Connecting the Dots

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Generally speaking, when policymakers ignore substantial amounts of research, there is an agenda that is influenced by something other than the people affected by those policies.  With the exception of climate science, there perhaps is no clearer example of this than with corporate school reform.  Research has been fairly consistent in regards to the devastating effects of high-stakes testing and other market-based reforms. Yet, every year research along with the affected parents, teachers, and children, is ignored in favor of privatization.

The U.S.Department of Education is offering millions of dollars via Race to the Top and School Improvement Grants to states and districts for every school they handover to a private sector charter or turnaround organization. States are also rewarded for using high-stakes test based “accountability”. This is despite research that has shown these privately run schools are no better than their traditional counterparts and that standardized tests are not an accurate measure of student, teacher, and school performance. These corporate reforms have also created numerous other problems relative to segregation, school safety, and corruption.

States and school districts that are looking to balance their budgets are now making decisions based on finances rather than what is best for the children. As if this perverse financial incentive to punish then privatize wasn’t enough, state legislatures are also getting an earful from powerful and influential groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). 

ALEC’s list of egregious policies is quite long and includes Florida’s Stand Your Ground Law that allows people to use lethal force against someone as long as they claim self defense.  However, it is their work in public education that really threatens to undermine democracy and the common good.

Various ALEC-related special interest groups are influencing education policy for a variety of reasons. Some like the Friedman Foundation, lobby on an ideological basis that the implementation of neo-liberal, free-market principles into the public education system is the only way to improve it. Most others like certain education service providers, testing companies, charter and turnaround school groups, and the private prison industry, are all working with ALEC to influence educational policy at various governmental levels for the sake of profit. 

In 2007, ALEC released, School Choice and State Constitutions, which is basically a playbook for getting around state constitutions when enacting certain corporate school reforms.  The word “choice, by the way, is nothing more than a marketing word for privatization.

In Tax Deductions for Tuition, ALEC recognizes that it is difficult to get public support when the data doesn't show gains. They suggest different ways of releasing data such as implementing a sliding scale based on the number of voucher students in a particular school.  ALEC even recommends states contract with private sector organizations to oversee academic “accountability”.

Tax Deductions for Tuition encourages corporations and individuals to donate to voucher or “scholarship” programs via tax credits.  In their proposal, they acknowledged, “many private schools would simply refuse to participate if forced to administer state tests.” This legislation would allow private schools to adhere to “norm-referenced” national tests, which is basically what they already do.

Normally, ALEC advocates for the use high-stakes testing, but not when it would be as harmful to a private school as it is to a public school. They have lobbied for several pieces of legislation that encourage the use of high-stakes testing and even introduced a Resolution Supporting the Principles of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Despite the research and public opposition, corporate reformers insist on using high-stakes testing for several reasons. First, it is a convenient way to mislead the public and policymakers about the quality of our schools and the need for corporate reforms. Second, there are millions of dollars being made by testing, test preparation companies, and other private sector edupreneurs. Third, it serves to narrow curriculum, so that it is completely void of creative and critical thinking subjects. Corporate interests have no use for artists and musicians and they certainly do not want people making informed and critical consumer and political choices. ALEC has even introduced the Founding Principles Act, which would create courses designed to teach students about the core principles of our founding fathers (or their version of it).

ALEC is also responsible for other pieces of legislation either proposed or enacted that promote privatization through vouchers and charter schools, threaten democracy, and tie the fate of traditional public schools as well as their teachers and students to a faulty high-stakes system of “accountability”.  They have even been pushing for legislation that replaces real schools with sub-par virtual schools. You can view a more complete list of anti-public education legislation ALEC has introduced in Common Dreams and Education Week. 

What is even more concerning is the indirect impact they have on public education. ALEC’s Prisons Industry Act better known as the Prison Industries Enhancement Certification Program (PIE) is legislation that allows for prisoners in privately run prisons to be used as sweated labor. They also lobby for zero-tolerance drug and immigration laws, which keep the prisons full of cheap laborers.

Not coincidentally, one of the results high-stakes testing that ALEC and other pro-corporate reformers have been advocating for is that schools are implementing zero-tolerance school policies (also known as the school-to-prison pipeline). They do this to get rid of students who might not test well or may have other issues. ALEC and other pro-corporate reform groups insist on using high-stakes testing and other corporate reforms and it is feeding the school-to-prison pipeline. Students are now being expelled and imprisoned for doing nothing more than what our last three Presidents have done. The American Civil Liberties Union has an excellent piece about what is driving the school-to-prison pipeline and the disproportionate effect it has on minority and special needs students.  With PIE and the school-to-prison pipeline that is being fueled by corporate reforms, it is not hard to make the argument this is being done on purpose in order to maintain a consistent supply of cheap labor for the very corporations that have ties with ALEC.

Unfortunately, ALEC is not acting alone. There are other well-funded groups like Stand for Children (the name is a misnomer since they actually stand for the corporate interests of adults at the expense of children) that are also lobbying state legislatures to enact research refuted corporate reforms. Stand for Children was behind the propaganda movie Waiting for Superman. In Illinois, they were responsible for the Performance Counts Act that essentially makes high-stakes testing even more high-stakes. This group has gone as far as posing as a parent/community group in different areas that host town hall meetings in order to spread the corporate propaganda.

 

Corporate interests know the battle for the future will be won or lost in our public education system, but so do a growing number of concerned citizens. There are several groups like Fair Test, Parents Across America, United Opt Out, DumpDuncan.org, and others that are arming disenfranchised parents, children, teachers, and community members across the country with research and effective grassroots strategies.

There is information on this site and on other websites that can help you get informed and involved with the growing resistance movement. The next post from Schools Inc.? will specifically cover opting out, which if successful, would remove the most powerful weapon corporate reformers have --- high-stakes testing.