listview.xml

<ListView id="login_table_view" class="table">
	<Templates>
		<ItemTemplate name="email_template">
			<TextField id="email" hintText="Email" onFocus="handleFocus" onBlur="handleBlur" onReturn="focusPassword" onChange="checkTextField" />
		</ItemTemplate>
		<ItemTemplate name="password_template">
			<TextField id="password" hintText="Password" passwordMask="true" onFocus="handleFocus" onBlur="handleBlur" onReturn="attemptLogin" onChange="checkTextField" />
		</ItemTemplate>
	</Templates>
	<ListSection>
                <ListItem id="email_row" class="table_row" template="email_template" />
                <ListItem id="password_row" class="table_row" template="password_template" />
	</ListSection>
</ListView>

That's because $ refers to the listview.js controller and since the template is repeated for every item in the list, it cannot refer to it.

Just take a look at the generated code in the Resources folder and see if there is a way to get to it.