Governor Chris Christie and New Jersey's largest teachers' union fell out yet again yesterday after Christie refused to back a compromise plan for a new application for a very large federal grant.
Christie announced yesterday that he could not accept certain language that Education Commissioner Bret Schundler had agreed to, regarding systems for determining teacher pay and retention based on seniority.
At issue is Christie's desire to see teachers paid or retained based on merit, and the effective abolition of seniority. Also at issue was whether Schundler might have negotiated an agreement with the New Jersey Education Association without the governor's knowledge or authorization.
Bret Schundler
This is my administration, I'm responsible for it, and I make the decisions.
On Friday of last week, Schundler and NJEA President Barbara Keshishian announced their compromise language for an application for a $400 million federal grant under the Race to the Top program. In order to win the union's support, Schundler agreed to discard or severely weaken the administration's initial proposals for merit-pay systems and for disregarding seniority in any decision to retain, lay off, or fire a teacher.
But after the Memorial Day holiday, the governor's office submitted its own application to the program and retained none of the compromise language agreed to by Schundler. In subsequent statements, Christie said flatly that Schunder should never have agreed to these compromises, nor announced them publicly, without talking to the governor first. In a segment that ran on New Jersey Network's nightly news program, Christie made clear that one of his chief goals was to make the retention or the pay of teachers and other public employees contingent on the quality of the job performed and not on seniority.
Keshishian took the matter badly, accusing Christie of "bait and switch" and of deliberately trying to foment a conflict. However, whether the public has much sympathy for Keshishian or the NJEA is an open question. According to the Associated Press, a Fairleigh-Dickinson "Public Mind" poll now shows that a clear majority of New Jersey residents have an unfavorable opinion of the union. That poll also shows that the sample, and presumably the electorate, is divided between those families who derive most of their income from government jobs and those who do not.
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