NJ Education Report

NJEA has just issued a press release that accuses Gov. Christie of “unilaterally remov(ing) the support of NJEA and hundreds of its local presidents” from NJ’s Race To The Top application. According to NJEA President Barbara Keshishian, top NJEA executives “met repeatedly and talked in detail with Commissioner Schundler and Deputy Commissioner Willa Spicer” to reach last week’s agreement. However,

“Instead of supporting the application agreed to by his Commissioner and staff, Gov. Christie has decided to submit his own application, and to unilaterally remove the support of NJEA and hundreds of its local presidents from it,” Keshishian said, adding that NJEA only learned about the governor’s decision after placing a call to Education Commissioner Bret Schundler to check the status of the state’s application.

She described her mood as “deep disappointment, utter frustration, and total outrage, adding,

Rather than put his support behind the agreement that his own Commissioner negotiated, Gov. Christie is insisting on an application that seeks to replace collaboration between teachers with competition for inadequate bonuses; an application that seeks to threaten teachers’ jobs rather than give them the confidence to take on new challenges.