"The schools will be FINE..."

If the teachers would just give a little, everything will be OK. The kids will never know the difference. Will they learn any worse if a teacher takes a pay freeze for a year? Everything is going to be fine...

Christie would also waive certain state mandates for local schools. The administration is reviewing suggestions to relax class size limits in poor districts, loosen requirements for special education services, allow schools to share nurses, and eliminate the mandate for 2.5 hours per week of physical education in elementary school. 

Legislative leaders have declined to comment until they see the governor’s formal proposals.

Fortunately, I am under no such constraints. That class size nonsense will not be limited to "poor" districts. "Loosen requirements" for spec ed is a euphemism for cutting it. There are many other states that have dropped nurses (my personal experience is that a school's nurse is almost as important as the principal in making or breaking a school, particularly an elementary school).

And the PE requirement. Perhaps the governor missed the news that we have an epidemic of Type 2 diabetes among children these days. Perhaps he doesn't have a problem with NJ having the 36th leanest kids in the nation.

(It's so hard to restrain myself sometimes. Here's a great big grapefruit right down the middle, and I'm taking the pitch. Be the better man, be the better man...)

We're going to cut services to autistic kids, imperil children's health, and slash PE so we can give a tax gift to millionaires. Don't let anyone tell you it's not that simple.