (VA R-23), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Sen. Randolph D. Brock (VT R-Franklin), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Howard T. Crawford (VT R-4), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Duncan F. Kilmartin (VT R-2), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Glenn Anderson (WA R-5), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Kevin W. Van De Wege (WA D-24), Member</li><li>Rep. Kevin Parker (WA R-6), Member</li><li>Sen. Randi Becker (WA R-2), Member</li><li>Speaker Jonathan R. Miller (WV D-17), member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Del. John Overington (WV R-55), Member</li><li>Rep. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Tyler_August" title="Tyler August">Tyler August</a> (WI R-32), Member</li><li>Sen. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Glenn_Grothman" title="Glenn Grothman">Glenn Grothman</a> (WI R-20), Member</li><li>Rep. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Dean_Knudson" title="Dean Knudson">Dean Knudson</a> (WI R-30), Alternate</li><li>Rep. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Howard_Marklein" title="Howard Marklein">Howard Marklein</a> (WI R-51), Member</li><li>Rep. Stephen L. Nass (WI R-31), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. John Nygren (WI R-89), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Jeremy_Thiesfeldt" title="Jeremy Thiesfeldt">Jeremy Thiesfeldt</a> (WI R-52), Alternate</li><li>Rep. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Evan_Wynn" title="Evan Wynn">Evan Wynn</a> (WI R-43), Alternate</li><li>Sen. James Anderson (WY R-2), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK2-57">[57]</a></li><li>Sen. Henry H. Coe (WY R-18), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK2-57">[57]</a></li><li>Rep. John Eklund, Jr. (WY R-10), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK2-57">[57]</a></li><li>Rep. Allen M. Jaggi (WY R-18), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK2-57">[57]</a></li><li>Rep. Tom Lubnau (WY R-31), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li><li>Rep. Matt Teeters (WY R-5), Member<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK2-57">[57]</a></li><li>Rep. Sue Wallis (WY R-52), Alternate<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK-56">[56]</a></li></ul>

</div>

<h3>Other Named Individuals</h3>

<ul><li>Rita Pin Ahrens (Policy Advisor, National Board for Professional Teaching Standards

(NBPTS) and Alliance for Excellent Education) presented on "National

Board's Turnaround Initiative to Grow Great Schools" at the Education

Task Force Meeting at the 2011 ALEC Annual Meeting<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EdMeetingAgenda-16">[16]</a></li><li>Stanton D. Anderson (Senior Counsel to the President and Chief Executive Officer, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/U.S._Chamber_of_Commerce" title="U.S. Chamber of Commerce">U.S. Chamber of Commerce</a><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-65">[65]</a>)

issued remarks on the "Free Enterprise Education Act" model legislation

at the Education Task Force meeting of the 2011 ALEC Annual Meeting<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EdMeetingAgenda-16">[16]</a></li><li>Jonathan Butcher (Education Director, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Goldwater_Institute" title="Goldwater Institute">Goldwater Institute</a>)

introduced the "Comprehensive Legislative Package Opposing the Common

Core State Standards Initiative" at the Education Task Force K-12

Education Reform Subcommittee Meeting at the 2011 ALEC Annual Meeting<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EdMeetingAgenda-16">[16]</a></li><li>Robert Enlow (President and CEO, Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice), Former Private Sector Chair<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-66">[66]</a></li><li>Liv Finne (Director, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Washington_Policy_Center" title="Washington Policy Center">Washington Policy Center</a> Center for Education)<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-67">[67]</a></li><li>David Hansen (Vice President of Policy and Advocacy, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Association_of_Charter_School_Authorizers" title="National Association of Charter School Authorizers">National Association of Charter School Authorizers</a> (NACSA)<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-68">[68]</a>)

sponsored discussion and voting on the "Charter School Growth with

Quality Act" at the Education Task Force Meeting at the 2011 ALEC Annual

Meeting<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EdMeetingAgenda-16">[16]</a></li><li>Michael Horn (co-founder and Executive Director, Education, Innosight Institute<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-69">[69]</a>) presented on "Disrupting Class" at the Education Task Force Meeting at the 2011 ALEC Annual Meeting<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EdMeetingAgenda-16">[16]</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Matthew_Ladner" title="Matthew Ladner">Matthew Ladner</a> (Vice President of Research, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Goldwater_Institute" title="Goldwater Institute">Goldwater Institute</a>)<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-70">[70]</a></li><li>Emmett McGroarty (Director of Preserve Innocence, American Principles Project)

introduced the "Comprehensive Legislative Package Opposing the Common

Core State Standards Initiative" at the Education Task Force K-12

Education Reform Subcommittee Meeting at the 2011 ALEC Annual Meeting<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EdMeetingAgenda-16">[16]</a></li><li>Mark Oestreich (legislative specialist on education and telecommunications, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Heartland_Institute" title="Heartland Institute">Heartland Institute</a>)

sponsored discussion and voting on the "Taxpayers' Savings Grants Act"

at the Education Task Force Meeting at the 2011 ALEC Annual Meeting<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EdMeetingAgenda-16">[16]</a></li><li>Roberta Philips (<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/U.S._Chamber_of_Commerce" title="U.S. Chamber of Commerce">U.S. Chamber of Commerce</a>)

sponsored discussion and voting on the "Free Enterprise Education Act"

at the Education Task Force Meeting and introduced the "Free Enterprise

Education Act" at the K-12 Education Reform Subcommittee Meeting at the

2011 ALEC Annual Meeting<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EdMeetingAgenda-16">[16]</a></li><li>Dr. Judith Reisman, Science Advisor, Education Task Force Subcommittee on Science Fraud in the Classroom<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-71">[71]</a></li><li>Bob Wise (Chairman, National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) and Alliance for Excellent Education)

presented on "National Board's Turnaround Initiative to Grow Great

Schools" at the Education Task Force Meeting at the 2011 ALEC Annual

Meeting<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EdMeetingAgenda-16">[16]</a></li></ul>

<h3>Individuals Formerly Listed as Having Ties to the Task Force</h3>

<ul><li>Rep. Gail Lavielle (CT R-143) attended the 2011 Annual Meeting in

New Orleans and was listed by ALEC as a member of the Education Task

Force,<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-EDUTASK2-57">[57]</a>

but a letter from ALEC's Public Affairs Senior Director explains that

with the exception of her attendance at that meeting, for which she "did

not seek reimbursement," Rep. Lavielle has "had no interaction with the

organization or any of its Task Forces, staff or members."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-72">[72]</a> She was not a member as of June 2013<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-73">[73]</a> or May 2014.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-74">[74]</a></li></ul>

<h2>Staff</h2>

<ul><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lindsay_Russell&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Lindsay Russell (page does not exist)">Lindsay Russell</a>, current Director<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-75">[75]</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/David_Myslinski" title="David Myslinski">David Myslinski</a>, former Director<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-76">[76]</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Monica_Mastracco" title="Monica Mastracco">Monica Mastracco</a>, Legislative Assistant<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-77">[77]</a></li><li>Jeff William Reed, Former Director<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Education_Task_Force#cite_note-78">[78]</a></li></ul>
==
</div></div></div></div>