NJEA VP/Montclair Mayor Spiller’s Conflict of Interest Captured in One Photograph
Posted OnMarch 15, 2021 byA picture is indeed worth a thousand words, and this one of NJEA Vice President/Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller and Montclair Education Association (MEA) President Petal Robertson says it all. A concerned Montclair citizen sent Sunlight this picture of Spiller having a discussion with Robertson and Brendan Gill, Essex County commissioner and manager of Phil Murphy’s…Read More
USNews Education Rankings: Good News for NJ but Still No Accounting for NJ’s Excessively High Spending
Posted OnMarch 12, 2021 byUSNews gave NJ the top ranking for its education system, which is of course very good news for the state. The even-better news is that USNews’ ranking did not count the amount of spending as an absolute positive like EdWeek’s ranking. Indeed, EdWeek concluded that NJ’s top-ranking was “largely due” to high education spending. In…Read More
Your Tax Dollars at Work: Once again, the NJEA Spends the Most on Lobbying. By Far.
Posted OnMarch 10, 2021 byOnce again, the NJEA spent more on political lobbying than any other special interest. By far. The NJ Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) released its annual lobbying report, and the NJEA was the leading spender in a record year for lobbying, as it was in 2019. The NJEA spent a total of $6.3 million, 26%…Read More
GSI Business Panel: NJ’s High Government Spending and Taxes Are Killing Our Businesses. Special Interests Win; NJ Loses.
Posted OnMarch 5, 2021 byKudos to Garden State Initiative for hosting a panel on NJ’s business climate; kudos to Assembly Appropriations Committee chair John Burzichelli for participating and listening; and kudos to the NJ business leaders for telling it like it is. (And thanks to ROI-NJ’s Tom Bergeron for covering it). Some important quotes: Business owner John Boyd:”New Jersey…Read More
Mayor Spiller, Are You OK with Closing Montclair Schools for the Rest of the School Year?
Posted OnMarch 4, 2021 byAccording to a NJ Advance Media report, if teacher vaccinations are a requirement to reopen schools, then schools will likely remain closed for the rest of the school year. That’s what the head of the Association of School Administrators is saying, and, more importantly, that is what the NJEA is saying. What does that mean…Read More
Kudos to the Record’s Charlie Stile: Borrowing $4.3 Billion to Make a $6.4 Billion Pension Payment is POBs All Over Again.
Posted OnFebruary 25, 2021 byThe Record’s Charlie Stile is one of the very few people in NJ who recognize that Gov. Murphy is effectively reprising the disastrous 1997 Pension Obligation Bonds (POBs) of Gov. Whitman. The $2.75 billion in POBs will ultimately cost NJ more than $10 billion. That’s the reason the legislature subsequently banned POBs. Per Stile: “Yet, Murphy’s rescue…Read More
Gov. Murphy’s Budget: The Special Interests Win, NJ Loses
Posted OnFebruary 24, 2021 byGov. Murphy is out with his FY2022 budget. Four facts stand out: Murphy is increasing spending to $44.8 billion, a 10% increase over last year. Murphy is devoting over 14% of this budget – $6.4 billion – to shore up NJ’s worst-in-the-nation public pension system. While making the full payment may seem like the right…Read More
NJ Education Aid: The Data Show that NJ Has a Serious Outmigration Problem; NJ Policy Perspective Is Wrong to Assert Otherwise.
Posted OnFebruary 22, 2021 byNJ Education Aid published some of its excellent, data-driven work in NJ Education Report, this time focusing on the hard numbers about NJ’s outmigration problem. These facts are important in and of themselves because NJ policy-makers should recognize that NJ is losing the competition with other states for people, wealth and businesses. But these facts…Read More
Mayor Spiller: Do You Stand by Your Statement that Teachers Must Be Vaccinated before Schools Reopen?
Posted OnFebruary 19, 2021 byRather than leading, NJEA VP/Mayor Sean Spiller is playing a double game in Montclair’s dispute over reopening schools. In totally predictable fashion, Spiller’s conflict of interest appears to be dictating his contradictory public positions. On the one hand, Spiller unequivocally told the New York Times that schools should only reopen when it’s safe and that “vaccination…Read More
Court Ruling Keeps Montclair Schools Closed. NJEA VP Spiller Agrees but Where Is Mayor Spiller?
Posted OnFebruary 15, 2021 byThe Montclair Local reports that a Chancery Court has denied a preliminary injunction that would have forced Montclair teachers to end their boycott of the Montclair school district’s reopening plan. This means that Montclair schools will remain all-remote at least until March 9, when the court will hold its next hearing. Too bad for Superintendent…Read More