Sen. Kirk Dillard speaks at the “Defend Marriage Lobby Day” held in the rotunda of the state Capitol in Springfield, Ill., Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013.
Earlier today I posted about the IEA endorsement of State Senator Kirk Dillard in the Republican primary election for Illinois Governor.
In that post I pointed out that Dillard is State Chairman of ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC’s anti-labor policies make Bruce Rauner look like Walter Reuther.
Okay. Maybe that’s an exaggeration. But still.
A few moments ago I received this e-letter from Michelle Ringuette, AFT Assistant to Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers.
Fred,
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a corporate-funded lobbying group that brings corporations and state legislators together to vote behind closed doors on “model” legislation without any public input. It’s basically Match.com for corporations and the legislators they want to woo.
And while ALEC claims that its education mission is to “promote excellence in the nation’s educational system,” its “model” legislation advocates for policies that defund public services, distort the curriculum and undercut our educators.
How is ALEC trying to destroy public education, you ask? It advocates for policies that would:
- Increase the use of vouchers and tuition tax credits that sap money from public schools and send it to private and charter schools.
- Establish funding of public virtual schools at the same per-pupil rate as brick-and-mortar schools, despite lower operating costs for virtual schools, with the difference in payments going as profits to the companies that provide these services.
- Require the teaching of anti-scientific, pro-corporate information about climate change.
- Limit college professors’ ability to engage in open and honest discussion.
- Roll back the collective bargaining rights of teachers.
ALEC is not working to reclaim the promise of public education. It supports a series of policy options that would devastate public schools, hurt students and teachers, and move us further and further in the direction of school privatization. ALEC doesn’t love us—it loves padding the profit margins of its corporate members. This Valentine’s Day, urge your legislators to break up with ALEC.
In unity,
Michelle Ringuette
AFT Assistant to the PresidentP.S. Check out our ALEC vs. the World, on education policy post that Buzzfeed didn’t want to you see.
Ironically, the Illinois Federation of Teachers endorsed Dillard in 2012 when he was running for state senator.
Fred Klonsky 
Fill me in on Dan biss please
Sent from my iPhone
Dan Biss is the Democratic State Senator from Skokie. A member of the Gang of Ten pension committee that was established after the legislature failed to pass a pension theft bill in May. He is the leading spokesperson for pension theft in the legislature. See my exchange with him here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsE7LYthQ2Q
Yet another state employee died today. He was killed on the job in an accident as he was driving a snowplow. He was the second highway maintenance worker killed in two weeks. It is a dangerous job, statistically, a highway maintenance worker is much more likely to be killed then a police officer.
Recognizing this, the state pension code classified these workers the same as state police. This allowed the employee to put in a higher percentage of their pay into the pension system, and in exchange could retire earlier. Biss voted to take this away from them, risking your life everyday year after year means nothing to Dan Biss.
A quarter of a million dollars of union dues and the public endorsement for the election of the IL Chairman of ALEC.
I could puke.
Klickna et al, have you no shame?
-Ken
Not dues money, Ken. IPACE money. Which is a voluntary contribution by members. And which we can un-contribute.
The only difficulty with the un-contribute part is that you have to send in that request before a certain date, November of the school year sticks in my memory, and you first have to obtain a special refund form – IEA does not make it easy to have that IPACE contribution refunded. I’m speaking as to how things were when I last taught – retired in 2012.
YIKES!!!!!!!!!!