Thousands in Arizona opt to homeschool. By Eugene Scott - Sept. 13, 2011 12:00 AM The Arizona Republic For Stephanie Lovett, a Maricopa mother of four, there will be no back-to-school nights or parent-teacher conferences. She doesn't need to purchase extra tissue boxes for the class or navigate through student drop-off traffic. Lovett's kids are quietly back in homeschooling. In Arizona, an estimated 22,500 students are being homeschooled, including more than 9,300 in Maricopa County. The growth has been dramatic.
In 1989, there were 750 homeschooled children in metro Phoenix, according to the Maricopa County Education Service Agency. That number peaked at 10,775 in 2005. "A lot of families are second-generation homeschoolers," said Carol Shippy, board member of Arizona Families for Home Education, one of the state's largest homeschooling organizations. A major growth area in homeschooling is among high-school students - a group that typically leaves homeschooling for public and private schools. The rise of dominionism. One of the most striking differences between the United States and Britain is our attitude to religion. The UK is more secular than the US, with views about society, religion and the role of the state nearer to those found in other western European nations and Canada than in the US.
The gulf is deep as well as wide. For instance, 60 per cent of Americans believe that the poor are lazy, compared to 26 per cent of Europeans. Since the end of the Second World War, secularisation has grown in tandem with social modernisation in Europe - a development that some political scientists link to the rise in existential security which accompanied the maturation of welfare states (see Sacred and Secular by Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart). The free exercise of religion is given even higher priority than freedom of speech in the first words of the US Bill of Rights, designed in part to free the country from the clutches of the Church of England. Blind faith Politics of sin. Corporate Con Game. How the private prison industry helped shape Arizona’s anti-immigrant law. Members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) include Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), Geo Group and 36 Arizona state legislators.
For a detailed schematic of the connections between Arizona politicians and the private prison industry, see this story's sidebar, "Ties That Bind. " The war on undocumented immigrants initiated by Arizona State Sen. Russell Pearce (R-Mesa) is not the first time legislation sponsored by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has filled the nets and bank accounts of the private prison industry. In the early '90s, the ALEC's Criminal Justice Task Force was co-chaired by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the country's largest private prison company. The NRA campaign, dubbed "CrimeStrike," was seen by many as a reaction to the Clinton administration's efforts to pass gun control.
Beside my brothers and my sisters, I’ll proudly take a stand.
Outing Alec: Earth Day, conservatives have been known to complain, always brings out the weirdos. This year's celebration was no exception. "Absent from the debate [on global warming] is the discussion of human ingenuity and our ability to adapt to our environment; when the temperature increases, we turn on the air conditioner," ran one line of thinking that went out over the fax lines in late April. "More people die from cold temperatures than heat: '... global warming could actually save lives.'" Thus spake ALEC, a driven 29-year-old who is quite conservative and rather rich. With friends in high places, ALEC throws big parties, likes to get around, and is full of ideas. Special-interest groups have always known this and are already heavily invested in state politics. How does ALEC work? The organization's reach is impressive: More than one-third of state legislators are ALEC members, and about 100 hold senior leadership positions.
Alec didn't begin life as a corporate-interest group. UPDATED: American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) Releases FULL Donor and Membership Lists. Cross-posted to Blogging for Michigan where this investigation started. Dedicated to those that have joined together to take on exposing ALEC’s recent activities to the American public in this State-by-State fight racking up many sleepless nights… Thank You, and see you in Cincinnati April 28, 2011. NOTE: This analysis is written for individuals that already have an idea what ALEC is and what they having been doing in State Houses across the country and not meant to be a comprehensive description of ALEC operations and relationships. If you have never heard of ALEC, or only in passing, we would suggest these reports and articles on ALEC prior to current events in Wisconsin (below), Michigan and Ohio and other states. Or just Google “American Legislative Exchange Council”.
Recommended:REPORTS: CPA (2001) - Defenders (2002) - Ghostwriting the Law (2010) - NRDC (2002) SITES: ALECWatch.org - SourceWatch - Common Cause - Progressive States - RightWingWatch Ms. We are not trying to pick on Ms. Lisa Graves on Civil Liberties and the Military-Industrial-Media Complex. Lisa Graves Sheds Light on ALEC’s Fracking Agenda | Don't Frack With NY! Koch Brothers, ALEC and Their Corporate Allies Plan to Privatize Government. On February 25, 2011, Florida State Representative Chris Dorworth (R-Lake Mary) introduced HB 1021.
The bill sought to curtail the political power of unions by prohibiting public employers from deducting any amount from an employee’s pay for use by an employee organization (i.e., union dues) or for any political activity (i.e., the portion of union dues used for lobbying or for supporting candidates for office). Furthermore, HB 1021 stated that, should a union seek to use any portion of dues independently collected from members for political activity, the union must obtain annual written authorization from each member. In effect, this bill defunds public-sector unions—like AFSCME, SEIU, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association—by making the collection of member dues an onerous, costly task. But two weeks later Dorworth’s office delivered 87 pages of documents, mostly bill drafts and emails, detailing the evolution of what was to become HB 1021. ALEC Corporations. American Legislative Exchange Council.
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) describes itself as the largest “membership association of state legislators,” but over 98% of its revenue comes from sources other than legislative dues, primarily from corporations and corporate foundations.[1] After the 2010 congressional midterm elections, ALEC boasted that “among those who won their elections, three of the four former state legislators newly-elected to the U.S. Senate are ALEC Alumni and 27 of the 42 former state legislators newly-elected to the U.S. House are ALEC Alumni.” (A full list of the Congressional freshmen who are ALEC alums can be found here.) [2] ALEC’s agenda extends into almost all areas of law.
Key Resources on ALEC Sign from the 2011 Wisconsin protests Other Resources ALEC Funding An in-depth discussion of ALEC funding by corporations and corporate foundations and ALEC’s spending is available here ALEC History An in-depth discussion of ALEC history is forthcoming and will be linked to here. Founding. Inside the ALEC Dating Service. I really thought it would take more than five minutes in New Orleans before I realized the conservative movement had landed there. But it didn’t. As I was waiting for my bags at the airport, I heard a mid-thirties woman talking on the phone. “Yeah, I’m down in New Orleans for the American Legislative Exchange Council meeting.
We write legislation, and they pass our ideas. I could have taken the next flight home, as that pretty much summed up what I would experience over the next three days at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) annual convention. On ALEC’s website, the organization states its mission is “to advance the Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited government, federalism, and individual liberty, through a nonpartisan public-private partnership.” In reality, ALEC is a corporate-funded and -dominated group that operates much like a dating service, only between legislators and special interests.
Legislators can join for $100. Take, for example, education. Paul Weyrich. Paul Michael Weyrich (October 7, 1942 – December 18, 2008)[1][2][3][4] was an American religious conservative political activist and commentator, most notable as a figurehead of the New Right. He co-founded the conservative think tanks, the Heritage Foundation,[5] the Free Congress Foundation, and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). He coined the term "moral majority", the name of the political action group Moral Majority that he co-founded in 1979 with Jerry Falwell. He switched from the Roman Rite of the Roman Catholic Church to that of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church and was ordained protodeacon.
Early life and conservative activism[edit] Born in Racine, Wisconsin to Virginia M. In 1966,[5] he became press secretary[citation needed] to Republican U.S. Political activism (1973 - 2008)[edit] Over the next two decades, Weyrich founded, co-founded, or held prominent roles in a number of other notable conservative organizations. Rail transit activism[edit] Views[edit] Paul Weyrich - "I don't want everybody to vote" (Goo Goo) Hiding the sausage - News & Features - Orlando Weekly. When Jeff Wright walked into the lobby of the New Orleans Marriott on Aug. 3, he wasn’t sure what to expect. As the director of public policy advocacy for the Florida Education Association – a prominent teachers’ union that had been bearing the brunt of legislative attacks from Florida Republicans throughout the 2011 legislative session – he wasn’t there for your standard Mardi Gras-themed party.
The American Legislative Exchange Council, a national nonprofit organization made up of elected officials and private interests who gather regularly to try to directly influence the substance of public policy, was holding its annual four-day meeting there, so any “partying” would probably be a little more conservative, and – going by a recent glut of press coverage pointing out ALEC’s clearinghouse mentality of privately linking big corporations with the state legislators willing to pursue their bottom-line agendas in the form of “model legislation” – slightly more nefarious. ALEC Report -- Table of Conents. Private Contractors Are Double the Cost of Federal Workers. Corporate Front Group ALEC Pushing For Repeal Of Paid Sick Day Laws Nationwide. By Zaid Jilani on October 19, 2011 at 12:45 pm "Corporate Front Group ALEC Pushing For Repeal Of Paid Sick Day Laws Nationwide" Do you really want you or your colleagues to go to work sick?
Recently, a string of cities and states have passed new ordinances that would require paid sick days for employees at certain employers. Just last week, Philadelphia’s city council passed a second version of a paid sick leave bill after the mayor vetoed the earlier one. Earlier this year, Seattle approved paid sick days legislation, while Connecticut became the first state with a state-wide requirement. Now, the Center for Media and Democracy’s PR Watch has published an expose of how the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — a corporate front group that farms out legislation to almost a third of state legislators nationwide — is drafting legislation on behalf of its wealthy conglomerate funders to repeal these ordinances.
Getting Deep Inside ALEC. Within two hours of helping stage a loud protest outside a spring convention of conservative policymakers, Over-the-Rhine resident Aliya Rahman got a telephone call that has now triggered a media groundswell. “I have information about ALEC,” said a voice. Six weeks earlier, 29-year-old Rahman had been a Miami Univeristy Ph.D. student and labor organizer who wondered why an Ohio budget clause threatening to deregulate wages and class sizes at her school was coming so close upon the heels of a similar proposal in Virginia. Then a link on Facebook got her attention. A Wisconsin history professor had proposed that conservative bills arising simultaneously in multiple states, like those aimed at reducing workers’ bargaining rights, were rolling quietly out of a nonprofit group known as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). And ALEC was coming to Cincinnati. By the end of that afternoon, she was tired. “What kind of information do you have?”
This one left her trembling. State Rep. Publicopoly Exposed. How ALEC, the Koch brothers and their corporate allies plan to privatize government. ALEC openly advocates privatizing public education, transportation and the regulation of public health, consumer safety and environmental quality. On February 25, 2011, Florida State Representative Chris Dorworth (R-Lake Mary) introduced HB 1021. The bill sought to curtail the political power of unions by prohibiting public employers from deducting any amount from an employee’s pay for use by an employee organization (i.e., union dues) or for any political activity (i.e., the portion of union dues used for lobbying or for supporting candidates for office). Furthermore, HB 1021 stated that, should a union seek to use any portion of dues independently collected from members for political activity, the union must obtain annual written authorization from each member. Enter the Koch Brothers Nov. 2, 2010 saw a radical cohort of Republicans swept into office in states across the country.
‘Publicopoly’ in play.