Schiano: 'Race to the Top' Mistake 'An Absolute Shame for Education'

A mistake on the part of the Governor's office has resulted in more than just state education commissioner Bret Schundler losing his job; local education leaders fuming.

The error, reported by the Star Ledger on Tuesday, involved an incorrect answer on the state's 'Race to the Top' application for $400 million in federal grants for education.  In response to a question asking how the state financed public education in 2009 compared to 2008, Gov. Chris Christie's office supplied an answer instead explaining the proposed education financing for 2011.

Seemingly caused by misreading the question, the blunder yielded a loss of 4.8 points in the application's scoring process.  With the ten top-scoring states being awarded federal dollars for education reform, New Jersey ranked eleventh, trailing three points behind Ohio.

Candice Schiano, a sixth grade English teacher at Florence M. Gaudineer Middle School and president of the Springfield Education Association, the local chapter of the largest teachers union in New Jersey, is one of those angered by the Christie administration's goof.

"I was completely astonished that our Governor would make such a careless mistake," Schiano said.  "It is an absolute shame for education in New Jersey to be deprived of this money."

An initial draft of the application, which contained the correct budget information, was agreed upon by the New Jersey Education Association and Schundler on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend.  

But four days later, Gov. Christie's office submitted a rewritten application, scrapping most of the compromises agreed upon by Schundler and the NJEA, including those concerning tenure and merit pay. 

"If he [Christie] had submitted the original application, which his Administration had worked on with NJEA," Schiano said, "we would not be in this horrific position.  Unfortunately, because of his lack of compromise on important issues with the NJEA, he took it upon himself to submit an application without our support or suggestions."

Christie has placed blame on the Obama administration and Washington bureaucracy for not being able to see past we he called a clerical error.  

Friday morning, the Governor fired Bret Schundler, the state commissioner of education, after a video surfaced showing Schundler at the Washington, D.C. Race to the Top presentation without a proper answer to the incorrectly-answered question.

"He [Christie] needs to take full responsibility for this error, stop blaming others, and should be absolutely ashamed of himself," said Schiano.

"I hope next time Governor Christie has an application to complete he has a teacher proofread his work before he submits it."