This is an older piece but it helps connect the dots for those of you wondering how 2 seemingly unrelated policy pieces, corporate tax credit scholarships and the elimination of due process for teachers, ended up in the Gannon equity finance bill.
“Today, 17 states offer 33 programs that allow parents to use taxpayer money to send their children to private schools. This includes traditional vouchers as well as tax-credit scholarship programs that give individuals or corporations tax reductions if they donate to scholarship funds. My home state of Arizona adopted this tactic.
Vouchers are only one side of ALEC’s education agenda. If they can’t get public funds for private schools, they try to privatize the public schools.
This is already happening in more ways and in more places than you might think. For-profit companies are managing many charter schools, including online schools where students rarely see a teacher. Although a new study raises serious concerns about virtual schools, they can deliver profits for investors.
So the core of ALEC’s education agenda is about vouchers and privatization. Of course, since educators have unions that resist vouchers and privatization, they will do anything in their power to weaken our unions and silence our voices. That’s why ALEC backs anti-union measures like the attack on workers’ right to collective bargaining. They want to strip away our ability to negotiate not only for salary and health care for our families, but also for things that affect our students, like smaller class sizes.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-van-roekel/exposing-alecs-agenda-to-_b_3223651.html