ALEC's education agenda is focused on privatizing America's public schools. Its bills undermine public education and teachers' unions and also divert taxpayer dollars from accountable public schools to unaccountable for-profit education corporations. ALEC masks its true agenda in "feel-good" language, such as shifting from terms like "vouchers," which are broadly unpopular and rooted in segregation, to "opportunity scholarships" or "tuition tax credits." ALEC bills expected to crop up in 2016 include:

• "Parental Choice Scholarship Program Act" creates a voucher system for ‘low- and middle-income families" for private, for-profit, or religious schools.
• Under ALEC's "Education Savings Account Act" money for public schools is put into an account for parents to use for private school tuition or for homeschooling. To try to short-circuit potential opposition from the state education officials, the bill authors recommend contracting "with a private nonprofit to administer the program."
• "Great Schools Tax Credit Program Act" implements a "tuition tax credit" program, which some have dubbed "neo-vouchers." Corporations get tax-credits for funding student "scholarships" to private and religious schools.
• "Next Generation Charter Schools Act" shields charters from accountability and by giving charter approval to unelected statewide authorizers.
• "Indiana Education Reform Package" creates a voucher program, using taxpayer funds to subsidize private for-profit and religious schools and limits teachers' rights to collective bargaining. One of its key components--the "Charter School Act"--automatically converts low-scoring public schools into charter schools.
• "Parent Trigger Act" would allow parents to seize control of a school and fire the teachers and principal, or privatize it entirely, for years to come.
• "Virtual Public Schools Act" recognizes online virtual education providers as public schools–and, incredibly, requires that virtual schools receive the same per-pupil funding as brick-and-mortar schools, virtually ensuring high profit margins for for-profit providers like ALEC funder and corporate board member K12 Inc.
• "Founding Philosophy and Principles Act" requires every high school student take a semester-long course with a "conservative" focus on "the limitations on government power to tax and spend and prompt payment of public debt," even though the U.S. Constitution expressly grants Congress the power to tax, spend, and incur debt.
• "Environmental Literacy Improvement Act" mandates that states "provide a range of perspectives presented in a balanced manner" on climate change, despite the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence that it is happening.

Wages and Benefits: Weakening Worker Rights and Hurting Movements
In 2016, ALEC will be pushing several new initiatives designed to undermine worker rights, limit reduce wages and benefits, weaken job standards, and break unions, both on the state level and by undermining the power of local governments.
Weakening Unions. Several states have introduced ALEC's anti-union "Right-to-Work Act" in recent years, and the ALEC model has become law in Michigan, Wisconsin, and West Virginia--bringing the total number of "right to work" states to 26. ALEC's "Public Employee Freedom Act" is its right-to-work bill for public sector workers. These laws have the aim of defunding unions by encouraging workers to free-ride on union representation by allowing them to opt out of paying union dues to cover the costs of representing employees on the job.

• ALEC's city and county offshoot, the American City County Exchange (ACCE), is also pushing a legally dubious local-level Right-to-Work Ordinance in states where they have not been able to pass a state bill. A federal court in Kentucky recently found the ACCE legislation illegal but its backers plan to appeal up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
• ALEC also has a number of other models drawn up to drain unions of funding and crush the voice of workers in the workplace. The "Public Employee Paycheck Protection Act" prevents unions from arranging for automatic payroll dues deduction. The "Prohibition on Paid Union Activity (Release Time) by Public Employees Act" complicates worker representation by outlawing paid release time, and Resolutions on "Binding Arbitration" and "Reporting Requirements for Public Sector Unions" are similarly disruptive.
  

Source: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/05/13099/alec's-2016-agenda-snapshot

For more on ALEC, go to http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/What_is_ALEC%3F

Your Union and District leadership discussed some possible changes to opening day activities for teachers. Thanks to the input from many teachers, as well as the actions of your Union leadership, the District plans to make some changes next year which will hopefully afford teachers more time in their classrooms at the start of the year.

Please don't hesitate to forward any future concerns or complaints on to your campus reps or the Union leadership! We're here to look out for you!