Your Vocabulary Lesson for the Day

   

    Once again, Gov. Chris Christie appeared on national television to spread his idiosyncratic version of history.  Appearing in an interview on ABC with Diane Sawyer, he said, 

    "I believe the teachers in New Jersey in the main are wonderful public servants that care deeply. But their union, their union are a group of political thugs." 

     He said the New Jersey Education Association refused to negotiate on a salary freeze last year. 

"They should have taken the salary freeze. They didn't and now, you know, we had to lay teachers off."

"They chose to continue to get their salary increases rather than be part of the shared sacrifice," he said.

     Dismissing objections to his blunt talk, Christie said, 

"We're from New Jersey and when you're from New Jersey, what that means is you give as good as you get."

    Christie is also suggesting a dramatic change in the state's tenure program, forcing tenured teachers to undergo a yearly review and face removal from tenure if they're found to be ineffective.
    thug   [thuhg] –noun

1. a cruel or vicious ruffian, robber, or murderer

    But here is what the Newark Star Ledger has to say about Christie's remarks:

     When Christie told ABC TV’s Diane Sawyer, in an interview aired Wednesday night that New Jersey teachers “should have taken a salary freeze. They didn’t, and, you know, we had to lay teachers off,” it’s incorrect.

And he knows it.

     Even if all school districts had agreed to freeze pay and contribute 1.5 percent of salary toward health premiums, it would have covered only 22 percent of Christie’s proposed education cuts. 

    Christie still would have had to cover $849 million in cuts, according to a report by the non-partisan Office of Legislative Services.

    In other words, even if the unions had caved, thousands of teachers still would have lost their jobs — 

which is why the New Jersey Education Association advised local unions against accepting the freeze.

bul·ly-    [bool-ee]noun, plural -lies, verb, -lied, -ly·ing, adjective, interjection–noun

1. a blustering, quarrelsome, overbearing person who habitually badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people.