NJ Teachers Union is tops in lobbying for 2011, outspending everyone else by 10 to 1

The NJEA has money to burn. And they burned through it faster than anyone else last year, spending $11.2 million dollars lobbying against Governor Christie's education reforms. By contrast, the next biggest spender was Verizon, with a budget of $1.2 million. Peanuts really, given their size.

And the NJEA took every one of those dollars off the backs of your child's classroom teachers in the form of union dues. Remember that the next time her school sends home yet another fundraising appeal or plea for you to send in "badly needed" classroom supplies. Maybe her teacher could afford a few extra pencils if the union wasn't vacuuming up so much money to buy TV advertisements telling us how wonderful the public schools are.

It's not like they have to convince you to send your kid to the government school. When it comes to education in New Jersey, choice is not in the union's vocabulary. And New Jersey already spends more on education than on anything else in the budget. The school tax makes up more than half of our total property tax levy. Our state income tax is designated 100% toward funding of education. But to hear the NJEA tell it, the public schools are woefully underfunded, as their union leaders cry all the way to the bank.

Then with a straight face the union shills will tell us that corporate money in politics is evil, as they lobby for Congress to upend the Citizens United SCOTUS decision. Because the NJEA is pure as the driven snow, and they're only looking out for the children. Honest.

Posted at 10:04 by Chris Wysocki   [/education]   Comments | Perm Link |
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