“A new report by ProgressNow focuses on how the ALEC education task force has used a state-by-state report card to fabricate failure in state public education systems in order to create a sales opportunity for their corporate membership.

Since 2008, those ALEC report cards have focused on education policy, giving higher grades to states that have opened up their public school system to privatization. States that have passed laws to support virtual schools and voucher schemes, for example, receive higher grades than those with high-performing schools but few or no market-based education policies.

In fact, the 25 states with the top performing schools are ranked lower than the 25 states with the lowest performing schools in ALEC’s most recent report card.

The National Educational Policy Center’s examination of the ALEC report card concluded:

Overall, ALEC’s Report Card is grounded less in research than in ideological tenets, as reflected in the high grades it assigns to states with unproven and even disproven market-based policies. The report’s purpose appears to be more about shifting control of education to private interests than in improving education.”

Read the entire article (which includes a link to the report by ProgressNow).