Major funding for NJ Spotlight News provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, New Jersey Education Association, New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance Group, Orsted, PSEG Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and RWJ Barnabas Health.
This is an excerpt from the “About” page of NJ Spotlight, so props to the platform for publishing an analysis today by journalist Jeff Pillets called “NJEA’s Power Goes Beyond Money.” It does indeed and Pillets has the receipts.
And that’s without reference to Gov. Phil Murphy’s obeisance to union leaders. Upon inauguration into the Governor’s Office in 2018, Murphy scurried to check off every item on the union’s wish list, from eliminating PARCC testing, to demolishing the link between student outcomes and teacher evaluations, to declaring a moratorium on charter stance approvals (despite these schools’ popularity among low-income families of color), to hiring NJEA-compliant Education Commissioners, and lowering state standards to gift NJEA with boasting rights to false statements like “NJ has the best schools in America.”
Hey, he even hired an NJEA operative as his Deputy Chief of Staff.
And you get what you pay for, at least most of the time, and NJEA leaders know they will get what they pay for all of the time with Phil Murphy. Here are highlights from Pillets’ analysis describing the union’s power at the polls:
Back in 2018, Senate President Steve Sweeney joked , “[Phil Murphy] checks with the NJEA before making any decisions.”
It’s not clear that this is a joke.
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