Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
According to Education Week analysis, governors who pushed for education overhaul — such as Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and Florida’s Rick Scott — have seen their approval rates drop.
Education Week is published by Editorial Projects in Education, a nonprofit that also publishes other print and online products on K-12 education. The outlet reports:
A number of newly elected Republican governors in political battleground states who have pushed sweeping, controversial changes in education policy into law have seen their approval ratings slide since taking office.
Those governors’ standing could affect not only their political futures, but also who wins the 2012 presidential election, if Democrat Barack Obama chooses to run against the agendas put forward by state leaders and contrast them with his own.
Education Week cites data from several polls that show Gov. Scott Walker (Wisconsin) and Gov. John Kasich (Ohio), who backed the passage of laws that greatly reduced teachers’ and other workers’ collective bargaining powers face low approval ratings. It also cites a Quinnipiac University poll that indicates that in late May, 57 percent of voters disapproved of Scott’s record.
The publication adds that “some teachers and union members have been critical of Obama’s education policies, complaining they reflect a willingness to scapegoat teachers for schools’ shortcomings,” but:
The policies of Walker, Kasich, and Scott appear to have galvanized teachers’ unions. And the Obama administration may have helped its standing with organized labor by coming out against Wisconsin’s collective bargaining law and policies like it, and urging public officials to forge deals cooperatively with unions.
Education Week indicates that, “in some cases it’s hard to tell the degree to which the GOP officials’ political struggles can be tied to education policy,” and between now and November 2012, governors “will have a lot more time to sell their budgetary policies and collective bargaining curbs to the public.”
Although elected Republicans in Iowa came into the 2011 General Assembly with plans to either end or replace the state’s voluntary and universal preschool program, provide zero allowable growth for K-12 school districts and cut education budgets across the spectrum, the plans have been largely held at bay by the Democratically-controlled Iowa Senate.
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