This blog probably makes it pretty clear that I have a great interest in education reform. In fact, one of the reasons that I really like my day job is because it allows me to engage in education reform in a nontraditional way – by providing financing for the new school space needed for new schools. It’s fun and it’s part of the overall push towards making New Jersey’s schools places of learning instead of places where students waste away during the day.
And since this blog is mostly read by New Jerseyans, I’m sure that you’re probably getting sick and tired of the back and forth between Governor Chris Christie’s completely logical, financially-fundamentally sound budget proposal and the cries of “save the children!” coming from the people at the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA aka “the teachers’ union”). Well, since we’re all pretty much disgusting in this state, I thought I’d share something that I received in my inbox earlier today. It comes from a group out of Washington DC called the Center for Education Reform and I think it accurately summarizes why each day more and more New Jerseyans are getting sick of hearing from the NJEA.
UNION PLOY. To fight having to share in the state’s fiscal burden, the New Jersey teachers union (among others) is hiding behind what we in Washington call “The Washington Monument Ploy.” In days of old, when lawmakers would threaten budget cuts, those opposed would pull out the old “Well, now we’ll have to close down the Washington Monument.” That would create a fierce public outcry, causing legislators to go hiding behind increased spending. Same in New Jersey, where students were recently counseled at one high school that they’d no longer have arts or music or even literature because of “that” Governor. Nice lesson.
This is the type of crap that needs to be removed from our schools. Any publicly paid employee (in this case, educators and employees of school districts) who sees no problem in taking a strong political stance in front of their students and their young, impressionable minds should really not be in education, period. If that isn’t a bastardization of “civic engagement,” then I don’t know what is!
Enough is enough with bad teachers and self-righteous union bureaucrats. Everyone in this state is suffering and it’s high time that these public employees came and joined the party. In the next few days I hope to get some information up on the blog about the report that came out the other day about the Council on Affordable Housing. Among other issues, it cited how in the 1990’s in New Jersey, private sector jobs grew at a rate of 22 to 1 when compared to public sector jobs. During the 2000’s? Public sector jobs grew at a rate of 2 to 1 when compared to private sector jobs. That’s a horrifying, disgusting statistic.
And if you don’t know why that’s a horrifying statistic then you probably don’t have the economic or financial background necessary to make a decent argument in the NJEA/Christie battle anyway.
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