Drexel University is working to encourage voter registration for the upcoming presidential election despite Pennsylvania's controversial voter identification law, which could potentially discourage students from registering in the state of Pennsylvania, Inside Higher Education reported. The law requires all Pennsylvania voters to have valid state identification, which causes problems for students because Drexel's student identification cards fail to display expiration dates. The voter identification law's constitutionality is currently being challenged in court. Many other universities throughout Pennsylvania and the United States are facing similar voter registration issues, as the past few years have seen an increase in similar voter identification laws in several states. The increase in voter identification laws has spurred many colleges like Drexel to assist students in registering to vote this fall, according to Inside Higher Ed.
After the Chicago teachers' strike ended earlier this month, political alignment between teachers' unions and the Democratic Party has begun to shift, according to The New York Times. Although teacher union donations still favor Democrats, states such as Ohio, Georgia and Illinois have seen a rise in political contributions to Republican state senators and conservative members of state education associations. This year, a total of $1.23 million has been donated from teachers' unions to Republican state politicians. The National Education Association said that while it is not involved in state endorsement decisions, it has been backing several Republican national candidates. Cornell University professor Richard Hurd told The Times that this shift is a response to teacher unions' dissatisfaction with recent Democratic initiatives like charter school expansion and teacher evaluations based on student test scores.
An anonymous group of professors created MLAjobleaks.com, a website that offers instant, free access to any of the Modern Language Association's job listings, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported. Previously, the MLA compiled a list of employment opportunities for those with a master's degree in English or foreign language, but since the organization only releases its job listings to members of the Association of Departments of English and the Departments of Foreign Languages, the anonymous professors founded the website to allow universal access. Many professors said that the MLA makes the process needlessly complicated to generate further revenue streams in a period of economic difficultly for scholarly associations. However, MLA representatives said that the website is misleading because degree holders can see the job listings after signing into the MLA website and applying for "Affiliate Membership," according to The Chronicle.
