NJEA VP Beatty Finally Admits NJEA’s Super PAC Exists and Is Funded by Teachers’ Dues But Still Keeps the Truth from Teachers

At long last, a top NJEA leader has admitted that the NJEA’s Super PAC, Garden State Forward, actually exists and is funded by teachers’ regular, annual dues.  After years of prodding by Sunlight, the Star-Ledger, and now Politico, NJEA Vice President Steve Beatty took to the pages of the New Jersey Globe to acknowledge that Garden State Forward does indeed exist.  But note where Beatty and the NJEA did not go: to the NJEA’s main interfaces with teachers: its website and Facebook page.  What a curious admission by Beatty.  It sure looks like Beatty’s goal is to assuage the press rather than inform teachers.

In the Globe, Beatty finally admitted that in 2013 the NJEA formed its Super PAC, Garden State Forward, and actually mentioned it by name.  This marks the FIRST time a NJEA leader has spoken the words “Garden State Forward” in a public forum.  One gets the sense that after the embarrassing revelation by Sunlight and Politico that NJEA leadership had secretly funneled an additional $3mm to NJEA President Sean Spiller’s personal Super PAC via Garden State Forward in 2022, and the concomitant revelation that NJEA leadership has hidden the existence of Garden State Forward from the very teachers who pay for it, the NJEA had to act.

But the nature of Beatty’s action reveals a great deal about what’s really going on.  Note that Beatty took to the pages of the Globe, a relatively obscure on-line news site.  We wonder how many teachers even know it exists, let alone read it.  If Beatty were truly seeking to communicate this information teachers, he would have used the NJEA’s main interfaces with teachers: its website and its Facebook page. So we checked:

• Website: There is NO MENTION of Beatty’s statement among the recent news items, which are prominently displayed.  Then, as we have done many times in the past, we used to site’s search function to search for the term “Garden State Forward.”  Here was the result (again): “Sorry, but nothing matched your search terms. Please try again with different keywords.” So there is NO MENTION of Beatty’s statement or Garden State Forward on the NJEA’s website.
• Facebook page: We then went to the NJEA’s Facebook page.  It’s an active page, with a post a mere two hours ago (at the time we checked) concerning the NJEA’s Impact Conference as well as several other recent posts, but there is NO MENTION of Beatty’s statement.  We then used the search function for “Garden State Forward” and got no results that discussed the Super PAC in any way.  So there is NO MENTION of Beatty’s statement or of Garden State Forward on the NJEA’s Facebook page.

In his statement, Beatty also finally acknowledges that Garden State Forward is funded by teachers’ regular, annual dues:

“Garden State Forward is funded out of NJEA’s annual budget, which is developed, reviewed and approved by members directly elected from every county and every unit of representation in our union.”

But here’s the rub: even though Garden State Forward is funded from the NJEA’s annual budget, and even though the budget is approved by the Delegate Assembly, there is still no way for teachers to learn about the existence of Garden State Forward because it has never been mentioned by name in the summary budgets and Delegate Assembly minutes provided to teachers in the NJEA’s monthly magazine for teachers, NJEA Review. Rather, Garden State Forward expenditures have been disguised as “Organizational Projects” in the budgets, and as “independent expenditure issue advocacy effort” in the Delegate Assembly minutes.  How could a teacher possibly know what was really going on?

This is all in great contrast to the disclosure to teachers about the NJEA’s traditional PAC, NJEA PAC.  NJEA is a model of transparency and is frequently mentioned on both the website, where it has its own section, and in NJEA Review.  As a result, most teachers know about NJEA PAC and wrongly assume that NJEA PAC represents the sum-total of NJEA political spending. Indeed, the Haddonfield Education Association was just on Sunlight’s Facebook page stating that they were unaware that teachers’ regular dues were funding political spending.

The curious nature of how Beatty’s statement was disseminated leads us to believe it was meant to assuage the press rather than inform teachers.  The fact is that, despite Beatty’s statement, NJEA leadership still still hides the existence of Garden State Forward from the very teachers who are forced to fund it.  Beatty’s statement changed nothing and merely serves to underscore that NJEA leadership is deliberately deceiving teachers about how their dues are spent.