It has not been a good week for the NJEA. Everyone’s least favorite interest group has been on a rampage lately to destroy its own reputation, and now national news is getting into the fray and helping their cause.
This week, President Obama announced that ten states would receive waivers from the “No Child Left Behind” law. As you recall, NCLB was a national education reform bill championed by President Bush and Senator Ted Kennedy about a decade ago that sought to hold schools accountable by applying national standardized tests, rewarding achievement and punishing failure. Because the funding restrictions for failing schools were crushing the education systems in some states, especially ones that are attempting to reform education and are in a transitional phase, these waivers were issued.
If you go to the NJEA’s website, they state boldly that they have some good news, that New Jersey schools are the best in the nation! Wow. You know that is great news, they are right.
Just one problem though.
If our schools are doing so well, then why is the federal government giving us a free pass on national standards?
Clearly the feds realize that something in New Jersey has to change before we can meet the minimum for all students in our state. Only ten waivers were given out, and it was clearly a selective process. Clearly the policies advocated by the NJEA are failures for so many poor New Jersey schools.
The events of the past week give some context to the NJEA’s position. It is clear that when the NJEA says that New Jersey has the best schools in the nation, they mean that in our wealthy districts, we have the best schools, and that is all that they care about.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKZoT8AJU6o&lisat=UU9pZB4tLJJTd1OGVBXMsF4g&index=1&feature=plcp
The achievement gap in New Jersey is alive and well, no matter how much money flows to the Abbott districts after all these years, the schools continue to fail, and the NJEA has offered nothing but a staunch defense of the status quo to solve the problem.
Assemblyman Rumana feels that the waiver also shows the federal government’s faith in Governor Chrisite’s plan for education reform and a desire to see it make the necessary changes before New Jersey should be held accountable to the law.
Governor Christie’s bold education reform plan has been endorsed by the U.S. Department of Education, which proves that New Jersey is on the right track toward education reform. Our priority is student achievement and this waiver will allow us to advance public policy that will make our schools more effective and accountable to students. I applaud the Governor’s dedication to education reform and commend his ability to win bipartisan approval from both state and federal leaders.
He’s right.
The deck seems stacked against the NJEA as we head into the budget season and the key negotiating period for education reform in Trenton. For the sake of New Jersey’s most vulnerable students, let’s hope so.
