The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is trying to get their corporate environmental agenda -- and only their agenda -- into your state's classrooms. The Environmental Literacy Improvement Act is built around establishing an Environmental Education Council that would approve "acceptable" environmental education materials. Such a council would be charged to "actively seek countervailing scientific and economic views on environmental issues." However, it would ban experts in environmental science from participation on the board, while mandating that 40 percent of the board be economists. In addition, it states that text materials must "not be designed to change student behavior, attitudes, or values" nor "include instruction in political action skills nor encourage political action activities." Education about the environment should be balanced -- but this bill attempts to unbalance it. The Environmental Literacy Improvement Act attempts to control, confine, and intimidate educators into toeing the corporate line on environmental issues. This legislation has already passed in Arizona and similar legislative efforts have emerged throughout the country. Such measures should be resisted -- we don’t need ALEC’s corporate sponsors telling our children how to think.

Ran 6/2/02, 9/2/02, 8/2/04