The Time is Now

Yesterday I read a fairly bland Twitter post from NJ Governor Chris Christie:

GovChristie "Speaking to the Foundation for Excellence in Education tonight. Follow the link for excerpts from my remarks http://bit.ly/f8ef5F"

I responded:

ansonpope "@GovChristie Are you going to explain your failures in education? Cuts to pub, and inability to secure charter grants?"

To my surprise he, or someone within his organization responded to my Tweet:

GovChristie "@ansonpope Cuts necessitated by loss of $1b in Fed funds. Charter grant lost due 2 Corzine charter law failures. We sent fix to leg mos. ago"

Not to be outdone I fired back . . .

ansonpope "@GovChristie I have no love for charters so I care less about that, but now blame 800M cut on Feds? To date you blamed teachers, flip flop?"

ansonpope "@GovChristie sorry you blamed njea (so u say), but really blame teacher salaries, pick one lie and stick to it. You hate pub ed it's clear."

ansonpope "@GovChristie accept some fault, it humbles and makes one accept, all you do is deflect and point fingers when you are as much to blame."

By this point I must have gotten under his skin because I got two responses:

GovChristie "@ansonpope No, hole was created by $1b fed funding reduction. Fix for lost funds(salary freeze) was refused by NJEA, making cuts necessary."

GovChristie "@ansonpope Love good teachers & good public schools. Will not stand for greedy union. Story is and always has been the same b/c it is true."

This bothered me. To date Christie has claimed greedy teachers (or union--NJEA, he lumps the two together) are to blame. He claims that their high salaries, costly medical benefits, and pension payouts are digging the state into a hole. I had to then get in the last words:

ansonpope "@GovChristie define "good teacher" 1 whose kids get good scores or 1 who inspires genius regardless of scores?"

Didn't get a response after that. Maybe he was making his remarks, maybe he just realized I can be as bull-headed as he is.

Here's how I view this. Governor's race 2009. Governor Corzine gets the backing and support of the NJEA, the state's largest teacher union. They advertise for Corzine and against Christie, they pump money into Corzine's campaign (not that he needed it) and they make it a priority that their members will also support Corzine. NJEA claimed Christie had plans to cut education spending, attack the pension and health benefits. In response Christie unveiled his "Teachers for Christie" group (http://www.politickernj.com/chris-christie-governor/33614/teachers-christie-fighting-back-against-corzines-lies-chris-and-educat).

Note that the comments say specifically: "Chris will protect their pensions and pension fund dollars, will keep all current teacher health benefits intact, and commit to spend necessary funds on education."

Note this was written in 2009. Well here's where we are in 2010 . . . Education budget from the state cut by more than $800M, closer to $1B now. Pension levels adjusted and retirement ages and levels of retirement pension available changed. All teachers now pay 1.5% towards their health benefits and there is talk that should Christie get his "Tool Kit" passed to secure the 2% annual tax cap in place he may move to make teachers contribute 30% towards health benefits.

Read Christie's own "Letter to Teachers" (transcribed version available: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=311272548387&topic=15310). Everything the Governor claimed he would not do he has done. He claims it is because the Corzine administration, while wrapping up, hid vital information from him and so the cuts and everything had to happen.

How then, I ask you, is this man a hero of education? What gives him the right to present before an education group. Oh right, it's because they are a right wing group (http://www.excelined.org/).

My posts on Twitter got me the attention of pro-Christie zombies and anti-Christie supporters. My attitude remains unchanged--Christie has no solution, only the means to ruin our education system and the Democrats don't exactly have the plan to fix things either. Here are some solutions provided by the superintendent of Glen Rock (http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=311272548387&topic=15131). These ideas sound as though they have no hardline political agenda, they provide ways to help our children!