Thread by @ExposingALEC

Republicans Want Teachers to Leave Public Education laprogressive.com/education-refo… Republicans are literally running a political platform on weakening teachers, schools and education because they need the poorly educated to make up their voting base.

1/ DeSantis, conservatives score more Florida school board wins politi.co/3Eg5YXN Moms for Liberty endorsed 12 for Florida school board and donated to campaigns. The 1776 PAC, which opposes critical race theory in schools, endorsed 49 candidates throughout 21 counties.

2/ Parental rights have been a key battle cry for DeSantis who pushed Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, aka “Parental Rights in Education”.
Together with "School Choice" laws promoting charter schools, DeSantis is dictating what kids can learn, and where they can learn it.

"#ALEC’s proposed Free Speech in Higher Education Act debated by members this week would ban public universities from using bias reporting systems to prevent or punish “offensive” or “unwanted” speech by students, faculty, staff, or guests." exposedbycmd.org/2022/11/30/ale… #HigherEd

#ALEC’s FORUM Act "has passed in multiple states with the help of the hate group Alliance Defending Freedom, aims to address the manufactured free speech “crisis” being hyped by the Right, often by sending extremist provocateurs to speak at colleges and universities." #HigherEd

The real reason for the attack on libraries dailykos.com/stories/2022/1… This "has always been about keeping people uneducated and ignorant. Suppressing diverse ideas has always been the hallmark of conservatism, and free libraries stand in the way of their goal."

Here come the Kochs (and others) to ravage Arkansas public schools with vouchers arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/… "Do they have money? Is a pig’s butt pork?"
#KochNetwork #education #vouchers

42 States Ban or Challenge Critical Race Theory laprogressive.com/racism/42-stat… "they represent another instance in a long history of deflection, of those in power seeking to silence the voices and the histories of Black liberation in the face of White supremacist violence." #CRT 1/2

2/ "children are robbed of the opportunity to learn about how humans have hurt one another, how they have stood up for what is right, and how they have healed those wounds and created–or tried to create-communities where we learn to live with justice, equity, and compassion" #CRT

1/ Republican-led voucher expansion could steer $2.4 billion from Florida public schools tallahassee.com/story/news/pol… supporters see the legislation as “freedom for all, but it is really freedom for a small few that could result in the utter devastation of our public education system”

2/ Advocates included a large contingent of Americans for Prosperity activists and from Yes Every Kid, an education policy organization.

Both are parts of the #KochNetwork

3/ "Yes Every Kid was announced (back in 2019) in conjunction with a shared commitment between the Charles Koch Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation to donate $5 million each to 4.0 Schools" sourcewatch.org/index.php/Yes.…

4/ from 2019:

#KochNetwork Announces New Education Lobbying Group, Walton Funding Pact edweek.org/policy-politic… the Walton Family Foundation supports charter schools and private school choice programs.

1/ Dark Money And Education Parent Grass Roots Groups forbes.com/sites/petergre… Moms For Liberty, Parents Defending Education and National Parents Union are all hiding "behind a mask that hides the identity of the true actors" who are funded by conservative dark money...

2/ "Using women who can portray “regular moms” as the face of the advocacy, rather than Charles Koch or Morton Blackwell, is a deliberate choice meant to support the notion of a grass roots movement.
"It’s a deliberate choice, but not an honest one."

Higher Education Policy and Politics laprogressive.com/education-refo… A Pew Research Center survey found that some 59% of Republicans feel that colleges and universities have a negative effect on American society. #highereducation

Tennessee House speaker mulls rejecting US education money apnews.com/article/politi…
“Basically, we’ll be able to educate"
low-income students, English learners and students with disabilities
"how Tennessee sees fit”
🤦‍♂️

Revised Parents’ Bill of Rights passes Senate columbiamissourian.com/news/state_new… the bill’s wording would prevent teachers from teaching about past and present racial inequality by opening them up to complaints and lawsuits by parents

1/ #DeSantis: It's a 'joke' schools pulled Roberto Clemente book off shelves rawstory.com/desantis-it-s-… blamed "politics," then "teachers' unions," then claimed the story was "a joke", while never accepting the impact of the legislation he has supported, promoted, signed into law

2/ "#DeSantis, who is expected to announce a run for president, appeared wholly ignorant of what's going on in #Florida schools.

"More than 1 million books in Duval County schools in Florida are subject to review" due to the "Stop WOKE Act" and the “Don’t Say Gay” law he pushed

Ultra-conservative Americans for Prosperity group turns up the heat on anti-voucher Republicans arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/…
The #KochNetwork is outlining it's plan for promoting "grass roots" pressure on legislators to expand #SchoolVouchers

DeSantis and cronies want to DEFUND PUBLIC SCHOOLS in FL with legislation--HB 1/SB 202 dailykos.com/stories/2023/2… Florida can now easily ramp up to full education privatization.

1/ Ron DeSantis’s Educational Policies Come Straight from the Fascist Playbook laprogressive.com/progressive-is… "The word that comes to mind in this context is “Gleichshaltung”, the German term for “bringing into conformity” or “Nazification.” #Fascism #DeSantisIsAFascist #Education

2/ "The goal of the Nazi regime from Hitler’s assumption of power in 1933 to the passage of the Nuremburg Laws in 1935 was to bring all organs of state and civil society into conformity with the will of the Führer. Control of the press, regimentation of everyday life..."

3/ "...elimination of expressive freedoms, destruction of constitutional safeguards, control of trade unions, establishment of a dictatorial (one party) state and an end to the civil rights of minorities (especially Jews) were all key aspects of Gleichshaltung."

4/ #DeSantis' "attack on public and #highereducation is part of a broader politics of #whitenationalism and racial cleansing based on the eugenicist tenets of white #replacement theory."

5/ #DeSantis' "notion of citizenship is reserved for white Christian nationalists and is rooted firmly in the ideology of #WhiteSupremacy." #DeSantisDestroysFlorida

6/ #DeSantis' "proposed bill to ban gender studies, destroy tenure, and turn the governing of #highereducation over to his political hacks is a mirror image of what unfolded in #NaziGermany and other totalitarian states in the 1930s and 1970s."

7/ "Strongmen disappear people, and they also disappear areas of knowledge that encourage critical thinking or that conflict with their ideologies and social engineering goals..."
#DeSantisIsAFascist

8/ "...In strongman states, where speaking out can bring professional ruin or physical harm to you and your family, self-censorship can be a survival strategy."
#DeSantisIsADangerToTheUSA

9/ "Critical minded young people are a threat to #DeSantis’s political ambitions and view of the world, as are those public institutions in which critical teaching and learning can be nourished. These same tactics were once aimed at German youth in Hitler’s Germany."

10/ "#Education in [#DeSantis'] world view is code for indoctrination and the destruction of memory, dissent, #CriticalThinking, democratic values, and civic courage."

11/ "Any mode of #education that addresses crucial social issues and interrogates and learns from history is anathema to #DeSantis...he benefits from capitalist power relations, values, and market driven ideology that thrives on greed, bigotry, and the politics of exclusion."

12/ "#DeSantis has embraced a #whitesupremacist ideology and ideology of authoritarianism that gave us George Wallace...It goes to the heart of what it means to kill democracy as an ideal by preventing public institutions from producing informed and engaged citizens."

13/ "Welcome to the Nazification of American society."
#DeSantisIsADangerToTheUSA

1/ Ken Burns torches Ron #DeSantis' new 'Soviet system' education bill rawstory.com/ken-burns-ron-… DeSantis is "trying to essentially shut down open inquiry into American history,which he said was completely contrary to the Enlightenment-based ideals espoused by America's founders."

2/ "I can tell you that Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Payne and George Washington and John Adams and James Madison and Alexander Hamilton are rolling over if their graves if they think this person is carrying the mantle of what it is to be American" #DeSantisIsAFascist

3/ "Burns then elaborated that he believed #DeSantis was trying to dictate the teaching of a "neat, tidy, white picket fence, Morning-in-America kind of view of things" when the reality is that "this is a complicated world."