On the road in Wall, Christie blasts teachers union for “defending a failed system”

By The Staff | The Save Jersey Blog

Governor Christie revisited his favorite format – the town hall meeting – in Wall on Tuesday, Save Jerseyans, and unsurprisingly, the teachers union attracted most of the Republican fair school funding advocate‘s fire:

“….I walked in today, and I got a bunch of people protesting outside. That’s how I knew I was home. And they’re from the Teacher’s Union, and they protest this. Why? Why? Now, I could tell you I could understand it if I was cutting funding to schools,” Christie explained to the crowd. “Well they would say, ‘We work at schools, that means there’ll be less money for schools, which means there’ll be less money for us and we’re against that.’ I completely understand that. They are defending a failed system. How can you defend a 66% graduation rate in Asbury Park at $33,000 (per student) a year. How do you defend it? It’s impossible to defend it. Forget about from a taxpayer perspective, we know we’re getting shafted here. How do you defend it for those kids and their families? How do you say that’s good enough?”

The NJEA never attempted to answer that question. “We know that investing in schools, particularly in economically challenged communities, makes a real difference in the lives of children,” NJEA President Wendell Steinhauer declared last Tuesday immediately following Christie’s announcement press conference in Hillsborough. “New Jersey’s nationally renowned early childhood education programs for poor children are just one example of the positive things that have come from the state’s investment in those communities. We should not turn back the clock on that progress.”

Christie’s formula would apply $6,500 to each K-12 student regardless of location.

“Every child in this state is our child. And for your own child, if they were in a school with a 66 percent graduation rate and you had any way of getting them out and getting them some place better you’d get them out,” Christie added. “We have a way to fix this and to lower your taxes at the same time. It’s not a bad deal. It’s going to mean breaking some china, it’s going to mean making some people uncomfortable. Well, I’d rather have people uncomfortable than have them failed. I’d rather have people uncomfortable than to waste the potential of children.”

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