Once Again, Mendacious Michael “Hundreds of Millions” Gottesman Resorts to Falsehoods to Make His Case

We saw an op-ed in NJ.com by Mendacious Michael “Hundreds of Millions” Gottesman and we expected that Gottesman would play fast and loose with the truth, and we were right.  In addition to being a proven, serial liar, Gottesman is founder of the NJEA-funded New Jersey Public Education Coalition (NJPEC), which serves as the NJEA’s front in local school district culture wars.  We’ll let the estimable Laura Waters of NJEdReport debate the substance of the op-ed, entitled, “Trump’s Voucher Plan Hurts NJ’s Public Schools, Rewards the Rich.” We’ll stick to showing that Gottesman continues to be a mendacious zealot, who will say just about anything to push his (and the NJEA’s) progressive agenda.

We will quote Waters when she says about Gottesman’s op-ed: “None of this is true.”  Gottesman deliberately mischaracterizes the new federal law that permits states to opt into school choice programs that grant tax credits for individual taxpayers who donate up to $1,700 annually to scholarship granting organizations, per NJEdReport.

Sunlight will take aim at two points that Gottesman makes that are demonstrably false:

First, in his op-ed, Gottesman claims: “the real beneficiaries will be wealthy families whose children already attend them — widening the education gap between the haves and have-nots.”  He imagines a New Jersey program whereby rich parents would fund vouchers for their own kids, giving themselves a break on private school tuition.  But Gottesman’s is a false construction. To paraphrase Waters’ response: New Jersey can create a program that conforms with its own values, one that offers low-income children a ticket out of low-achieving schools, which is in sync with the increasing numbers of Black and Hispanic parents who support having that option.  In other words, New Jersey could limit eligibility to low-income families. 

Second, Gottesman points to a “similar program in Arizona [that] led to a $1.4 billion budget shortfall” for FY2025. This is blatantly false, as a close reading of the linked ProPublica report on Arizona’s budget difficulties revealed. Turns out the cost of Arizona’s voucher program jumped from the original estimate of $65 million to an expected $429 million in FY2025, which is about $300 million more than the original estimate for FY2025 — clearly, it’s a very popular program.  But $300 million isn’t $1.4 billion, Mr. Gottesman.  ProPublica makes clear that “recent revenue losses” made up the $1+ billion difference, but you wouldn’t know that from Gottesman.  Moreover, Arizona’s is a universal school voucher programs — available to all, including the wealthiest parents — but New Jersey’s does not have to be.  But Gottesman doesn’t mention this either.

Once again, the mendacious Gottesman proves that he cannot be relied on to tell the truth.  He can be relied on to take the NJEA’s policy positions and then distort the facts to support the preferred narrative. But it’s nothing near the truth of the matter.

New Jersey, beware of Mendacious Michael “Hundreds of Millions” Gottesman!