Monday, December 3, 2012

Teacher crashes, rebukes secret ALEC meeting on education



Public school teacher Sabrina Stevens opened a can of whoop-ass told off corporate lobbyists and lawmakers meeting secretly on Friday to discuss bills to eradicate public education.

Turning public schools over to corporations is just one of the many ways ALEC (the corporate dating service for state lawmakers) tries to lower our standard of living. Other favorites include union busting, strengthening monopolies and weakening consumer protections.

Stevens, who goes by the twitter handle @TeacherSabrina, made up credentials for herself and infiltrated  the secret session. She hadn't intended to speak out so forcefully. But she was so disgusted by what she heard that she stood up and told them what they're doing isn't legal:
I have a huge problem with how this process works, and I can tell you that those of us who have to live with these policies are not going to sit by quietly as you push them on other communities, on other schools and other students.... 
At youtube, Stevens explains a little more about what happened:
On November 30, 2012, I had the rare and deeply disturbing experience of witnessing part of the American Legislative Exchange Council's Education Task Force meeting: a closed-door policy-shaping session open only to the state legislators who help to pass them, the corporate lobbyists who pay big money to shape and sponsor them-- and scrappy activists like me, who are no longer willing to cede our policy-making processes to unaccountable, undemocratic organizations who hide from the people their decisions ultimately affect. Here's me speaking from my heart as a teacher driven from the classroom into activism by destructive policies like theirs.
By the way, don't you just love the condescending way the moderator calls her "Miss?" It captures the way they view all working people, not just teachers.