I will protect your pensions. Nothing about your pension is going to change when I am governor. - Chris Christie, "An Open Letter to the Teachers of NJ" October, 2009

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Meanwhile...

When Bret Shcundler goes on the dole, he'll have a lot of teachers unnecessarily joining him; from the NJEA:
With just a few days left before classes start this fall, Gov. Christie is inexplicably dragging his feet on completing a slam-dunk application for $268 million. The federal money, already approved by Congress, would put 3,900 laid off school employees back to work.
More than two weeks after publicly questioning whether he would apply for the money at all, he continues to stall. His indefensible delay threatens to leave 3,900 New Jersey school employees on the unemployment rolls rather than working in our schools in September.
Although many states have already signed and submitted their applications, Gov. Christie indicated last Monday that he still needs more time to prepare and submit New Jersey's application.
That is odd, considering that the entire application consists of a single question. (Emphasis mine)
Christie lack of action is disgusting, and I am very, very happy to see the NJEA strike this tone. They need to push this message relentlessly. It's Grover Norquist's famous "drown it in the bathtub" strategy in action; he's going to decimate public schools by denying them as much money as he can, even if that money is there for the taking.

If Christie does not at least pledge funding in specific amounts to school districts, they will not hire back any of the teachers they furloughed - many of whom have not found another job. The class lists and schedules will be locked in; even if your kid is in an overcrowded classroom, you don't want her moving to a new teacher in October. He's going to make next year miserable for parents, teachers, and - worst of all - kids so he can give himself the green light to "fix" what's wrong with our schools.

2 comments:

thinker said...

I've been reading here and there that perhaps the now infamous "clerical error" wasnt' really an accident, that maybe it was done on purpose by this administration. Initially, I thought "oooook, conspiracy theorists, sure...they let 400 million go on purpose, please pass the kool-aid". But seriously, with him dragging his feet on applying for this $$, which is designated to putting bodies back in classrooms with essentially no strings attached ....I mean, what else are we supposed to think?

Duke said...

There's no doubt in mind - it wasn't a clerical error at all. I do think he wanted to win, though, because it would show up the union: "We did it without you, NJEA, so now we're gonna give you the shaft!"

But not having the money clearly serves his purposes. And vacillating puts him in good stead with the national audience of Fox-watchin' teabaggers that see turning down federal money as a sign of virtue.

A guy with his ego is certainly thinking about moving up on the food chain.