According a Washington Stand article, the New Jersey Education Association produced the 15-second ad to promise a “world-class education” but the union pivots to ominously warn about “extremists…attacking our schools” and harming public education.
“People who only want to fight to score political points,” the ad audaciously says of parents, “should take that somewhere else.”
Reacting to the ad, New Jersey-based activist Joe Connor says the teachers’ union is making that claim after closing down schools as long as possible during the pandemic.
"The union is best for those teachers aren't good or who have kind of lost their way,” he says, “meaning these tenures keep teachers at jobs that they don't want to do anymore.”
The starting salary of a New Jersey public school teacher is $54,053, among the highest in the country, and the median salary is $74,186, according to website Patch.com that reports on The Garden State.
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, only one-third of eighth-grade New Jersey students tested proficient in math and reading.
As far as the ad attacking parents, Connor says it’s sad but not surprising a teachers’ union considers an “extremist” any parent who holds traditional values and is concerned about the education of their child.
