N.J. Gov. Christie faults school administrators, teachers union for student walkout
In his first public comments since a massive student walk-out, Governor Christie Wednesday criticized administrators for not stopping protests during the school day and said he believed the teachers unions were behind the demonstrations.
"Most parents would think that the principals, the superintendents and others should be exercising control over that," he said. "The schools did a lousy job in really permitting all these students to walk out in the middle of the school day. Their parents send them there not to protest. They send them there to learn. And I have no problem with students protesting. They have absolutely every right to exercise their first amendment rights. But they should exercise their first amendment rights either before school or right after school."
Christie said the students' parents - and, perhaps, students who could vote - "spoke very loudly and very clearly" when they rejected 58 percent of school budgets last week. On Tuesday, thousands of students walked out of their classrooms to protest the nearly $820 million in cuts to total state spending on education.
The Republican governor questioned why students were blaming the state instead of asking teachers about refusals to take wage freezes and other give-backs he said would have saved jobs. Christie, who has declared victory in a fight with the state's largest teachers union over the handling of school budget cuts, made the comments to reporters today after he toured a factory in Paterson.
"I understand that they love their teachers, and I'm glad that they do," he said. "And I loved the teachers, for the most part, that I had when I was in junior high and high school in Livingston in the public schools. But the fact of the matter is that those teachers and their union have not stepped up to join the shared sacrifice. ... Their unwillingness to do that makes me wonder why the students are protesting only against what the governor is doing, and not against what their teachers are doing. I have a suspicion that since I don't give them grades and the teachers do, that might have something to do with it."
Before school board elections on April 20, Christie pushed teachers to accept a one-year wage freeze and fast-forward a requirement to pay 1.5 percent of their salaries toward health care before it was written into
N.J. teachers union files suit challenging health benefits contribution
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY APRIL 28, 2010, 8:30 PM
BY MATT FRIEDMAN AND CLAIRE HEININGER
STATE HOUSE BUREAU
STATE HOUSE BUREAU
The state’s largest teachers union opened up a new front in their fight with Governor Christie Wednesday, filing suit against a key pension reform law he championed.
TONY KURDZUK/THE STAR-LEDGER
NJEA President Barbara Keshishian met with Governor Christie earlier this month.
In the suit, filed in state Superior Court in Mercer County, the New Jersey Education Association claims the law violates teachers’ rights to negotiate their salaries and benefits at the local level by forcing them to contribute at least 1.5 percent of their salaries toward health benefits.
"This legislation was ill-conceived from the beginning, and was rushed through the Legislature to meet an artificial timeline imposed on lawmakers by the governor," said NJEA President Barbara Keshishian, whose union represents 200,000 teachers and other school employees.
Last week, the state’s largest police and firefighters unions challenged the same law, as well as two other pension reform bills signed into law last month, on similar grounds.
The package of pension reforms passed overwhelmingly by both houses of the legislature and is scheduled to take effect on May 21, or when current labor contracts expire. Lawmakers project it will save local governments up to $314 million in the next fiscal year.
The NJEA suit claims the new contributions will cause "significant financial hardship" on teachers and school employees "who have provided long-standing, honorable and essential service to the public school students in the state of New Jersey ... These public employees will be singled out and punished for that service, unlike their private sector counterparts."
Asked earlier Wednesday about the police and firefighters lawsuit, Christie said he was confident the laws are constitutional.
"I don’t think it will change reform going forward because, candidly, anybody can file a lawsuit," Christie
