NJEA President Sean Spiller Tries to Use Teacher Shortage to Bolster His Run for Governor

NJEA President/Democratic candidate for governor Sean Spiller blames New Jersey’s teacher shortage on a politically convenient scapegoat, former Republican Governor Chris Christie. But Spiller provides no evidence for his claim, while there is much evidence that the cause is elsewhere.  Sure looks like a political stunt to animate teachers to support Spiller’s candidacy and justify the millions in teachers’ dues NJEA leadership will spend supporting him.  Once again, Spiller is looking after Spiller, not New Jersey teachers.

On Monday, Spiller wrote an op-ed in the Star-Ledger claiming that New Jersey has a teacher shortage because of former-Governor Chris Christie:

More than a decade ago, New Jersey’s public schools came under a ferocious attack by a former governor [Christie] … Derogatory attacks were a daily occurrence … It’s easy to track the decline of enrollment in New Jersey teacher prep programs to the onset of those attacks …”

Spiller provides no evidence for this claim.  Yet there is plenty of evidence to discredit it.

A 2020 report by New Jersey Policy Perspective (NJPP) — the NJEA-funded and pro-NJEA think tank — concluded: “the decline in enrollees and completers of teacher prep programs of all types is a national problem.” [Emphasis added].  Here’s the data (see below): during the period of Christie’s two terms (2008-9 to 2016-17), the national decline was -31%, New Jersey’s was worse at -49% but was similar to Delaware’s (-44%) and New York’s (-43%), but not as bad as Pennsylvania’s (-52%).

We would ask Spiller: Did Gov. Christie supposed attacks affect Delaware, New York, and Pennsylvania as well as New Jersey?

We also learned from NJPP that one of the major causes of the decline was the shutting down of NJDOE’s state-run alternate route program, which allowed candidates with subject-matter knowledge to become teachers without having to get an education degree.  While the number of candidates following the traditional path declined as well, there’s no mistaking the sharp drop-off that occurred when the alternate route program was shut down, as shown below.

Here are several other causes for the teacher shortage suggested by actual research:

• Low teacher compensation. In another report, NJPP asserted that low teacher compensation was the primary reason for the shortage.
• Mismatch between teachers and vacancies. NJPP also noted that there was a mismatch between the kinds of teachers being produced by the system (41% are elementary school teachers) versus where the vacancies were (STEM, foreign languages) that was the cause of the teacher shortage, among other factors.  In other words, the teacher shortage was not across the board but in hard-to-staff subjects like STEM (and, we would add, hard-to-staff locations, like Paterson).
• Rigid, bureaucratic system out of sync with younger generation. Sunlight wrote a Star-Ledger op-ed citing research showing that the current system appears to be out of sync with the young people who make up the pool of potential teacher candidates. The younger generation values mobility and flexibility, and yet the current system is rigid and inflexible, with teachers forced into a union-dominated bureaucracy where professional advancement, pay and job security are based on seniority, not merit.
• NEA report reveals young teachers’ frustration with system. As it turns out, the NJEA’s national parent, the National Education Association (NEA), has known of this generational problem for many years.  In a 2014 NEA report, younger teachers told the NEA in clear, unmistakable terms that they were frustrated with the bureaucratic, rigid, union-dominated system.  Yet no changes were forthcoming.  The system remains the same.

All of which points to the conclusion that Spiller is trying to bolster is candidacy rather than address an issue of concern for his members. The messaging also fits in nicely with Spiller and NJEA leadership’s efforts to turn the NJEA into one, giant “Spiller for Governor” Super PAC.  Great for Spiller and his personal political ambitions; not so great for New Jersey teachers.