Chris Christie's Hypocritical Stance on School Choice
On Monday, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey issued an executive order that delayed his much ballyhooed teacher evaluation program – AchieveNJ. I wrote about the impact of that action earlier this week here.Along with the executive order, Christie’s office issued a press release that I found to be a particularly entertaining exercise in putting a positive spin on a clear loss.
Here is the first line of that press release: “This Administration is committed to the educational success of every child, no matter the zip code, said Governor Christie.” The zip code line must be in the public relations manual that all education reformers are required to adhere to; we hear it so often. It makes me wonder if Christie should hire a Commissioner of Hypocrisy. Since he has been in office, Christie has worked diligently to be sure that New Jersey’s poor and near poor families cannot change their zip code.
Christie tried to abolish the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) which attempts to insure that there is housing for lower income citizens in all towns and municipalities in New Jersey. The New Jersey Supreme Court stopped him. Forced to write new rules for COAH, the Governor’s representatives on the Council responded with a woefully inadequate plan that David Fisher of the New Jersey Builders Association said was rife with, “ineffective regulations that frustrate the constitutional obligation to assist in providing desperately needed affordable housing.” And Stacy Berger of the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey said, “This council proposed rules that will result in many, many fewer homes for hard-working New Jerseyans who make our economy and our community hum.”
What these weak affordable housing regulations do is effectively bar economic Russ on Reading: Chris Christie's Hypocritical Stance on School Choice: