Thanks to a friendly teacher, Sunlight was alerted to another attempt by NJEA leadership to keep teachers from learning the truth. Below is the NJEA’s “Advocates’ Update” emailed to members on October 3. As can be seen, NJEA leadership is trying to discredit Sunlight’s text messages, (falsely) suggesting they are unlawful and a scam. They want teachers to report receiving the messages and have a private security firm help them block the messages. Once again, NJEA leadership does not want teachers to read the messages and learn the facts.
NJEA leadership doesn’t want teachers to learn about Dr. Dupont’s petition or the facts behind it. What are Sunlight’s messages about? An on-line petition started by Dr. Marie Dupont, a Roselle teacher, that informs teachers about the $45 million in teachers’ dues that NJEA leadership (including the conflicted, then-president Sean Spiller) wasted on Spiller’s vanity run for governor and tries to hold leadership accountable for their actions. That’s also why a lawsuit has been filed by two courageous teachers, including Dr. Dupont. The reason many teachers do not know that their dues were misused in this way is that NJEA leadership hid the truth from them. For many teachers, Dr. Dupont’s petition would be the only way they would learn the truth. And once they learn the truth, they know they have been deceived by their own leadership and many want some accountability from leadership. That’s why Dr. Dupont’s petition already has 1,785 signatures after only one week. And that’s why NJEA leadership desperately wants to shut down Dr. DuPont’s petition and Sunlight’s messaging.
Not the first time: NJEA previously asked PERC to censor Sunlight’s emails. It’s not the first time NJEA leadership has tried to censor Sunlight’s communications in order to keep teachers from learning the truth. Sunlight’s research report, “NJEA Leadership’s Scheme to Hide the Facts from Teachers,” documents how NJEA asked the state Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC) to force the Wayne School District to block Sunlight’s messages from reaching teachers in Wayne. Here’s the reason, as stated by the Wayne Education Association in its PERC complaint:
[The Wayne Education Association president] certifies that since the Sunlight Policy Center email campaign began … far fewer members have chosen to enroll in the Association, and the net result has been a decline in membership.
When teachers learn the facts, they learn they have been deceived and they are not happy. There you have it. When teachers learn the truth, they also learn that they have been deceived by their own leadership and and they are not happy about it. Rather than continue to pay $1,585 a year — the highest dues in the nation by far — some Wayne teachers chose to quit the NJEA. But other teachers may be reluctant to take that step: we know many value their local associations or (rightly) fear retaliation (as Dr. Dupont has claimed). The petition gives them a chance to try to hold their leadership accountable for wasting $45 million of their dues and hiding the truth from them. They don’t want it to happen again. That’s why 1,785 have already signed it after one week.
NJEA leadership fears accountability to members. And that is what NJEA leadership fears: accountability for their actions. The NJEA often claims to be a “representative democracy” but it’s hard for teachers to vindicate their interests when they don’t know the facts. That’s just the way NJEA leadership likes it: they have all the power and no accountability for how they use it. So who is actually representing the best interests of teachers? Dr. Dupont and Sunlight, who want teachers to learn the facts, or NJEA leadership, who don’t?