NJ Education Report

Update: Score one up for Politico, one down for North Jersey Media. Today Carly Sitrin reports that Murphy will renominate Acting Education Commissioner Angelica Allen-McMillan in hopes that Sen. Kristin Corrado will not invoke senatorial courtesy, explalined below.

Governor Phil Murphy’s Acting Education Commissioner Angelica Allen-McMillan has yet to be confirmed by the State Senate; thus the “Acting” modifier at the beginning of her title.

Why?

When first appointed by Murphy in October 2020 after her predecessor Lamont Repollet became president of Kean University,  Allen-McMillan lived in Montclair, which is represented by Democratic senators. But, apparently without informing the Governor’s Office, she moved to Cedar Grove, which is represented by Republican Sen. Kristin Corrado. According to the unwritten rule of “senatorial courtesy,” all senators who live in a nominee’s home town have to sign off on an appointment or it remains in legislative purgatory. Corrado won’t sign off on Allen-McMillan. That’s a little messy but not a hindrance to executing one’s appointed responsibilities; for instance, Chris Cerf, Chris Christie’s appointee, was an “Acting” Commissioner for eighteen months because Senator Ron Rice invoked senatorial courtesy. (Cerf was eventually confirmed.)

Yet it appears that Allen-McMillan’s tenure will end because her nomination to the position expires at the end of this legislative session on January 10th. According to North Jersey, sources indicate that she is “unlikely to be confirmed.”

Who will Murphy appoint in her stead? Who wants that job as the NJ DOE confronts –or fails to confront–what Senator Teresa Ruiz calls an “education system in crisis,” with schools closing willy-nilly, teachers and district leaders demoralized, parents furious, and student learning tanking, all while Murphy chants, “no remote instruction”?

Send your resumes to the DOE.