Education Week - November 13, 2013 - 19

K-12 budget, Mr. Christie continues
to have a combative relationship with
educator unions, as illustrated by a
highly publicized encounter with a
public school teacher during a Nov.
2 campaign stop. In the confrontation,
the teacher, Melissa Tomlinson,
challenged Gov. Christie as to why he
viewed the state's public schools as
"failure factories," and according to
some reports the governor shot back,
"I'm tired of you people."
Tensions With Unions
The New Jersey Education Associa-
based Center for Education Reform,
which supports school choice and
charters as well as test-based accountability
for schools and teachers.
She said Mr. McAuliffe's campaign
rhetoric means he will likely not be
interested in other major changes,
such as overhauling the state's charter
school law.
In New Jersey, Gov. Christie got approximately
60 percent of the votes in
coasting to a second term, bolstering
what are broadly seen to be his presidential
ambitions. Although he increased
education spending this year
after previously cutting the state's
tion, which has nearly 200,000 members,
said after Gov. Christie's victory
that he "needs to work cooperatively"
with a "pro-public-education legislature"
as well as the union's members.
Although Gov. Christie worked
with legislators to alter teachertenure
rules, his push for measures
to expand school choice has been rejected
by lawmakers.
If he runs for president, Gov. Christie
might frame his fight with teachers'
unions as an opposition to "special
interests" that are holding back
the nation's public schools, said Patrick
McGuinn, an associate professor
of political science at Drew University
in Madison, N.J. (Mr. McGuinn
added that among voters who lived
in a household with a union member,
Gov. Christie gained 46 percent of the
vote, which he said emphasized the
governor's broad popularity.)
In the governor's second term, Mr.
McGuinn said he fully expects him to
move to eliminate the practice of laying
off teachers by reverse seniority,
a move that teachers' unions would
vigorously oppose.
"If anything, it might get more contentious
here," Mr. McGuinn said.
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doing it well-can be expensive, he
said.
Over the past few years, "public
funding has been stagnant. And in
some ways, relative to inflation, it's
been reduced," he said.
Despite an uncertain federal budget
and continued economic anxieties-or
perhaps because of them-
the importance of early child care
and early education continues to
crop up in the national dialogue.
"For many years, we've not had
a system of early child care and
education in this country," said
Elizabeth Burk Bryant, the executive
director of Rhode Island Kids
Count, a state branch of the Casey
Foundation's project to track child
well-being. "The report tells us that
having real alignment of the work
we're doing with young children
across these different domains is
critical to the outcomes we need."
President Barack Obama has
stressed the importance of earlychildhood
education, reflected in
his federal Early Learning Initiative,
proposed earlier this year. His
10-year, $75 billion universal pre-K
plan would require new spending
and rely on doubling the federal
tobacco tax.
Whether the president's initiative
will ever be fully realized, though, is
another question entirely.
"The way the legislature handles
the budget, I don't suspect we're
expecting to see anything come
about soon," said Mr. Snow.
In an effort to continue to promote
early learning, in spite of the congressional
gridlock, the administration
is funneling hundreds of millions
of dollars in discretionary aid
to states, through Race to the Top
Early Learning Challenge awards
and Affordable Care Act money, to
help states carry out their plans for
pre-K and early childcare.
At the state level, support for
early child care is varied, with a
high of 78 percent of low-income
children not attending preschool
in Nevada, to a low of 45 percent in
New Jersey, the federal data show.
"Every state has different starting
points and different infrastructures
to build on," said Ms. Speer.
A recent report from the National
Institute for Early Education Research,
which tracks state policies
for providing public money for pre-K
programs, says states continue to be
vocal supporters of public early-learning
programs, but aren't necessarily
providing the funding to follow.
"So we see fluctuations in fund-
ing, mostly driven by economic factors,"
said Mr. Snow.
Scan this tag with your
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EDUCATION WEEK | November 13, 2013 | www.edweek.org | 19
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Education Week - November 13, 2013

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