| You have no respect for teachers or the teaching profession. You and your acolytes have tried to hide behind the notion that you love teachers; that it's the merely union that you can't stand. That's garbage: you've said teachers used students like drug mules*, said there was "greed and excess" in the schools, told children their teachers didn't care about them, and mocked the work ethic of those in the profession. No self-respecting teacher wants to work with you because you've made it quite clear you have no respect for us.
Your attacks on teachers and unions have gone far beyond the normal bounds of tough political rhetoric. You have attacked the NJEA's commitment to children in a way that is embarrassing to the entire state. Your hand-picked ACTING Eduction Commissioner as much as called the NJEA racists. You have distorted statistics and denigrated our students' achievements to make New Jersey's high-performing schools appear to be worse than they are. You applaud the work of sleaze peddlers like James O'Keefe, who attacked a teacher who literally risked her life to save children.
You have blamed the ills of this state almost exclusively on public workers and teachers in particular. You lied to teachers in your campaign about protecting their pensions. You refused to tax millionaires even as you slashed benefits for teachers while mischaracterizing those beenfits as "gold-plated," further fueling resentment against educators. You placed school budgets in jeopardy while foolishly calling for a freeze (it was really a cut) in teacher salaries - a freeze that would have done next to nothing to help the state's budget. You refused to acknowledge the long-standing fact that teachers are nowhere near overpaid.
You have consistently refused to work with teachers unions, to the point of actually jeopardizing your own stated policies. You lost a federal grant because you placed your personal vendetta with the NJEA above the state's educational and fiscal needs. You refuse to even acknowledge serious proposals for reform from the unions.
You do not listen to teachers and have excluded them from all important decisions. You appointed only one working teacher to a panel on teacher effectiveness. You have excluded teachers from secret charter school approval panels. Your DOE pushes teacher evaluation schemes that do not have adequate time for analysis.
You continue to push policies that show no evidence of achieving success. You overemphasize inaccurate and expensive standardized testing. You push merit pay, vouchers, charter schools, and tenure "reform" when there is no evidence any of those policies will help student achievement. And you push the policies in schools and districts that even you must acknowledge are doing a great job educating kids.
Governor, it has become painfully apparent to many that you are pushing an agenda, for whatever reason, that is simply not in the best interests of the children, the parents, the educators, or the taxpayers of this state. And, unfortunately for you, large numbers of these people - many of whom used to be part of your political base - have had enough.
You, sir, are a failure because you have neither the talent nor the temperament to run this state. It is obvious to many of us that you love the sound of your own voice more than you care to seriously solve the problems we face. It is obvious that you would rather bask in the self-manufactured glory of a stupid fight with teachers - teachers! - than actually get serious and make our schools better for our kids.
You should, indeed, regret your failures on education "reform," Governor, and you should blame no one for those failures but yourself. You are a terrible leader and it will take decades to undo the damage you have wrought in our schools and the teacher corps. In two years, we'll begin to clean up your mess; until then, we'll fight you every step of the way to keep you from making things wrose.
Every day, we are better organized, louder, and tougher. We're not going to be bullied or intimidated any more. We will continue to push back harder and harder until you're gone.
Count on it.
*Correcting - Christie said the students were drug mules, not the teachers. |
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