School fiscal concerns haunt electoral landscape
By Alyson Klein and Sean Cavanagh/Education Week
Money for schools—how to spend it, or make do without it—has emerged as a major issue in federal and state elections this fall, with voters going to the polls Nov. 2 in contests that could bring new party majorities to Congress and to many state capitals. State governments have seen a major infusion of federal dollars in recent years, most notably through some $100 billion in education-related funding in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed in 2009 and in this year's Education Jobs Fund, which provided $10 billion to save school employees' positions. That flow of federal cash includes the Race to the Top competition, which awarded $4 billion in grants to 11 states and the District of Columbia and prompted many states to adopt laws and policies on charter schools, data systems, and teacher evaluation, among other areas. But such spending has also drawn opposition from conservative state candidates who describe it both as wasteful and as a federal encroachment into state and local authority over public education. (more…)