LFT Vice President Jim Randels
(New Orleans – August 3, 2010) A corporate funded organization that writes model legislation for state lawmakers was exposed for its anti-public education, anti worker and anti-democratic agenda at a press conference in New Orleans Wednesday. LFT Vice President Jim Randels, who is a member of the United Teachers of New Orleans, was one of the speakers at the press conference.
Randels was joined by Orleans Parish School Board member Brett Bonin and several others, each of whom brought to light a part of the agenda espoused by the American Legislative Exchange Council, which is holding its national convention in New Orleans this week. Bonin, along with LFT and other supporters of public education, is a member of the Coalition for Louisiana Public Education.
One of ALEC's stated legislative priorities is to privatize public education, making education a profit center rather than a public good. That, Randels noted, "is dangerous to the American way and to the education of our children."
“The ALEC way turns parents into consumers shopping for schools rather than citizens building high quality public schools,” Randels said. “ALEC’s privatization, profit model wants parents to be consumers. But America needs parents to be citizens.”
“Education policy must be based on best practices and what is in the best interests of children not a profit driven corporation and a legislator meeting in secret,” Randels said.
The profit motive behind ALEC’s agenda for public education thwarts the ideals of public education and democracy, Randels said.
“In ALEC world, schools would become private entities funded by public money. As a taxpayer, I would have no voice in the way public schools are run. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to return to an era of taxation without representation.
“We should be working together to do away with separate and unequal schools, to ensure that taxation without representation does not return, to nurture citizens rather than create consumers, to work for the public good rather than for private profit,” Randels concluded.
The entire text of Randels’ statement is here.
Bonin said that school boards across Louisiana are being starved of funding because of policies espoused by ALEC.
Vouchers for private and religious schools, unfunded mandates and reductions in state spending all have the support of ALEC, Bonin said, even when those have a negative effect on schools.
“It is because of ALEC and their incredible influence that legislators do things that just aren’t backed up by data,” he said.
As an example, Bonin pointed to a recently enacted company school law, which allows companies to control charter schools.
“They can buy a school, control the board, have up to 50 percent of the enrolment to dole out as they wish,” Bonin said. “
Although unanimously opposed by school boards, Bonin said, the Louisiana legislature passed the law.
“Now we know that the legislature ignored 654 local elected officials because ALEC was telling them to allow corporations to buy schools, Bonin said”
Sponsors of the press conference said that the secret of ALEC’s power is its secrecy and the enormous wealth of its backers.
Lisa Graves, executive director for the Center for Media and Democracy, said the corporations behind ALEC have recently spent some $370 million on state legislative campaigns across the nation, and about$3 million in Louisiana alone.
ALEC then writes model legislation to further the organization’s goals. When those bills are introduced in state legislatures, however, they are not identified as coming from ALEC.
The Center for Media and Democracy has established a Web site called “ALEC Exposed,” which lists ways the organization influences state legislatures.
LFT Vice President Jim Randels; Orleans Parish School Board Member Brett Bonin.
The non-partisan organization Common Cause has also published an expose called “Legislating under the influence: Money, power and the American Legislative Exchange Council.”