The Star-Ledger and NJEA

The unthinkable has happened!  Hell has frozen over!  The million to one shot came in!

The Star-Ledger has acknowledged it erred in endorsing I.M. Notabully in the gubernatorial election last year.  In a lengthy editorial, the S-L’s Tom Moran did an extensive mea culpa walking back the endorsement.  The funny part of this is that all of the negative things about Notabully the Star-Ledger enumerated last week were just as true last fall, when the endorsement was made.  So there was no real change in the facts about Notabully, except for the Bridgegate scandal — admittedly a big deal which probably would have tipped the scales to a no-endorsement last fall.

But the real shame of the whole affair is the S-L’s treatment of Barbara Buono.  A top legislator for almost two decades, Ms. Buono was treated as a raw rookie by the S-L.  But in the endorsement and even in the apology, the real reason for the Ledger’s disdain for the Democrat became obvious — the Star-Ledger’s long-standing, pathological, almost obsessive hatred of the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), the school employee association and lobbying group.  The S-L also routinely calls NJEA a union, a practice I will follow here, even though NJEA bargains with no one — its local affiliates do.  NJEA’s endorsement of Ms. Buono and her embrace of that support was a fatal flaw, according to solons Moran & Co.

I worked for NJEA from 1977 to 2005.  As long as I can remember, the Ledger missed no opportunioty to excoriate NJEA for virtually any action NJEA took.  The worst offense the S-L accused NJEA of was its alleged protection of bad teachers, and Moran mentioned it again as a reason for not backing Buono.  Let’s take a look at how NJEA represents its members and why.

It’s worth noting that NJEA was found in 1853, more than 160 years ago.  It was founded by a group of educators to advance the idea of universal public education and to advance the teaching profession.  Those aims are still part of NJEA’s mission.

In 1968, NJEA members won the right to bargain collectively with their employers.  The law was passed by a Republican legislature over the veto of Democratic Gov. Richard Hughes.

A 1974 law gave NJEA the right to represent members in employer/employee disputes and clarified other portions of public sector labor law.

So, by law, NJEA is REQUIRED to represent its members in such matters.  But does NJEA really protect incompetent teachers?  Having worked there for almost three decades, I can attest to the fact that NJEA representatives often told bad teachers to leave the profession.  They had received bad evaluations, which were fairly and well-documented, and had no leg to stand on to continue in their jobs.  I also know that many teachers admitted they were not doing well and left the profession voluntarily.

Were there cases in which the teacher’s competence was borderline?  Yes, and those were the ones that drew the Ledger’s attention. They were the cases that made it through a long hearing process and onto the commissioner of education’s desk.  The small number of such cases was used by the Ledger as “proof” that the tenure law was tilted toward teachers and against children, when in fact it was proof that only the most contentious cases made it so far.

While we’re on the subject of tenure, let’s recall that the tenure statute was passed in New Jersey in the first decade of the 20th century, about 100 years ago — well before NJEA became a “union.”  Lawmakers then, and I hope now, realized that teacher turnover would be enormous if each new school board or political power could change entire teaching staffs at will.  The stability of the enterprise would be fatally compromised.

None of this mattered to the Ledger.  It hated (was jealous of?) the power the NJEA wielded, and said so publicly and often.  When I first started working for NJEA, I came from working at a smaller newspaper, and held the ideal of “objective” journalism.  I was quickly disabused of that notion by the Ledger and other state newspapers.

So the Ledger has acknowledged it erred in backing Notabully.  But in addition to owing Barbara Buono an apology for continuing to imply she was not competent to be governor (is Kim Guadagno?), the Star-Ledger should at least acknowledge that NJEA is doing what is required to do by law — represent its members.

Not an educator

New Jersey Gov. I. M. Notabully’s education commissioner, I. M. Notaneducator, has resigned to take a job in the private sector.  He will be working for Joel Klein, also not an educator, advising educators on how better to educate our children.

This is the new normal, and it’s all about breaking teacher unions.  You see, a lot of very rich people think teachers have too much power.  These rich people believe teachers and other school employees should not be allowed to gather in groups of more than three, except to talk about the students.  Otherwise, they will talk about things like salaries and benefits and pensions and political candidates — things obviously better left for these rich people to decide.

So these rich folks got together and created vehicles for not-educators to be placed in charge of educators.  Former commissioner
I. M. Notaneducator put people in charge of the Camden and Newark public school systems who had little or no experience in education.  They are so impressive that Gov. Notabully asked them to stand up and be applauded during his recent speech to the State Legislature.  He even hugged them — presumably to show, post Bridgegate, that he’s not a bully to everyone.  What they have done that is so impressive is hard to discern; the Newark model couldn’t even close schools the day of a blizzard, even though every surrounding district was closed and the city’s charter schools — one of the wealthy’s vehicles of choice for breaking teacher unions — were closed as well.

Much of what these rich people and their flunky non-educators do is done in the name of saving “failing schools.”  They say that poverty is no excuse for poor school performance; it just isn’t — so there.  By this logic, the large hospitals in Newark and Camden are “failing hospitals,” since lots of people die in them and others are not cured of their ailments.  Therefore, the hospitals should be closed and new ones should be opened and turned over to non-medical professionals.

This would all be amusing if it were not so destructive to children.  Even I. M. Notaneducator was forced to revoke the charters of almost a dozen charter schools.  The children in these schools probably went back to whatever regular public schools were left in the vicinity of their homes, having fallen even further behind in their studies.  The mainstream media has done a pathetic job of inquiring what has happened to these children, but these children are not rich and don’t belong to unions.  They are the forgotten ones in the non-educator war on children.

I.M. Notaneducator will probably make well into six figures in the private sector, while his rich patrons fret about teachers making $55,000 on average.  He will work on ways to make students subject to even more pointless testing, which many of the poor students will fail — thus “proving” that their teachers are bad and are only working because union rules prevent them from being fired –a complete and damnable lie.  Having worked for teacher association/unions for 35 years, I can personally attest to the fact that unions actually advise many teachers to leave the teaching profession because they receive bad evaluations. Unions don’t want to waste money on lost causes.

This does not matter to the omniscient rich.  They don’t believe teachers should have rights in the first place.  In an interview with a Philadelphia radio station on his way out the door, I. M. Notaneducator wished that everyone would turn down the rhetoric.  By that, he and his rich pals mean that teachers and their representatives should just shut up and acknowledge that the rich know best about everything, and that resistance to their power is futile.  Power to the already-powerful — right on!  Give me a break.

Notabully makes a funny

In his second inaugural address today, NJ Gov. I.M. Notabully said:  “We have confronted entrenched interests and their endless stream of money that have previously stood in the way of fiscal sanity for our state, and educational excellence for our children. Together, we have pushed those interests back, and put our children’s future first.”  My sides are still hurting from laughter.

Notabully was referring to the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), where I worked for 29 years until 2005.  Believe me, we did not, and still don’t have an endless stream of money.  But that’s not the chief source of my laughter; that’s reserved for a Gov. who spends half his time traipsing around the country raising money from people who REALLY have an endless stream of money.  Think the Koch (pronounced Coke) Brothers, who, if they were merged into one, would be the world’s wealthiest person and who spend endless streams of money on right-wing causes.  Think Ken Langone, who, despite being a billionaire — or maybe because he is one — just lectured the Pope about his criticism of the wealthy and their forgetting the poor.  Langone even threatened to stop donating to the church unless the Pope dummied up.  Think Jack Welch and Carl Icahn and and Donald Trump and —  well you get the idea.

What makes Notabully’s statement even more farcical is that he — in the guise of reform — has made it possible for his rich buddies and their flunkies to enrich themselves even more.  Think outrageous charter school administrative salaries far beyond what the average teacher makes.  Think attempts to privatize large portions of public education.

Finally, for the past three decades, New Jersey has always been in the top five states in scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).  So New Jersey schools, on the whole, were excellent before Notabully and will probably be so after he mercifully leaves.

So, to sum up, Notabully says he heroically took on teachers, school bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and security guards with their endless resources and saved our children.  Now I know he just changed his name to Notabully, but I think it’s time for another name change:  to “I.M. Alyingphony.”

The king needs an enemy

It is an old axiom that when a world power faces internal criticism, its leader tries to re-focus the attention of the public on a reliable external enemy.  That’s why the Governor of New Jersey, who apparently has legally changed his name to  “I. M. Notabully” tried to shift the focus of New Jerseyans and others who care about him to that old devil, the teacher association/union.

In his recent address, “Notabully” called for a longer school day and year.  He said we need them so that we can stay abreast of other countries in educational achievement.  Baloney!

Many private schools, including the one his son attends, have SHORTER days and years.   So do colleges; my Ivy League university ended its year in early May, whereas most K-12 schools go until mid-June or later.  So where is the evidence that more time in class will produce better results?

In short, there is very little.  But that’s not the point.  “Notabully” raised the issue so the NJEA (full disclosure — I worked there from 1977 to 2005) would respond by saying if the Governor wanted a longer day/year, he would have to pay school employees more.

Then, Notabully could rejoin by saying, “See?  They only care about the money, not the kids!”

NJEA would be derelict in representing its members by not demanding higher pay for more work.  But the anti-unionists like those Koch suckers and Ron Berman could then unleash the “if they don’t like it, then let them get jobs in the real world” canard.

In the meantime, people would be re-focused from “Notabully” and his Bridgegate and Sandy-as-cash-cow-for-his-campaign scandals, and focus on those mean old school employees — with their summers off and so forth.

Hey, as long as we’re talking about money, when will “Notabully” reimburse the state for his recent trip to raise money for Rick “I want to find drug addicts so I’ll pass a law which financially benefits my private drug-testing company” Scott, that erstwhile Gov. of FLA?  And when will Notabully reimburse New Jersey for all the time he spent campaiging in California and Iowa and all those other places for Romney in 2012?  I suspect “Notabully” will return “not a penny” to state coffers, while at the same time railing at teachers for summers off — FOR WHICH THEY’RE NOT PAID.

Watch what “Notabully” does.  Tune out what he says — except if and when he’s under oath.  Even then, it’ll be a toss-up.