NJEA President Barbara Keshishian issued the following statement today in response to Acting Commissioner Cerf’s misleading claims about NJEA:
“Acting Education Commissioner Chris Cerf continues to misrepresent NJEA’s stance on New Jersey’s achievement gap. This is a very important issue that matters deeply to NJEA and its members, who have worked for decades to improve achievement levels for all students in New Jersey. And the results show that our efforts are working. Achievement growth among all groups on national measures of student progress has been consistent and impressive. There is much work still to be done, and NJEA’s commitment to doing that work cannot be challenged. If the educational community comes together to address its challenges, that growth will be even stronger.
“Unfortunately, Acting Commissioner Cerf continues to play out a political agenda that requires him to denigrate the quality of New Jersey’s public schools in order to justify efforts to defund urban schools and divert education resources to privatization schemes. It is a cynical agenda that is hurting New Jersey’s most vulnerable students.
“NJEA remains fiercely committed to raising achievement for all students, and we are particularly focused on the needs of students in districts with the lowest achievement. That is why we have a Priority Schools Initiative to address the challenges facing students and educators in those districts.
“That is why we worked with the sponsors of the Urban Hope Act to strengthen that legislation and ensure that the beneficiaries would be children, not for-profit corporate entities.
“That is why we continue to invest significant resources in the New Jersey Center for Teaching and Learning, which has created innovative and successful science and mathematics initiatives in several urban New Jersey districts.
“And that is why we support the work of the Education Law Center, which is leading the fight to stop the Christie administration’s efforts to slash funding to the very students who most need our support.
“The education and school funding policies of the Christie administration have proven devastating to all of New Jersey’s public schools, especially our urban districts. The agenda to slash funding, to stop desperately needed construction and school building modernization, and to divert public resources to unaccountable private entities will only serve to widen the already unacceptable gap in both opportunity and achievement.
“We call on Acting Commissioner Cerf to end his politically motivated attacks on New Jersey’s educators and NJEA and instead to engage in a real cooperative effort to achieve the goal that we all share: helping every student in New Jersey achieve his or her full potential.”