Glad we got rid of Corzine. A lot of hate for Christie, to me the man's getting things done. He's getting a lot of flak for going after the teachers union but I say good. Our education system is a black hole of money and a lot of teachers are like someone said earlier, under-worked and over-catered. Most of the teachers in my school district were miserable to the students. I remember one class I had in a large open room that was separated into classes with dividers, the neighboring teacher spent 35 out of 40 minutes just screaming at and berating the students. A fine example of someone with tenure and our tax dollars at work. I could count on one hand the hard working teachers who cared but don't have enough digits on me to name the mean-spirited ones who vindicated students and graded accordingly.
I'm all for lower taxes but he is going about it all wrong. The problem is educational funding, not the teachers or cops. If you want to reduce taxes, kill school programs and control the mandates at the state level. 80% of property taxes go towards school funding. Out of that 80%, only a small percentage goes towards salaries for teachers.
Most teachers are overpaid and worthless but I don't agree with getting rid of police officers. They should be the last thing you get rid of. Just like when a company is shutting down the last thing they get rid of is security.
I love Christie. I love that he doesn't bend to the BS whims of the monopoly that is the NJEA. I want that union crushed and I want local people to have a lot more control over how, when, and who teaches their own kids. I also don't want to fund horrific failing schools through the Abbot disctrict nonsense.
I want the crazyness that is the public worker pension system revoked and reinvested in infrastructure that has been neglected for far too long.
I sincerely hope the Christie 'has his way' with the NJEA and the other bloated unions and we will see some real progress and change in overfunded systems where very little actually gets spent on the kids or for the benefit of the people who actually pay taxes.
I also love how Christie is the first real governor to put pressure on the democrats who refuse to tackle the NUMBER 1 issue in NJ: property taxes. If I hear another story about them passing BS laws to protect me by restricting my rights, I think I'm going to scream! Fix property taxes FFS.
If the government doesn't have enough money to pay for all the programs, they should just raise taxes on all the free stuff the government gives people like welfare, food stamps and unemployment. Then they get back some of it.
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I don't believe in a government that protects us from ourselves. Ronald Reagan
A lot of this thread is about Christie fighting teachers. Teachers don't need to be fired. School districts need to be merged. Why are there over 600 school districts? And each with separate Superintendents, and many having 1 or more asst. superintendents. Each school district independently making policy on curriculum. Independently contracting for food and supplies. The redundancy is massive and by cleaning up the administration, no teachers or classrooms need to be touched.
Anyway, at least Christie is beginning to force answers to problems that aren't going away by ignoring them. I don't like all his decisions, but the status quo is not feasible.
I could count on one hand the hard working teachers who cared but don't have enough digits on me to name the mean-spirited ones who vindicated students and graded accordingly.
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