Author Archive
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
With Budget Shortfalls Looming, Lawmakers Reportedly Look to Raise Taxes (Again), But NJ Already Has Among the Highest Taxes in the Nation
Posted On02/21/2024 byNJ appears to be heading into budget season with lagging revenues. With state government spending up 56% under Gov. Murphy and a record $54.4 billion budget last year, lawmakers will be scrambling to make revenues match spending. Either spending will have to be cut or taxes raised, or both, and the word in the press…Read More
Gubernatorial Malpractice, Part II: Gov. Murphy Is AWOL on Learning Loss, So Sen. Ruiz Steps Up for NJ Kids
Posted On02/16/2024 byThank goodness for Sen. Teresa Ruiz. The Senate majority leader has introduced a bill to create an “Office of Learning Loss Czar” to help push Murphy’s Department of Education (DOE) to FINALLY address pandemic learning loss — in 2024! Gov. Murphy has been AWOL on learning loss, and it is his DOE that needs to…Read More
Gubernatorial Malpractice: Sweeney Center Projects Gov. Murphy Will Leave the Next Governor with Big Budget Deficits and No Rainy Day Fund
Posted On02/15/2024 byAs we head into the final two years of Gov. Murphy’s tenure as governor, we must ask: what condition will NJ be in when he leaves office? A new report by the Sweeney Center paints a bleak picture. All told, it forecasts that Murphy’s last state budget — for FY 2026 — will have a…Read More
Will AG Platkin Hold Gov. Murphy’s Pals Sean Spiller and Brendan Gill to the Same Standards as the Wildwood Three?
Posted On02/09/2024 byWill Gov. Murphy’s pals NJEA President/Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller and Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill receive the same treatment as the three Wildwood officials who were just indicted by Attorney General Platkin? All the above availed themselves of full-time state health benefits under questionable circumstances. But the big difference is that Spiller and Gill have…Read More