UNIONS AT WORK: The two bigwigs of U.S. teachers' unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, along with Student Achievement Partners (SAP), have been awarded a three-year, $11 million grant by the Helmsley Charitable Trust to "jointly design tools and digital applications" to support the adoption of the Common Core State Standards. It's worth noting that SAP was founded by three contributing authors to the Common Core. EdWeek reports that the two unions will start piloting tools in their classrooms starting next year, with polished ones to be available on all three grantee's websites.