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The national certifying body for teachers in the United States, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), participated in the Education Task Force of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) until April 2012. In an official statement sent to the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) today, NBPTS spokesperson Brian Lewis said, "Given recent events, the new NBPTS President and CEO decided to discontinue engagement with ALEC. As a result, NBPTS terminated its membership as an Education Task Force Member of ALEC effective April 18, 2012, and also withdrew from participating in the upcoming ALEC conference. ... The decision to participate in ALEC had been made by previous NBPTS leadership."

Conservative columnist and Fox contributor Michelle Malkin was on Fox News with host Sean Hannity recently complaining about the "lynch mobs" going after Republican donors and organizations like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). According to Malkin, President Barack Obama is behind the grassroots efforts to push back on ALEC and on Rush Limbaugh for his offensive attacks on law student Sandra Fluke.

Hannity complained to Malkin that Democrats are, "elevating controversies like the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman case, Sandra Fluke case." Malkin lamented, "America has been collectively a slow learner when it comes to [President] Barack Obama." She added: "We were frustrated, you and I, trying to get the message out in 2008, and that is why we're trying overtime, redoubling our efforts to vet the president, not only his record over the last four years, but everything that led up to his grooming, the marinating in this leftist, progressive ideology."

This spring, in coordinated actions across the country, retirees who lost their pensions, families whose homes are underwater, students with impossible debt, the unemployed and underemployed, family farmers, immigrants, vets and more will be knocking on the doors of corporate boardrooms, holding CEOs of major American firms responsible for crashing the economy then turning their backs on their fellow Americans. With hundreds of shareholders on the inside and thousands of folks on the outside, the largest shareholder demonstrations in U.S. history are underway and spreading across the land.

Their goal is nothing short of transformational: to wrest control of our democracy back from the robber barons and CEOs that systematically block any effort to create an economy and a body politic that serves the needs of the vast majority of Americans and not the elite few.

With all the national media attention on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) over these past several weeks, few realize that a campaign to lift the veil on ALEC's operations and agenda began almost one year ago. This week marks the anniversary of the first public rallies in opposition to ALEC. This is the story of the power of ordinary extraordinary individuals to stand up, speak out and make an enormous difference in defense of democracy.