Stuff in the ‘Political Spending and Influence’ Category
Michael “Hundreds of Millions” Gottesman, NJPEC Use Open Record Requests to Intimidate School Boards and Parents
Posted On08/15/2023 byMichael “Hundreds of Millions” Gottesman and New Jersey Public Education Coalition (NJPEC) are trying to intimidate school boards and parents who dared to opt their kids out of the state’s controversial sex-ed guidelines. Thanks to a friend, Sunlight was sent a copy of an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request signed by Gottesman individually and…Read More
Strong 2023 Investment Returns But Teachers’ Pension Plan Is Still in Trouble
Posted On08/01/2023 byThe Star-Ledger reports that state pension investments have “raked in huge gains” so far this year, but the structurally unsound state pension system is still in trouble. It is of course good news that stock markets have had strong returns this year and that state pension plan assets have rebounded after a dismal 2022. And…Read More
Michael “Hundreds of Millions” Gottesman Adds Hypocrisy to His Habitual Mendacity
Posted On07/19/2023 byMendacious Michael “Hundreds of Millions” Gottesman is at it again. The founder of the New Jersey Public Education Coalition (NJPEC) recently took to the pages of NJEdReport to decry parents ostensibly using their children as “spies” to expose “woke” indoctrination in public school classrooms. Gottesman claims that, by such actions, the “radical right” aims to…Read More
FY2024 Budget: State Spending Up 56% Under Gov. Murphy. What Happens When the Revenue Windfalls Go Away?
Posted On07/07/2023 byOnce again under Gov. Murphy, when it comes to the budget, politics supersedes fiscal responsibility. Murphy and his pals in the legislature sure know how to take care of their friends in an election year. Adding to a continuous string of record budgets, Murphy signed a $54.3 billion FY2024 budget. That’s up over 7% from…Read More
Sweeney Center Warns of “Fiscal Crisis” When Revenue Windfalls Go Away. What Happens with $7 Billion Pension Payments?
Posted On06/30/2023 bySunlight has long warned about New Jersey’s fiscal condition. In particular, we have focused on Gov. Murphy’s decision to accommodate his biggest political supporter, the NJEA, by choosing to make the full required pension payment rather than doing the hard work of reforming the teachers’ pension fund (TPAF), the largest and most distressed of the…Read More
More Mendacity and Bullying from Michael “Hundreds of Millions” Gottesman
Posted On06/27/2023 byMeet Michael “Hundreds of Millions” Gottesman, founder of the NJ Public Education Coalition (NJPEC), the group trying to bully school boards into adopting a progressive education agenda. Gottesman got his nickname because he maintained to the Star-Ledger that “right-wing extremist” groups had “hundreds of millions of dollars being donated to them in New Jersey” to…Read More
Student Test Scores Continue to Plummet, NJ’s Remediation Plan Is Failing Badly, and Gov. Murphy Is AWOL
Posted On06/21/2023 byWe have two disturbing pieces of news about learning loss for NJ students. First, a new update on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), known as the “nation’s report card” on student learning, and the news is terrible: both reading and math scores continue to plummet due to lingering effects from school closures. Here’s…Read More
More Signs that Education Truth Project and NJ Public Education Coalition Are NEA/NJEA Fronts
Posted On06/20/2023 byDark-money Super PAC Education Truth Project (ETP) continues to look like a NEA/NJEA front. Sunlight must rely on circumstantial evidence because ETP is funded by dark money, but there’s plenty of circumstantial evidence. And now we have more. And because ETP funds its affiliate, NJ Public Education Coalition (NJPEC), that group is also likely funded…Read More
Former Public School Teacher Blasts Teachers Unions for Prioritizing Political Activism over Educating Kids
Posted On06/01/2023 byA friend of Sunlight’s sent us an excellent Tablet article by Alex Gutentag, a former teacher in Oakland, CA public schools. We urge you to read the whole piece, as it provides the perspective of a public school teacher who really wanted to teach and felt betrayed by his union and its focus on political…Read More
Laid-Off Montclair Teachers Reap the Whirlwind from NJEA President/Montclair Mayor Spiller’s Conflict of Interest
Posted On05/19/2023 byNJEA President/Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller’s conflict of interest continues to negatively affect Montclair and its school system. This time, it’s the dozens of young teachers and paraprofessionals being laid off, who will be leaving the school system along with the hundreds of kids who fled the extended school closures abetted by Spiller. All of this…Read More