Beware New Jersey parents and school boards! The NJEA is gearing up for this fall’s school board elections and plans to spend a great deal of money via its dark-money front, New Jersey Public Education Coalition (NJPEC), and its long-time ally, Action Together New Jersey (ATNJ).  In 2023, NJPEC partnered with ATNJ to provide assistance to and/or support 532 candidates for school board and are working together again in 2024.  NJPEC and its founder, the mendacious Michael “Hundreds of Millions” Gottesman have a long history of trying to bully and intimidate parents and school boards that oppose their progressive agenda.  With all this money — taken from teachers’ regular dues — we can expect NJPEC to be out front again, pushing the NJEA’s progressive agenda while giving it plausible deniability. Don’t be fooled: when you see NJPEC, know it is NJEA money behind it.

Sunlight recently discovered that the NJEA’s Super PAC, Garden State Forward’s, IRS Form 8872 for the 2nd quarter of 2024 showed a $150,000 contributions aimed squarely at 2024 school board races:

That’s $100,000 to dark-money Super PAC Education Truth Project (ETP) and $50,000 to long-time NJEA ally Action Together New Jersey (ATNJ).  That’s a lot of money for school board races.

NEW JERSEY PUBLIC EDUCATION COALITION (NJPEC):  Under the leadership of the bullying, mendacious Michael “Hundreds of Millions” Gottesman (see more below), NJPEC has been an active participant in the “culture wars” in many New Jersey school districts.  It has tried to intimidate parents and school boards that oppose its progressive policies (here, here, and here).

It is also a NJEA front.  Sunlight previously established that ETP was the dark-money link from the NJEA to NJPEC: NJPEC is listed as a “partner” of ETP, NJPEC’s website is paid for by ETP, and NJPEC’s donation page is ETP’s ActBlue donation page.  Now ETP head Matthew Kaźmierczak is on NJPEC’s Advisory Board.  ETP and NJPEC are very closely tied.

And where the rubber meets the road at the school district level, NJPEC is directly pursuing the NJEA’s policy priorities. NJPEC’s sole resource on its “Resources” webpage is the NJEA’s Center for Honesty in Education, which “aims to combat disinformation, regressive policies, and dangerous rhetoric in local school districts” — in other words, the parents and school boards who are pushing back on the NJEA’s progressive policies.  Just like NJPEC does.

With all this monetary support, NJPEC has also grown in size and level of activity. In partnership with long-time NJEA ally ATNJ (see below), NJPEC provided assistance to and/or supported 532 candidates for school boards in 2023.  It is currently partnering with ATNJ for 2024 school board elections.

We want to reiterate: NJPEC founder mendacious Michael “Hundreds of Millions” Gottesman is a proven liar. He has portrayed to the public and press that NJPEC is an independent, grassroots coalition of concerned citizens, parents and teachers. It is not. It is a NJEA front. He directly claimed on NJEdReport that neither NJPEC nor ETP were funded by the NJEA. That was a lie. Henceforth, Gottesman’s credibility should be permanently undermined by his proven, habitual mendacity.

ACTION TOGETHER NEW JERSEY:  Long-time NJEA ally ATNJ received a $50,000 contribution. NJEA staffer and political organizer Cindy Matute-Brown is on ATNJ’s Board of Trustees.  And recall that when current NJEA Director of Government Relations Deb Cornavaca was Murphy’s Deputy Chief of Staff, she was caught on tape rallying ATNJ members to fight pension reforms that the NJEA opposed.

Importantly, ATNJ has partnered with NJPEC in recruiting, training, and supporting progressive school board candidates both in 2023 and now for 2024.  On X, NJPEC is recruiting candidates for 2024 school board races with its “Every Seat Claimed” campaign, which ties into school board campaign training sessions run and support provided by ATNJ.

ATNJ has clearly put some money to work.  It has a separate website for its BOE recruitment, training, and support efforts, which contains ATNJ’s “BoardBOOST” program. This program provides “complete Board of Education training and resources such as nonpartisan voter lists and campaign design …”  Training includes the mechanics of political campaigns such as marketing, voter data training, how to be an effective candidate, and getting out the vote.

ALL of this culture war fighting will be paid for by New Jersey teachers’ highest-in-the-nation dues.  We suspect that many teachers would not choose to give their hard-earned money to further the NJPEC/NJEA progressive agenda or to intimidate parents and school boards, but they do not have a choice.  

Once again, NJEA leadership is trying to hide the truth from them.