Christie the Kausian
By More brilliant governance from Chris Christie:
Before rejecting a compromise with teachers that would have won New Jersey a $400 million federal education grant, Gov. Chris Christie’s main objection was that it would appear that he had given in to the teachers’ union, a former education commissioner testified on Thursday.
[…]
Mr. Schundler recalled that in his conversation with the governor, in May, he had explained that it was the union that had given ground, and that the administration had won nearly everything it wanted. “When the governor came to understand that, his concern became more about how it would be perceived,” he said.
[…]
But New Jersey lost at least 14 points because the teachers’ union, the New Jersey Education Association, refused to endorse the application; the added points from the union’s endorsement would have put the state into fourth or fifth place.
Christie, it would seem, has the same interest in educating the children of his state that Mickey Kaus does: i.e. it “begins and ends with his dislike of the teacher’s unions.” If he has a choice between pissing off teacher’s unions and improving the state’s education system, we know know that he’d choose the former.