N.J. Gov. Christie revises bid for education grant; throws out compromise
Governor Christie threw out the school reform blueprint endorsed by the state’s biggest teachers union last week and filed a new bid Tuesday for a high-stakes federal grant known as “Race to the Top.”
AMANDA BROWN/THE STAR-LEDGER
Christie, seen at a Tuesday press conference, said his education commissioner had compromised too much in order to win the union’s blessing for a contest that could bring $400 million to the state.
Christie said his education commissioner had compromised too much in order to win the union’s blessing for a contest that could bring $400 million to the state. Christie said the new proposal reinstated key elements of earlier plans, such as merit pay for individual teachers, putting job performance over seniority when laying off staff, making it easier to fire poor teachers, and giving bonuses to successful faculty who relocate to failing schools.
The eleventh-hour change came as a shock to officials at the New Jersey Education Association, who said they learned on Tuesday afternoon – the contest deadline – that the governor had changed the application and taken off their signatures of support.
Union leaders and education commissioner Bret Schundler had spent weeks hammering out compromises on the plan, and on Thursday both parties expressed satisfaction that they had come up with a collaborative blueprint. Union buy-in wins points in the stiff competition.
NJEA President Barbara Keshishian reacted “with a mixture of deep disappointment, utter frustration and total outrage” to the news that the application had been rewritten, she said in a release. “The biggest losers in this entire fiasco are the state’s 1.4 million students.”
Christie told reporters Tuesday that he was not involved in the past weeks’ discussions between the union and commissioner Schundler, and that when he learned the details of the compromise on Friday, he told Schundler to spend
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