Well, it looks like Sunlight’s campaign to inform New Jersey teachers of their 1st Amendment rights has hit a nerve.  It appears that the NJEA has written up a Facebook hit piece on Sunlight to counter our outreach efforts to teachers.

True to form, the NJEA doesn’t take on any of the facts that Sunlight has presented in its research.  And they are facts: we defy anyone to show where Sunlight has not been factual.  No, the NJEA prefers the ad hominem attack route, using falsehoods and innuendo to try to cast an aura of suspicion around Sunlight.

Here are the facts: Sunlight can unequivocally state that neither Better Education for Kids nor the American Enterprise Institute has ever given a penny to Sunlight, which they will no doubt confirm.  So these are straw men so the NJEA can falsely associate Sunlight with the evil “Koch Brothers” and “private school vouchers,” neither of which have anything to do with Sunlight.

And of course, the NJEA is very sensitive about its highest-in-the-nation dues, which were just raised even higher to $999 a year.  Rather than address inconvenient facts like 85% of teachers’ dues go to the NJEA and NEA where they pay for gold-plated compensation for top execs and tens of millions of dollars in political spending, the NJEA would rather hurl a falsehood tying Sunlight to “efforts to privatize public education.”  But here are the facts: Sunlight has never taken a position on charter schools (the purported means by which public education would be “privatized”).

The NJEA sure looks desperate to silence Sunlight and stop our efforts to inform teachers of their 1st Amendment rights.  What are you afraid of, NJEA?  That if given the freedom to choose, New Jersey teachers will choose not to have $1,500 disappear from their paychecks every year?  Just like 70% of Wisconsin teachers did or 33% of Michigan teachers did when they were given a choice?

Sunlight wants New Jersey teachers to know the facts and their rights.  The NJEA wants teachers kept in the dark, subserviently paying their exorbitant dues without question.