Education Week - October 29, 2014 - 1

EDUCATION WEEK
AMERICAN EDUCATION'S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD * © 2014 Editorial Projects in Education * $4
By Lauren Camera
The two national teachers' unions, hoping
to affect education policy at the state
and local levels, are pouring more money
into those campaigns in the 2014 midterm
elections than ever before.
With the express mission
of unseating Republican
governors and flipping
control of conservative
state legislatures-legacies
of the GOP tide in
2010-the unions are taking a
page out of the playbook of some newer and
smaller education advocacy groups: Focus
on down-ballot candidates and work up to
the top ticket.
Spending on state races isn't new for the
Marc Gosselin, center, the principal of Anna L. Lingelbach Elementary School in Philadelphia, started the year with a discretionary budget of
$160. The district's board recently canceled its contract with the teachers' union to send more resources to schools.
Repeal of Phila. Teachers' Contract Ignites Furor
Cash-starved district's action seen as new threat to unions
By Benjamin Herold
Philadelphia
Three weeks after the School Reform Commission
that governs this labor-friendly city's public
schools activated its "nuclear option," the shock
waves are still being felt around the country.
Beset by an epic budget crunch, the SRC unilaterally
canceled its expired contract with the
Philadelphia Federation of Teachers earlier
this month and declared that the union's 11,500
members will begin paying a portion of their
health-insurance costs.
Observers across the political spectrum view
the action as the latest salvo in an ongoing national
battle over the collective bargaining rights
of public-sector workers. In recent years, teachers
and other public employees from Louisiana
to Wisconsin have found themselves on the defensive
as management has sought to roll back
benefits and job protections.
"There's a drumbeat across the country that
this is the way to deal with your public-sector
unions," said Linda Kaboolian, a public-policy
lecturer at Harvard University.
"The people who are advocating this kind of
aggressive stance sense that labor is on the run,"
she said, "and they sense that private taxpayers
can be roused by highlighting the difference between
their own insecurity and the benefits enteachers'
unions, which are still putting
millions of dollars into federal races, particularly
the slew of U.S. Senate contests
expected to decide control of that chamber.
But the National Education Association,
which plans to spend about $40 million
during this election cycle, is aiming
PAGE 18 >
joyed by public-sector workers with a collective
bargaining agreement paid with tax dollars."
But even against that backdrop, the SRC's actions
present a dramatic new threat to labor, experts
on such issues say. Never before in recent
memory has an appointed body, acting without
clear legislative authority, sought to rip up a contract
and impose new costs on public workers.
"I think it can set an important precedent,"
said Daniel R. DiSalvo, a senior fellow at the
Manhattan Institute, a right-leaning think tank
in New York City.
"If a big, 'blue' city like Philadelphia can be
pushed to do this, people are definitely going to
pay attention," he said.
City and district officials are adamant that the
PAGE 12 >
VOL. 34, NO. 10 * OCTOBER 29, 2014
edweek.org: BREAKING NEWS DAILY
Union Cash
Playing Big
In Key Races
AFT, NEA Pour Out Funds
At Record Levels in Midterm
EDUCATION ON THE
CAMPAIGN LANDSCAPE
Stay abreast of pivotal contests in the 2014
elections with analysis from Education Week
Pages 16-17
State Efforts Fuel
ACT, SAT Growth
By Caralee J. Adams
As Educators Respond to Ebola,
Threat to Schools Remains Low
By Evie Blad
Even as worries about Ebola have
prompted school closings and other
K-12 precautions in recent weeks,
medical experts are advising school
officials to take a measured approach
in response to the handful of
U.S. cases of the virus.
Districts in Solon, Ohio, and Belton,
Texas, closed several schools
after learning that students, parents,
or staff members were either on the
same flight or had flown on the same
plane as one of two Dallas nurses
who became sick with the virus this
month after treating the United
States' first Ebola patient. The nurse
had not yet shown symptoms or been
diagnosed with the virus.
And the Akron, Ohio, district
closed one elementary school after
learning that a student's parent
may have had contact with the
nurse while she was in the area.
But infectious-disease experts and
public-health officials say those closings,
and steps taken elsewhere by
education officials to approve emerPAGE
13 >
Nevada and Missouri next spring will
join a rapidly growing number of states
that are shelling out money for every
11th grader in public high school to take
the ACT or SAT college-entrance exams.
Nearly half of states-and individual
school districts in most others-have
contracted with the nation's two biggest
college-testing programs for some form
of wide-scale administration in high
school so that no student will have an
excuse for passing up the opportunity to
take one of the tests.
Custodians clean a school in Rowlett, Texas, this month. Parents of students
at the Dallas-area school were on the same flight as a nurse later diagnosed
with Ebola. Experts emphasize the virus can't be spread by casual contact.
But the growth in statewide collegeadmissions
testing also comes at a time
when the testing landscape in high
schools is uncertain and increasingly
crowded. Separate K-12 assessments
tied to the Common Core State StanPAGE
10 >
Jessica Kourkounis for Education Week
Nathan Hunsinger/The Dallas Morning News/AP
2014
ELECTION

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Education Week - October 29, 2014

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