At last week’s meeting of the State Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, Acting Commissioner Angelica Allen-McMillan responded to questions about the new sexual education learning standards and said opponents were “weaponizing of third party information.” She also told legislators that there were currently 108 vacancies at the Murphy Administration’s Department of Education, which took many people by surprise, including Politico’s Carly Sitrin, who tweeted,
Not to be a lil weasel or anything, but the Acting Commissioner of the state Department of Education testified on Fri that there are 108 vacancies at the DOE—that's huge! After her testimony, I asked for an accounting of those vacancies. I'm still waiting for a response.
— Carly Sitrin (@CarlySitrin) May 3, 2022
Education Law Center agrees and just retweeted the table below that shows dramatic drops in DOE capacity, saying, “NJ DOE in crisis, unable to perform most basic functions — lost 166 staff positions from 2014 to 2021”
