As Christie battles teachers, rhetoric is obscuring reality

By Carl Golden

Even the most ardent supporters of Gov. Christie must have winced a bit on learning he told a group of Trenton schoolchildren that their greedy teachers were to blame for a shortage of classroom materials.

Christie has taken every opportunity to portray the New Jersey Education Association as causing the state's high property taxes, being interested only in salary increases and enhanced fringe benefits, and protecting incompetent teachers from dismissal.

Christie's proposals to abolish tenure for teachers and institute merit pay - ideas the NJEA has fiercely opposed - are certainly legitimate subjects for debate. Both sides have made their case, and it's up to the Legislature to choose between them.

But in telling impressionable youngsters that their teachers raked in money meant for textbooks or classroom technology, the governor may have overreached. And in doing so, he may have given his critics a chance to point out that he seems to get a visceral thrill out of pummeling the NJEA.

Whether or not one agrees with Christie's assessment, the animosity between the governor and the union has overshadowed the dedication and sense of obligation many in the teaching profession feel toward the youngsters in their care. In the district where I live, for instance, the superintendent recruits a small group of children each August and, with funds donated by civic and parent groups, goes shopping for new backpacks, pencils, erasers, markers, crayons, notebooks, folders, and other supplies for students whose families cannot afford them. Then he spends a day on the weekend personally distributing the supplies, along with a good-luck pep talk.

There are no press releases, speeches, or photo ops. Nor does the administrator's job description say he must spend a day hiking through a big-box store filling shopping carts with thousands of dollars' worth of school supplies, or a weekend making certain they get into the right hands. He just does it because he believes no child should begin a school year brokenhearted or ashamed or feeling less worthy than his or her peers. To adults, this is perhaps no big deal; to a child starting a new school year, it's everything.

This superintendent is typical of an overwhelming number of teachers and administrators, whose dedication and devotion stand in sharp and welcome contrast to the governor's suggestion that greedy teachers are denying their students a quality education.

That the NJEA has behaved less than civilly in many cases over the years is undeniable. Its leadership has often been aggressive, demanding, and unyielding in advancing its agenda. It's accustomed to getting what it wants, often with thinly veiled threats of political retribution against those who would deny its demands.

Christie made it clear from the outset that he would have none of it. He asked that teachers accept a wage freeze to help close budget gaps and, when his suggestion was largely ignored, he called on voters to reject school budgets, which they did in unprecedented numbers.

The dispute escalated steadily until the air was filled with bitter allegations, include Christie's charge that teachers were using students as "drug mules" to carry NJEA propaganda home from school. His thumb-in-the-eye strategy reached new heights when the state's acting education commissioner refused to speak at the union's annual convention - the first such snub in history - and chastised the group for blocking education reform.

The chasm that has opened between the Christie administration and the NJEA may never be fully bridged, but the invective hurled back and forth virtually guarantees that both sides will remain armed to the teeth, pushing any possibility of common ground even farther away.

Perhaps the governor's comments to the Trenton students were misconstrued or came out harsher than he intended. Maybe such controversies could be put aside in the broader interest of a children-first education-reform agenda. And, hey, if it wouldn't draw too much attention, maybe the governor could even join my local superintendent on next summer's school supplies shopping trip.