The Koch brothers have had a piece of the right-wing anti-public education franchise for some time, through their sponsorship of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The corporate-funded think tank has churned out all sorts of model legislation for right-wing state legislators aimed at undermining and defunding public education.
Now, through the Koch-created and funded Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the Koch brothers have taken their attacks on public education to a new level: attempting to reinstitute school segregation.
A brand new video from our friends at Brave New Foundation — a part of their "Koch Brothers Exposed" series — details the disturbing rise of racial resegregation in one award-winning North Carolina school district. The story goes like this: AFP supported a slate of right-wing school board candidates who ran on a platform that echoed those of 1960’s southern segregationists like George Wallace almost verbatim … they won, and now they are using their power to hurt the public school system by not only erasing the district’s commendable achievements of diversity, but hurting the quality of public education received by all the district’s students.
People For the American Way and PFAW’s African American Ministers in Action (AAMIA) program are both incredibly proud to cosponsor the release of this video, and we’re hopeful that we can help shine a light on this latest right-wing attack on public education, racial equality and civil rights.
Watch the video, and help spread the word by sharing this post.
After you watch the video, please call David Koch at his Manhattan office at 212-319-1100 and tell him to "stop funding school resegregation now."