Dive Summary:
- Along with eight other Virginia-based organizations, liberal advocacy group ProgressVA Education Fund issued a study alleging the Arlington-based American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative advocacy group with a membership of legislators and corporations, has worked to pass laws that give public education funds to private companies.
- According to the report, “ALEC v. Kids: ALEC’s Assault On Public Education,” ALEC members in 2010 co-sponsored and lobbied for the passage of a virtual school law on behalf of online learning company and ALEC Education Task Force member K12, Inc.
- K12, Inc., later came under fire due to a loop hole that let the company receive more per pupil state funding than those students would have received attending local public schools, and other legislation passed by ALEC included business tax credits that helped private schools enroll needy students.
From the article:
... “Virginians need to know who is representing [them], and how cozy their lawmakers are with the for-profit education industrial complex,” said Anna Scholl, executive director of the ProgressVA Education Fund, based near Charlottesville, which authored the study with a network of eight other state-based organizations. ...
