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"During the 2010, 2011, and 2012 legislative sessions, a combination of federal policy incentives and newly elected governors and legislative majorities in many states following the 2010 elections sparked a wave of legislation addressing teacher effectiveness. More than 20 states passed legislation designed to address educator effectiveness by mandating annual evaluations based in part on student learning and linking evaluation results to key personnel decisions, including tenure, reductions in force, dismissal of underperforming teachers, and retention. In many cases states passed multiple laws, with later laws building on previous legislation, and also promulgated regulations to implement legislation. A few states acted through regulation only. In an effort to help policymakers, educators, and the public better understand how this flurry of legislative activity shifted the landscape on teacher effectiveness issues-both nationally and at the state level-Bellwether Education Partners analyzed recent teacher effectiveness legislation, regulation, and supporting policy documents from 21 states that took major legislative or regulatory action on teacher effectiveness in the past three years. This analysis builds on a previous analysis of teacher effectiveness legislation in five states that Bellwether published in 2011. Our expanded analysis includes nearly all states that took major legislative action on teacher effectiveness over the past three years."

ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve "model" bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. (ALEC says that corporations do not vote on the board.) They fund almost all of ALEC's operations. Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations-without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills. ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 of these bills introduced by legislative members every year, with one in every five of them enacted into law. ALEC describes itself as a "unique," "unparalleled" and "unmatched" organization. It might be right. It is as if a state legislature had been reconstituted, yet corporations had pushed the people out the door. Learn more at ALECexposed.org

This outburst of anti-public school, anti-teacher legislation is no accident. It is the work of a shadowy group called the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. Founded in 1973, ALEC is an organization of nearly 2,000 conservative state legislators. Its hallmark is promotion of privatization and corporate interests in every sphere, not only education, but healthcare, the environment, the economy, voting laws, public safety, etc. It drafts model legislation that conservative legislators take back to their states and introduce as their own "reform" ideas. ALEC is the guiding force behind state-level efforts to privatize public education and to turn teachers into at-will employees who may be fired for any reason. The ALEC agenda is today the "reform" agenda for education.

"I hope over the next several months to compile a series of posts where I look at what states have done to achieve their executive granted waivers from federal legislation. Yeah… let's be clear here, that all of this starts with an executive decision to ignore outright, undermine intentionally and explicitly, federal legislation. Yeah… that legislation may have some significant issues. It might just suck entirely. Nonetheless, this precedent is a scary one both in concept and in practice. Even when I don't like the legislation in question, I'm really uncomfortable having someone unilaterally over-ride or undermine it. It makes me all the more uncomfortable when that unilateral disregard for existing law is being used in a coercive manner - using access to federal funding to coerce states to adopt reform strategies that the current administration happens to prefer. The precedent at the federal level that legislation perceived as inconvenient can and should simply be ignored seems to encourage state departments of education to ignore statutory and constitutional provisions within their states that might be perceived similarly as inconvenient. Setting all of those really important civics issues aside - WHICH WE CERTAINLY SHOULD NOT BE DOING - the policies being adopted under this illegal (technical term - since it's in direct contradiction to a statute, with full recognition that this statute exists) coercive framework are toxic, racially disparate and yet another example of misplaced blame."

Perhaps most importantly, one of the best ways to improve public education would be to work to alleviate those factors beyond teachers' control that affect students' ability to learn. They are some of the same factors that lead to Louisiana's dismal Kids COUNT rating-unemployment, poverty, violence, crime rates, family instability, childhood hunger, access to health care. No, no, and no, according to the politicians. What do teachers know about education, anyway? Public-school teachers, according to most of the Senate members who testified, are obviously part of the problem, not the solution, so it's better to follow noneducators' recommendations when improving schools. The philosophies behind the legislation passed last week echo the pro-charter, pro-private philosophies of distinctly non-local figures as diverse as the anti-union former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor Michelle Rhee (who now finds her former district embroiled in a cheating scandal), the deep-pocket GOP puppetmasters the Koch Brothers and, most significantly, the American Legislative Exchange Council. (ALEC, a conservative think tank that prizes small government and free markets, hosts large meetings at which it gives politicians dummy legislation that they can personalize and file in their home states; its influence is clear in some of Louisiana's education bills.) Similar legislation has been proposed in other states across the country, particularly in legislatures that, like Louisiana's, are overwhelmingly Republican, and teachers and others with an interest in public education would do well to pay attention to what's going on here.

Anna Scholl, ProgressVA, joins Thom Hartmann in exposing ALEC - the American Legislative Exchange Council. In case you dont know what ALEC is - it's a far-rightwing organization that brings together corporate CEOs and lobbyists with elected lawmakers to come up with custom-made legislation that benefits anti-public school  "reformers", big polluters, job outsourcers, and banksters, and hurts unions, poor people, and voters. And apparently it's found a friend in the Virginia General Assembly, where since 2007, over 50 different pieces of legislation have been introduced that are exact carbon copies of ALEC written legislation.

In 2010, California enacted education legislation known as the "parent trigger." The legislation empowers parents of children at schools that have failed to meet annual yearly progress for at least four years to change the administration, convert the school to a charter, or shut it down completely if they gather signatures from at least 51% of parents at the school. Similar legislation exists in Mississippi and Connecticut, but has failed to become law in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, and Maryland. Parents at McKinley Elementary in Compton Unified - a school that only met yearly progress once in the last eight years -were the first in the nation to "pull the trigger" and remain the sole group to do so to date. As a result of their action, the State of California required the district to hire a "direct assistance intervention team," and later, an attempt by parents to convert the school to a charter was rebuffed by the school district on technical grounds. A case is currently pending in Los Angeles Superior Court. Many school reformers believe that this law puts the interests of children ahead of teachers and helps to save children in failing schools before the clock runs out. Many education professionals, among them the president of the California Federation of Teachers, view the law as a "lynch mob provision," intended to dismantle the public school system. The politics of the "parent trigger" are confusing, with the lines between conservatives and liberals often blurred. This debate will examine the arguments in favor and in opposition to this reform, focusing on the experience to date in California and developments in other parts of the country where similar legislation is being considered.

In the 2010 midterm election, Republicans won complete legislative control of twenty-one states and the American Legislative Exchange Council was right there with model legislation to help them push through a radical right-wing agenda. Funded by billionaires like the Koch brothers, ALEC has provided the template for more than 800 bills aimed at undermining environmental protection, privatizing education, busting unions and curbing government regulation.

Now, in the midst of the latest controversy, it has become clear that ALEC has also played a major role in writing the so-called "parent trigger" laws designed to allow charter management organizations to engage in hostile takeovers of public schools. Interestingly, the web page on the ALEC site which contained the model "parent trigger" law has been taken down, out of the fear, one would presume, that increased public attention on ALEC and its role in promoting reactionary, anti-public education legislation could become a tad bit embarrassing. But the good folks at ALEC Exposed, a virtual clearinghouse on all matters ALEC sponsored by the Center for Media and Democracy, have a library of all the draft ALEC education legislation, and there one finds the missing ALEC model "parent trigger" legislation.

Today, hundreds of state legislators from across the nation will head out to an "island" resort on the coast of Florida to a unique "education academy" sponsored by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). There will be no students or teachers. Instead, legislators, representatives from right-wing think tanks and for-profit education corporations will meet behind closed doors to channel their inner Milton Friedman and promote the radical transformation of the American education system into a private, for-profit enterprise.

"The Wall Street Journal this morning failed to report ties between the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and controversial "parent-trigger" legislation that would allow parents to take over and convert public schools to charter schools. They also failed to report that the Journal's parent company, News Corp, is a member of ALEC. The Journal's treatment of the legislation also cited no criticism of the proposal, which has been described as an effort "to manipulate parents into letting [the charter school lobby] privatize more public schools."

An epic battle is shaping up that will determine the course of education in this country for years to come, and Pennsylvania is one of the fronts on which this battle is being waged. After rejecting voucher legislation in last year's legislative session, the Pennsylvania Senate at the urging of Gov. Tom Corbett, passed by a 27-22 vote a landmark school bill reflecting much of the governor's education agenda of taxpayer-funded vouchers, expansion of charter schools and a corresponding expansion of a school tax credit program.

"The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a powerful non-profit organization whose membership is comprised of corporations and conservative politicians. This isn't merely a lobbying group, as corporate members craft legislation introduced at the state level that promotes free-market and conservative ideals - all behind closed doors."

"This brief reviews the history and current status of Parent Trigger legislation, presents a critique of the legislation, and suggests alternative ways to meet the stated goals of a Parent Trigger."

Connecticut's SB 24 appears to be little more than boilerplate reformy legislation which, like similar legislation in other states, creates a massive smokescreen concealing the very real problems facing Connecticut school districts. I addressed in a previous post my concern that SB24′s emphasis on charter expansion as a solution for high poverty districts is misguided, mainly because most of those successful charter schools in CT are currently achieving their successes at least in part by NOT serving high poverty populations. And another part may be the additional resources of these schools, used for such things as increased school time, supported by increased teacher salaries.  But SB24 comes with few resources attached. The other major elements of SB24 involve teacher "effectiveness" with significant emphasis on use of student performance measures for teacher evaluation. For numerous posts on this topic, see: http://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/category/race-to-the-top/value-added-teacher-evaluation/ A few points are in order before I move on.

On the one hand you've got billionaire philanthropists like Bill Gates, pouring money into reshaping public education into whatever model they think best-and because they're billionaires, they must know best about everything, right? On the other hand you've got the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), spreading toxic, corporate-authored model legislation around the states to push for anti-immigrant laws, voter disenfranchisement laws, anti-sick leave laws and more. Except, wait. This isn't an on the one hand, on the other hand situation-they're the same hand, spreading the influence of the very wealthy not just in what politicians get elected, but what laws get passed. And Bill Gates' foundation is honoring that shared goal with a $376,635 grant to ALEC

Michigan sometimes gets short shrift in school reform news, what with all of the publicity given this year to Wisconsin - where some Democratic legislators left the state to avoid a vote on Gov. Scott Walker's efforts to restrict collective bargaining rights of teachers - and to Ohio, where Gov. John Kasich just saw voters repeal his effort to curb collective bargaining for public sector workers. But it shouldn't. Michigan's legislature this year has been considered a host of Republican-sponsored bills that public school advocates see as attacks on schools and teachers.

Members of the New York State Assembly and Senate, parents and education advocates called for state legislation on Tuesday to give local school advisory panels the power to veto school co-locations in their districts. The proposed legislation would ensure that no school could be co-located with another, reconfigured or moved to a different site unless the community education council for the area approves it.

For a short while yesterday - more than I would have liked to - I followed the circus of testimony and tweets about proposed education reform legislation in Connecticut. The reform legislation - SB 24 - includes the usual reformy elements of teacher tenure reform, ending seniority preferences, expanding and promoting charter schooling, etc. etc. etc. And the reformy circus had twitpics of of eager undergrads (SFER) & charter school students (as young as Kindergarten?) shipped in and carrying signs saying CHARTER=PUBLIC (despite a body of case law to the contrary, and repeated arguments, some lost in state courts [oh], by charter operators that they need not comply with open records/meetings laws or disclose employee contracts), and tweeting reformy platitudes and links to stuff they called research supporting the reformy platform (Much of it tweeted as "fact checking" by the ever-so-credible ConnCAN). Ignored in all of this theatre-of-the-absurd was any actual substantive, knowledgeable conversation about the state of public education in Connecticut, the nature of the CT achievement gap and the more likely causes of it, and other problems/failures of Connecticut education policy.

It's crunch time on school vouchers for disabled kids in Wisconsin. Last summer, I wrote about how Republicans and school choice groups are targeting kids in special ed. A particularly noxious piece of "school reform" legislation, drafted by ALEC (The American Legislative Exchange Council) and pushed by Republicans in statehouses around the country, would get unsophisticated parents to swap their kids' federally protected right to a free, appropriate public education for school vouchers of highly dubious value to the kids.