Cashing in on Kids: 139 ALEC Bills in 2013 Promote a Private, For-Profit Education Model

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Cashing in on Kids: 139 ALEC Bills in 2013 Promote a Private, For-Profit Education Model

Despite widespread public opposition to the education privatization agenda, at least 139 bills or state budget provisions reflecting American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) education bills have been introduced in 43 states and the District of Columbia in just the first six months of 2013, according to an analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy, publishers of ALECexposed.org. Thirty-one have become law.
ALEC Vouchers Transfer Taxpayer Money to Private and Religious Schools
News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch has called public education a "a $500 billion sector in the U.S. alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed."
But this "transformation" of public education -- from an institution that serves the public into one that serves private for-profit interests -- has been in progress for decades, thanks in large part to ALEC.
ALEC boasts on the "history" section of its website that it first started promoting "such 'radical' ideas as a [educational] voucher system" in 1983 -- the same year as the Reagan administration's "Nation At Risk" report -- taking up ideas first articulated decades earlier by ALEC supporter Milton Friedman.

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