NJ Education Report

The Monmouth University Poll says that 1/3 of registered voters think that teachers are suffering unfairly under Gov. Christie’s proposed budget, but a new Rasmussen poll shows that 65% of New Jerseyans “favor a one-year pay freeze on the salaries of administrators, teachers and school workers to reduce the state’s level of local school aid.”

Bob Ingle of Gannett papers says that “Tuesday[‘s school budget elections] brings a showdown in the battle between Gov. Christie and the NJEA,” with the teachers union spending more than $1.8 million on anti-Christie advertising.

The Press of Atlantic City suggests NJ may be ready for county-wide school districts because “educating students is a societal responsibility” and we should “spread the tax burden more broadly than it is now.”

David P. Thompson at Associated Content compares Christie and Schundler to Laurel and Hardy.

Alfred Doblin, editorialist for The Record, comments on NJEA’s “Respond to Negative Editorials Week: “The BCEA can flood an editorial board with self-serving letters of support if it chooses, but it would do better to earn support from the public at large. A lesson from the recent Corzine campaign: You can’t buy love. If voters decide you are not right, for whatever reason, no amount of money can change that. And if you are spending millions of dollars to convince voters that your members have no money, you have a fundamental problem with logic.and its response to bad press.”

Assembly Majority Leader Joseph Cryan and Assembly Education Chairman Patrick J. Diegnan, Jr. slam Gov. Christie’s pension and benefits reform because it will “trigger the retirement of tens of thousands of highly qualified educators who would be forced to leave our classrooms to protect their retirement planning.”

The Asbury Park Press looks at local school districts’ fears about failing budgets on Tuesday.

The Courier Post has a 12-page article on local school budgets, and notes that “For the first time since school elections began here in 1903, Tuesday’s vote may be more exciting than the usual snooze.”

The State of Maryland has issued its draft proposal for the June submision of Race To The Top applications, and the Education Law Center complains that the NJ DOE is gambling with the support of stakeholders by releasing no information.