Managers of these amoral “legal entities” hide behind corporate veils which protect them from most liability. When a corporation is driven by profit and greed, its management targets our elected representatives using subversive outfits like ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) and a system of financial coercion and rewards. They hand state legislators the changes in the laws they desire and coerce our elected representatives to introduce legislation that guarantees corporate profits. These corporate manipulators and masters often write the bills that their puppet state representatives introduce. Where education is concerned, they force the creation of outfits like the Connections Academy, a large online education corporation and co-chair of the Education Task Force, which benefits from measures to privatize public education and promote private on-line schools, for profit, not for kids.

Why should every educator know about ALEC? Because public education is at risk from those who want access to our education tax dollars. What can you do? Demand that Obama and Arne Duncan (USDOE) put a stop to this destruction of public education, for profit. Make certain they break all ties with ALEC and Corporate agents that control our political system. Demand that the Press in your area inform the public about ALEC, ALEC owned legislators, and their subversion of the democratic process. Google ALEC and read the pages of documented corporate manipulation of our elected representatives. Expose the rotten politicians in your state. Vote them out of office. Fight for public education and stop the privatization of our schools, the defamation of teachers, and the creation of schools that are not schools at all.

 

Chapter 9 in my new book, Vital Lies: The Irrelevance of our Schools in the Information Age, provides a case study which exposes how these subversive organizations have manipulated Arizona’s elected representatives and the damage they have done to education in Arizona.