ALEC Legislators up for re-election in Washington State

From the Color of Change:

Washington State ALEC legislators who are up for re-election.

U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings (R-4)

U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-3)

U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-5)

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Rep. Jan Angel (R-26)

Rep. Mike Armstrong (R-12)

Rep. Kevin Parker (R-6)

Rep. Charles R. Ross (R-14)

Rep. Joe Schmick (R-9)

Rep. Matt Shea (R-4)

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Sen. Randi Becker (R-2)

Sen. Don Benton (R-17)

Sen. Michael Carrell (R-28)

Sen. Brian Hatfield (D-19)

Sen. Mike D. Hewitt (R-16)

Sen. Linda Evans Parlette (R-12)

From ALEC Exposed:

Through ALEC, corporations, ideologues, and their politician allies voted to spend public tax dollars to subsidize private K-12 education and attack professional teachers and teachers’ unions by:

• Promoting voucher programs that drain public schools of resources by using taxpayer dollars to subsidize private school profits, and specifying that those schools must remain unregulated. Voucher programs have been pushed in the following ways:

• Offering private school vouchers with “universal eligibility” (using taxpayer dollars to subsidize private schools for the rich and others); “means-tested eligibility,” (using poverty as the first domino in an effort to privatize public schools); and “universal eligibility with means-tested scholarship.” (Here, “scholarship” means using taxpayer dollars to pay private school tuition and/or profits.)
• Giving tax credits to parents who send their kids to private schools, (see this bill, this bill, and this bill) and to corporations that donate to scholarships for private schools.
• Creating a scheme to deem public schools “educationally bankrupt” to rationalize giving taxpayer dollars to almost completely unregulated private schools (charter schools), rather than addressing any problems.
• Back-dooring privatization by creating voucher programs to subsidize unregulated, for-profit schools or religious schools for specific subsets of students, such as foster children, or children of military families.
• Evading requirements under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) by preying on parents of children with special needs through subsidies for unproven and profit-driven private schools, which are not covered by the IDEA. (See this bill, this bill, and this bill.) Nearly identical bills have been introduced in Wisconsin and other states.
• Taking charter school authorization away from local school boards in favor of a statewide advisory committee, that a governor can pack with pro-voucher people. (Example: Initiative 1240.)
• Promoting climate change denial in education (see also this bill)
• Certifying individuals with no education background as teachers, a move that would weaken the quality of education, that fails to recognize there is more to teaching than knowledge of a subject, and that would undermine the role and competitiveness of professional teachers (see also this bill). (Example: Teach for America)
• Eliminating tenure for teachers in favor of “performance”, allowing districts to fire older teachers in favor of lower-cost young teachers.
• Undermining teacher’s unions indirectly through the above bills, and directly through bills like this one, this one, and this one. See also the anti-union bills on the Worker Rights page.

My recommendation is to contact these legislators and ask them if they are still part of the ALEC organization. If they answer in the affirmative, don’t vote for them!

Dora