By Briana Vannozzi
Gov. Christie chose Trenton Catholic Academy as the latest backdrop to highlight his education proposals today. Joined by Rochelle Hendricks, the state’s Secretary of Higher Education, he rattled off a number of funding increases included in this year’s budget — more than $37 million for tuition aid grants, increasing the education opportunity fund for the first time in four years, and a million dollars for his urban scholarship fund.
He said, “to provide some of our brightest students in inner cities and urban communities access to New Jersey colleges and universities, the program will provide up to a million dollars in funding for as many as a thousand freshman students in the next academic year.”
Christie has taken to visiting public and private schools to help lay out his agenda and it’s become a successful tactic.
“New Jersey benefits by giving parents ability to chose where they want to send their children,” he said. “To be most effectively educated and mentored and having more options in New Jersey doesn’t diminish any one of the options.”
He emphasized the need to provide more options for students in the Garden State. But when asked about the push back from some faculty and students on a separate higher education option — the proposed Rutgers-Rowan merger — the governor left no room for compromise and said the plan is going forward, full steam ahead.
“I cannot believe that Rutgers would turn down the opportunity to be able to get Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, The Cancer Institute and the [UMDNJ] School of Public Health over this dispute, because let me make something very clear … it all happens or none of it happens. This is not a divisible plan, this is a well thought out coordinated plan to create three centers of excellence for higher ed in New Jersey.”
The talk trickled back to his focus on elementary education and relationship with the NJEA, the teacher’s union that has clashed with Christie since taking office. Just yesterday the governor’s interaction with a teacher, also an NJEA member struck a rarely seen softer tone. He indicated he’s ready to sit down for a constructive conversation … when they are.
“My tone was that way with that teacher yesterday because that’s the tone with with she approached me,” he said.
But all the talk of education reform boils down to having the money to do it. Standard and Poor’s said the governor’s budget relies on “optimistic” revenue projections. Just this week, the Rockefeller Institute of Government, a national think tank, showed state tax revenue growth across the country is slowing down. Today, Christie pointed to his track record.
“When I’ve been very conservative on these projections the legislature said I was too conservative. Turns out I’ve been more right than they’ve been, now I’ve decided to be more aggressive.”
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