Gov. Christie attacks teachers' unions in front of a roomful of students.

[madfloridian]

When I read this I cringed. I have a feeling that Florida's new governor will be acting like this as well. They will get away with it because teachers' unions are a target of the DOE head, Arne Duncan. He is setting the atmosphere for this hostility toward public school teachers and their unions.

Gov. Christie tells Trenton teens teachers union is to blame for lack of school supplies, aid cuts


Martin Griff/The Times of TrentonGov. Chris Christie answers a question during a question and answer session with the Governor at the Boys & Girls Club of Trenton & Mercer County in Trenton.

TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie took his fight with the state’s largest teachers union directly to the kids today, telling a room full of Trenton students their schools were short on supplies because of greedy teachers union officials — not state aid cuts.

"There’s a lot of really great teachers in the state," said Christie. "But their union cares more about how much they get paid than they care about how well you learn."

A spokesman for the New Jersey Education Association said the remark was ironic considering the governor’s April statement that teachers were using students as "drug mules" by discussing state aid cuts with them.

"The governor apparently has a double standard, because he claimed that teachers were using kids as drug mules," said NJEA spokesman Steve Wollmer. "Now he’s speaking directly to children about matters political."

I found the article from April in which he really does accuse the teachers of using the students like "drug mules."

Gov. Chris Christie accuses N.J. teachers' union of 'using students like drug mules in school elections

A day ahead of school budget elections statewide, Gov. Chris Christie today escalated his war of words with the state teachers' union, accusing union representatives of "using the students like drug mules" to carry information about whether their parents planned to vote.

Christie cited what he called a "mandatory" homework assignment instructing children in the Monroe Township School District to interview their parents about whether and why they would vote on Tuesday.

"These are the typical kind of scare tactics that they involve themselves in," Christie said about the 200,000-member New Jersey Education Association, which has been critical of his proposed $820 million cut in school aid. "Scaring students in the classroom, scaring parents with the notes home in the bookbags, and the mandatory 'Project Democracy Homework' asking your parents about what they're going to do in the school board election, and reporting back to your teachers union representatives, using the students like drug mules to carry information back to the classroom, is reprehensible."

Steve Wollmer, a spokesman for the NJEA, said a third-grade teacher in Monroe distributed the homework as part of a civics lesson on voter participation, and it had nothing to do with how parents would vote.

It is sad day when a governor can go in front of a class of students and bash the teachers and their unions. It's worse day when he can claim that teachers are using them as drug mules by having unit of teaching on voting.

But that new day is here now, and it seems it is here to stay.