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PDFFrom The Institute for Southern Studies:
ALEC, or the American Legislative Exchange Council, gets 98 percent of its funding from top corporations like British Petroleum, State Farm Insurance, Walmart, and, of course, Koch Industries, one of the nation’s largest private companies with vast holdings that include a relatively close chlorine-dioxide facility in New Augusta, Miss.
ALEC develops “model” legislation for the mostly Republican legislators who are wined and dined at its indoctrination camps, the most recent of which was a “K-12 Education Reform Academy” at the Ritz-Carlton in Amelia Island Feb. 3-4. The press, teachers and students were excluded from the highly secret meeting. However, the agenda at all ALEC meetings is clear.
Like the billionaire Koch brothers who’ve been its most prominent benefactors, ALEC wants taxpayer dollars (yes, they like taxpayer dollars) steered from public schools toward charter schools, school vouchers, and other measures that ultimately lead to privatization. An ideal ALEC school would preach the glories of unregulated capitalism and the evils of government and particularly labor unions.
ALEC’s tentacles reach far. An estimated 43 percent of Ohio legislators are members. Anti-union measures in Ohio and Wisconsin have ALEC’s fingerprints all over them. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who recently signed a “right-to-work” measure into law, wrote the foreword to ALEC’s “Report Card on American Education,” a manifesto that places union-busting over test scores in its school evaluations.
Georgia, Louisiana, Florida, and Oklahoma are among the states that have passed specially crafted ALEC legislation on education issues.
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Schools and prisons are current top priorities for ALEC and the Koch brothers. However, their long-term goals are more encompassing. David Koch once ran for president under the Libertarian ticket, calling for an end to Social Security, the minimum wage, gun control, and the personal and corporate income tax. They despise government regulation as much as they do labor unions. Koch Industries in the 1990s had to pay a $30 million fine because of multiple oil spills.
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