NJ Education Report

It’s like a new reality show: NJ’s strangest alliances. Yesterday NJ Spotlight profiled the partnership between Gov. Chris Christie and Democratic “power broker” George Norcross as they joined hands in Camden to promote the Opportunity Scholarship Act, which would provide state-funded vouchers for poor kids to attend private or parochial schools. And here’s a piece from today’s Wall Street Journal on another counter-intuitive dynamic: the NAACP (along with the New York City’s teachers’ union UFT) is suing New York City in an attempt to keep NYDOE officials from closing two dozen of its worst schools. From the Journal:

The truth is that the decision is not in the least mystifying. For those who understand that our big city public school systems have become jobs programs for teachers and administrators, the NAACP’s response makes perfect sense. That’s because there are many African-American teachers in these systems, many of whom presumably belong to the NAACP.

Yes, there are political and ideological affinities between the organizations. The NAACP has long been a key part of the same Democratic coalition of which the teachers unions are the most powerful component. Yes, on the 990 Forms filed by, say, the National Education Association you will find the occasional contribution to the NAACP. The NAACP, however, does not have to be bribed.

The reason is simple: The NAACP is doing in New York what the United Federation of Teachers is doing, and for the same reason: protecting the interests of its members.