Lee Siegel: Montclair School Kids Suffer While NJEA President/Montclair Mayor Spiller Focuses on His Political Ambitions
June 9, 2023Student Test Scores Continue to Plummet, NJ’s Remediation Plan Is Failing Badly, and Gov. Murphy Is AWOL
June 21, 2023Dark-money Super PAC Education Truth Project (ETP) continues to look like a NEA/NJEA front. Sunlight must rely on circumstantial evidence because ETP is funded by dark money, but there’s plenty of circumstantial evidence. And now we have more.
And because ETP funds its affiliate, NJ Public Education Coalition (NJPEC), that group is also likely funded by the NEA/NJEA. NJPEC is actively trying to intimidate school boards with legal threats and groups of activists as part of local “culture wars” over such fraught issues as sex ed and parental control. Using dark-money fronts like ETP and NJPEC would allow NEA/NJEA to push their progressive agenda while concealing their role in the local controversies.
The additional circumstantial evidence:
- Both ETP and NJPEC continue to upgrade their websites, build out their organizations and expand their operations. Some deep-pocketed funder is paying for this. We do not believe, as NJPEC’s mendacious founder — Michael “Hundreds of Millions” Gottesman — claims, that this is self- and crowd-funded.
- ETP’s upgraded website now has an “Our Vision” section, which talks about having a “robust public education system,” with proper diversity, equity and inclusion, and “sufficient resources to faculty and staff, including the ability to unionize and bargain.” [Emphasis added.] These are perennial teachers unions priorities: more government funding and robust union-controlled collective bargaining.
- But what do they have to do with ETP’s mission? ETP describes “Our Mission” as: “to educate the public on the real issues facing Public Schools and Boards of Education in an effort to create a more equitable public school system for all students.” The ability to unionize and bargain are at best tangential to this mission. Sure sounds like a NEA/NJEA talking point.
So don’t be fooled New Jersey: when you see ETP and NJPEC in action, know that all the arrows point to the NEA and NJEA in action in your local school district.