The Freedom Foundation of Minnesota was featured in the Heartland Institute’s article on the second round of Race to the Top funding. FFM CEO Annette Meeks commented on the role of the teacher’s union and how they have deterred past reforms:
Annette Meeks, chief executive officer of the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota, notes Republican reformers have been seeking alternative certification for 15 years, and now many Democrats support the idea as well. But the state’s teachers union, Education Minnesota, has successfully defeated all attempts at the reform.
“They have ironclad resistance to any type of reform legislation,” Meeks said. “The union was the only one to testify against the [alternative certification] proposal when it had a hearing.”
A major problem, said Meeks, is the union’s influence over the state legislature. The union spent $1.4 million in lobbying in 2009, second only to the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce.
The full article can be found here.
The Heartland Institute is a free market think-tank located in Chicago, Illinois. They are a 501(c)3 nonprofit research and education group focused on free-market solutions to social and economic problems, including parental choice in education, choice and personal responsibility in health care, market-based approaches to environmental protection, privatization of public services, and deregulation in areas where property rights and markets do a better job than government bureaucracies, according to their website.
