NJ Education Report

On Saturday night Tom Gregor, who will win a seat on the Bethlehem Township Public School Board (he is running unopposed), showed up at a Halloween party in a shirt that said “Where is Nancy,” referencing the vicious attack on the husband of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that past week. Paul Pelosi, age 82, remains in the ICU after the attacker fractured his skull with a hammer.

(That’s Gregor’s wife next to him, who is dressed as a zombie.)

Gregor may be barred from this sort of moronic behavior when he is sworn in as a school board member and promises to abide by the State Code Of Ethics, which requires school board members to “refuse to surrender my independent judgment to special interest or partisan political groups.”

Then again, maybe not.

Today in Politico (paywalled), Carly Sitrin quotes Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, who says that while tempers are a little cooler than they were last year, New Jersey voters (and US voters in general) may still be driven by “opposition to Covid mandates, along with right-wing uproar over sex education curriculum.” This could be, says Rasmussen, the “secret sauce” that steers voters towards down-ballot races like school board contests.

School board races in NJ are technically non-partisan. In reality, they’re not, at least in large cities like Elizabeth, where the Democratic bosses determine who will fill seats on the City Council and the school board, and Newark, where the mayor has the upper hand. Of course, NJEA’s rich pockets control some untold number of school board elections, especially since leaders recently formed a new PAC designed to promote union-friendly candidates.

But Bethlehem Public Schools, a tiny (rich, all-white) Hunterdon County district with 325 kids grades K-8?

Yup. Just not in any traditional way. Instead, the growing lobby of “right wing agitators” promote myths like “schools teach Critical Race Theory” (they don’t) or teach kindergarteners how to masturbate (nope!) and form groups that have infiltrated even relatively blue New Jersey. Politico mentions a 501(c)4  called Moms for Liberty which supports banning books with LGBTQ content and has eight branches here, including one in my very blue county.

All told, these right-wing groups have endorsed 200 NJ school board candidates, or about 10% of all candidates.

Meanwhile, Tom Gregor claims he doesn’t know to whom his shirt refers to. He’ll need to brush up on his content knowledge, as well as his judgement.

Or maybe he’ll fit in just fine.