Valerie Strauss: Consistent Education Elitist

By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog

obama toast“New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is consistent — at least when it comes to espousing total  indifference to what Newark residents want for their state-operated public school system.”

That’s how The Washington Post‘s Valerie Strauss began her latest snarky education post, Save Jerseyans, published on Friday; for those who don’t follow WashPo, Strauss is an Obama liberal archetype who railed against Mitt Romney’s educational reform proposals in 2012 but, like the President, sends her own children to private school.

Remember: there’s always one set of rules for them and another for the unwashed masses for whom they attempt to control every consequential life decision…

Strauss’s Christie-centric screed criticizes the New Jersey Governor for continuing to support Newark Superintendent Cami Anderson. A past ‘Time 100″ notable, Anderson’s entrepreneurial, business-like approach to education isn’t popular with many folks in a city that might’ve had more murders in 2013 than high school graduates reading at the appropriate grade level. #YOLO.

But Strauss’s reflexive decision to defend the status quo isn’t a great surprise to anyone familiar with her body of work. What makes this instance so special? Well, she took great umbrage with Governor Christie’s comments at last week’s RGA/Aspen Institute event, recounting at one point how he told newly-minted Newark Mayor Ras Baraka that he’s “the decider,” and when it comes to choosing who overseas the school system in a city under state supervisions, “you [Baraka] have nothing to do with it.”

Oh, the horror! And Strauss was frothing with snark over Christie’s display of alleged insensitivity. In her not-so-humble opinion, “where does Chris Christie get off telling Newark’s parents how to run their kids’ school district?” Not her words; that’s me paraphrasing the snark so you don’t have to subject yourself to it directly.

You could cut the hypocrisy with a knife, Save Jerseyans!

Newark, New Jersey
Newark, New Jersey

To be fair, I can’t claim to know with 100% certainty where Ms. Strauss stands on the (Un)affordable Care Act, gun control legislation, or any of the million of other regular intrusions into local governance and personal liberty perpetrated by American politicians on a daily basis. I can make an educated assumption that she’s not all-too bothered by them.

For example, Strauss used her platform to question Common Core’s PARCC testing standards (which the teacher’s unions have also done) but accused conservatives of attacking the standards to “undermine” public education.

I’ve got a question for Ms. Strauss: why is Christie’s interest in taking a strong hand in Newark — where three-quarters of the over $1 billion annual education budget comes from the state, i.e., non-Newark taxpayers — evidence of an “inconsistency” on his part?

I’ve repeatedly made the point here at Save Jersey that conservatives don’t give a damn how consenting adults live their own lives or spend their OWN money. Want to ingest birth control pills ahead of your backyard orgy while burning a cross, using it to light a cigar, and chasing those pills down with brown liquor? Go wild. Knock yourself out.

The moment you want ME to subsidize these behaviors, however, I’m going to ask some tough questions. I may even want to attach some strings to how you spend my money (like they just did in Maine re: welfare). Again, I’d rather not be involved in your life at all, but remember: you’re the one who wanted my credit card number. In the case of Newark’s pathetic public school system, Chris Christie is simply fulfilling his fiduciary duty to the state’s actual taxpayers by demanding accountability (see above) from a system that we’re subsidizing; he’s also acting upon a moral obligation to the children of Newark, languishing in failure factories not of their own creation, and whom Valerie Strauss and Barack Obama don’t want in the same classroom as their own children.

Chris Christie’s an inconsistent jerk? Give me a break, lady! Look in the mirror… I’d even be more than happy to see my tax dollars finance a full-length one for you, lights and all, if it helps wake you up.

 

Matt Rooney
About Matt Rooney 8390 Articles
MATT ROONEY is SaveJersey.com's founder and editor-in-chief, a practicing New Jersey attorney, and the host of 'The Matt Rooney Show' on 1210 WPHT every Sunday evening from 7-10PM EST.