Author Archive
Despite Gov. Murphy’s Happy Talk, Another Study Ranks NJ Dead Last for Fiscal Health
Posted On04/23/2024 byAnother report comparing the fiscal health of the 50 states, another last place finish for New Jersey. Gov. Murphy likes to talk about his fiscal responsibility but the numbers say otherwise. A recent Cato Institute study looked at the audited 2022 financial reports ranked the 50 states by their Unrestricted Net Position (UNP). UNP is…Read More
The Star-Ledger Steps Up with a Powerful Editorial on NJEA President/Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller’s Deepening Legal Troubles
Posted On04/15/2024 byOnce again, kudos to the Star-Ledger editorial board for their hard-hitting editorial regarding NJEA President/Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller’s apparent retaliation against Sarah Avery, a Montclair citizen/activist who has been critical of Spiller. Despite his legal troubles getting deeper and deeper, Spiller continues to use his members’ highest-in-the-nation dues to back his personal political ambitions. The…Read More
With Student Misbehavior Negatively Impacting Teachers, NJEA Leadership Chooses to Fight the Culture Wars, Not Protect Teachers
Posted On04/11/2024 byMore reports of student misbehavior and the negative impact on teachers, with local association officers sounding the alarm. Where is the NJEA on this issue of obvious importance to teachers? Fighting the culture wars rather than protecting teachers. Thanks to NJEdReport, we learned the Asbury Park Press reported that Lakewood Education Association (LEA) officers are…Read More
Montclair Councilman: “Is the Township Being Weaponized To Go After People” Who Criticize Mayor Sean Spiller?
Posted On04/03/2024 byPer the Montclair Local, we are learning more and more about how NJEA President/Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller conducts himself in office, and it’s not good. Already the subject of a whistleblower lawsuit by Montclair’s former-CFO that alleges malfeasance and retaliation, Spiller and the town council appear to be doubling down by subpoenaing the records of…Read More
School District Data Shows Njea Membership Declined -10% From 2018-2023
Posted On04/03/2024 byUsing Open Public Records requests, we analyzed 17 New Jersey school districts of varying sizes and locations where the NJEA is the union representing teachers. As shown in Table 1, we found that they averaged a -10.9% decline in membership from 2018-23.Read More
FY2025 Budget: Gov. Murphy Resorts to One-Time Fixes To Pay for His Unsustainable Spending
Posted On03/21/2024 byGov. Murphy spends a lot of time talking about how fiscally responsible he is, but as always with Murphy, you have to look through the words to the actual numbers. An excellent example of that is Murphy’s FY2025 budget: it is not a fiscally responsible budget. Now NJ Spotlight News reports that he is resorting…Read More
Legal Woes Don’t Stop NJEA President Sean Spiller from Spending Teachers’ Dues on His Personal Political Career
Posted On03/07/2024 byDespite NJEA President Sean Spiller’s legal woes and his decision not to run for re-election as Montclair mayor, he’s still pursuing his (post-Montclair) personal political career and using hundreds of thousands of teachers’ dues to do it. That’s the conclusion we draw from an InsiderNJ press release from Protecting Our Democracy, Spiller’s personal dark-money Super…Read More
Bergen County EA President Defends NJEA Transparency But Is Not Transparent About the NJEA’s Super PAC
Posted On03/05/2024 byThe president of the Bergen County Education Association, Sue McBride, penned an op-ed in the New Jersey Globe in defense of the NJEA against “editorials and anti-union propaganda,” meaning the Star-Ledger editorial board and Sunlight Policy Center, respectively. We’ll let the Star-Ledger speak for itself, but McBride evades Sunlight’s main point: that teachers have been…Read More
Another Gov. Murphy Budget: Record Spending, Higher Taxes and a Deficit. Great for the Special Interests, Terrible for NJ.
Posted On03/01/2024 byWe wanted to add our quick take on Gov. Murphy’s proposed FY2025 budget. In a sentence: it’s more spending backed by higher taxes, Murphy’s go-to governance formula, which always and everywhere takes care of his government union allies. Here are the low-lights: Over his 7 budgets, Murphy has increased state government spending from $34.7 billion…Read More
InsiderNJ’s Fred Snowflack Flacks for Mendacious Michael Gottesman and His NJEA-Funded Coalition. Why the Bias, Mr. Snowflack?
Posted On02/27/2024 byInsiderNJ’s Fred Snowflack is back with his biased take on the culture wars in NJ school districts. The title of his recent piece “Hitting the Books, or Just Banning Them,” makes Snowflack’s bias plain for all to see. It’s all about a “loud minority” banning books, not legitimate parental concerns about inappropriate content in their…Read More