Wow.  As much as I know about American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)…I am still stunned with the depth, the length of time (since 1960ish), and the goals detrimental to the democracy of the United States.  Just wow.  Not so stunning is the tie to Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater.  You might recall that Hillary Clinton was a Goldwater Girl.  And she is in with Eli Broad, one of the masterminds behind destroying public education.

So.. the latest on Scott Walker is his once again trying to circumvent the democratic process and keep the Department of Public Instruction out of the loop…for education.  It’s really incredible how they are funneling money away from public education towards for-profit schools by telling folks they were going to help the poor and mentally challenged…when that wasn’t the case at all.  Meanwhile, they are siphoning the money away from those who would do something about it.  This is why we should always question when politicians or corporations tell us “it’s good for you” or “it’s good for the community”…a common theme with the vaccines, if you recall.

Near the bottom of the report, is a link to Milton Friedman’s speech on CSPAN.  I should not have been stunned at Milton Friedman’s involvement in this plot to destroy public schools, but yet I was.  You might recall Friedman is the economist from Chicago who is responsible for promoting the economic idea of cheap plastic crap that uses up resources and fills our landfills while paying those that make the cheap plastic crap less-than-livable wages….so that corporations can pay the CEO’s 400% of what workers receive in wages.

At the first twenty minutes –Friedman makes the wild claim that if there were no taxes, parents then could use that money to pay for quality education.  What utter nonsense!  The whole reason we have public education is to pool our resources together so ALL of our children can have good educations.  This system has been in place for decades…why would it suddenly start “failing”?  Why did this come about at the same time ALEC was formed– where the schools were deliberately dumbed down?

I can recall that my older brothers and sisters had Civics class, where students were taught about our government, and laws and how to petition the government for grievances.  When I got to high school, civics class was replaced with just a class on government.  And being in 1978, the tone had changed because of the turbulent 60s.  Thanks to the violent actions of a few, protesters were seen as troublemakers.

I also recall getting my hands on a textbook written in the 1960s — it was well written and the author was clear about the subject.  I was impressed at the amount of information I gleaned from reading it.  Fast forward to a 2001 textbook on Literature I found at a used goods store…it is the most boring, poorly written/edited book I have laid eyes on to date.  It took snippets of literature and tried to cram two books into one.  I would be at a loss if I were a student today trying to read this book and gain a greater understanding of books or of culture or relationships.  It’s garbage.  And the publisher is…wait for it…Pearson Education.

Further in the video, Friedman begins blaming the “failure” of public schools on the teachers’ unions.  He makes the false correlation between the “failure” of public education beginning at the time the teachers national association became unionized…instead of the dumbing down of the students.  When a student is given a boring textbook, they are not going to be as engaged.  When they are given a textbook lacking in substance, they are obviously not going to learn as much.

Friedman then goes on to say that students have a choice in the college they attend and “that makes all the difference because there is competition.”  What utter bull.  A student without means cannot choose an expensive college to attend.  A student whose career may be satisfying to them may not pay enough to justify the amount of student loans incurred.

And the parental choice thing — he plays on parents’ emotions by making the claim they have no choice.  Well, yes, they do have some choice — they can move to a better school district.  The parents that can’t are the ones that Friedman and the ALEC crowd don’t want anyway — the parents who are poor or have a developmentally challenged child.   The ALEC crowd want paying customers, er, I mean, children of parents who will pay any amount of $$ to get their child into a good school.

In case you haven’t seen it, here’s a great video explaining the advent of cheap plastic crap:

And here is a video on the un-capitalism going on now with the 1%: