Murphy Administration Chooses Optics Over Substance: Looking at DOE’s Climate Change Revisions
April 5, 2023
Promote Mental Health By Caring for the Adolescent Athlete–and the Person
April 6, 2023LILLEY: This Group Is A Dark-Money Front for NJEA Designed to Intimidate School Boards
We now have a little more transparency in the opaque world of New Jersey’s progressive dark money and activist network, but the key question is: who provides the funding for dark-money Super PAC Education Truth Project (ETP)? As Sunlight laid out exhaustively, the circumstantial evidence points strongly to ETP being an NJEA (and/or its parent, NEA) front and we welcome anyone to disprove it.
ETP has been the dark money behind the muscle provided by NJ Public Education Coalition (NJPEC) in their campaign to intimidate school boards that have resisted progressive sex ed policies and such (previously detailed here). In a recent email forwarded to Sunlight, ETP explicitly refers to NJPEC as an “affiliate of” ETP, which in legal terms means that NJPEC is controlled by, controls or is under common control with ETP. Since we know NJPEC is funded by and is an affiliate of ETP, this makes it highly likely that it is ETP that controls NJPEC or that some other entity controls them both. Hmmm.
NJPEC’s affiliate status further underscores the mendacity of NJPEC’s founder, Michael “Hundreds of Millions” Gottesman. Previously, Gottesman claimed that NJPEC was not funded by ETP despite NJPEC’s website and press releases explicitly saying “Paid for by Education Truth Project.” Now we know that NJPEC is an affiliate of ETP — but you’re still insisting that there’s no funding, right, Mr. Gottesman?
This is not the first time Gottesman had a tenuous relationship with the truth. Recall that Gottesman also made the blatantly false claim to the Star-Ledger that “right-wing extremist” groups had “hundreds of millions of dollars being donated to them in New Jersey” to take over school boards. “Hundreds of millions” is absurd on its face, and Gottesman has not — indeed, he cannot — provide a shred of evidence to back it. Yet he said it and has not retracted it. This is why Gottesman has earned the moniker Mr. “Hundreds of Millions” Gottesman.
And then there is the relationship to the NJEA (and/or NEA). Per ETP’s ELEC filing, we know that some deep-pocketed New Jersey funder is providing hundreds of thousands of dollars of dark money to ETP. And we know that the NJEA has a long history of funding a network of activist groups that serve its purposes, often using dark money to hide its tracks. Because it is dark money, we can only build a circumstantial case — but it is a strong circumstantial case.
All of which beings us back to Mr. “Hundreds of Millions” Gottesman and NJPEC. By all appearances, and if history is any guide, it looks very much like NJPEC is the muscle of an NJEA operation to intimidate school boards across New Jersey, with ETP as the dark money intermediary. While ETP and NJPEC seek to demonize their school board opponents as “right wing extremists” and “white nationalist organizations,” they are mostly just parents who want to have more say in the education of their children. Apparently, it’s unacceptable for a parent to have good-faith objections to progressive sex ed programs and such, and they must be bullied and strong-armed by the likes of Mr. “Hundreds of Millions” Gottesman and NJPEC.
With the bomb-throwing and mendacious “Hundreds of Millions” Gottesman in the lead, it would make sense for the NJEA to hide its role in such a controversial and fraught campaign.
2 Comments
Excellent reporting! You are a treasure to taxpaying residents of NJ–thank you so much!
Here is the email her sent out to his members Yesterday April 5th
Good morning Members,
Many of you have identified questionable action by your Board or Board Members. Some of these actions constitute “ethics” violations and others constitute “legal” violations. We are taking this opportunity to provide you with some guidance as to which complaint(s) should be filed and how to do so.
Basically, there are two paths that can be followed. In some cases, you can actually follow both paths.
First, if you believe that a Board member has violated the School Board Code of Ethics (see attached), you should file an Ethics Complaint with the New Jersey School Ethics Commission. It is our position that it is also an ethics violation if the Board member violates their oath of office (See attached). The complaint must be filed within 180 days of the alleged violation. While it can be filed by anyone, it is always best for it to be filed by a resident of the school district.
Attached are: 1) instructions on how to file a complaint, 2) an FAQ, 3) a fillable complaint form and 4) a sample form that the Coalition prepared for the Millstone community. These forms are also downloadable at this link: https://www.nj.gov/education/ethics/compform.shtml
Second, if you believe that a Board member has violated NJ education law, N.J.S.A. 18A (https://law.justia.com/codes/new-jersey/2018/title-18a/) or Administrative Code, N.J.S.A. N.J.A.C. 6A (https://www.nj.gov/education/code/current/index.shtml), you can file a petition with the Commissioner of Education. Additional info can be found at this link: https://www.nj.gov/education/code
One of the specific statutes that may be used is the “opt-out” statute, 18A:35-4.7. Parent’s statement of conflict with conscience. Many actions currently being taken by Boards are effectively converting the opt-out to an opt-in in violation of this statute. For example, making the curriculum taught at home by parents or making it a homework assignment. There is no way to insure that it will be taught and therefore, it makes it an opt-in decision for a parent.
Attached is a copy of a fillable petition form which you can use to file your petition. The instructions are on the form.
If you feel that the Board member has violated ethics and the law, you can file both complaints. They are two separate and distinct processes.
As always, if you have questions about how to complete the complaints, feel free to reach out. Please feel free to share this email with like-minded friends and if they are not yet members of the Coalition, please encourage them to join.
Finally, every member of the Coalition should be signing our petition. It is very important to have a sufficient number of signatures so that our government officials and legislators view use as a constituent powerbase that cannot be ignored. Please sign here: njpecoalition.org/petition
MICHAEL “MIKE” GOTTESMAN (he/him)
Founder, New Jersey Public Education Coalition
PO Box 4451, Wayne, NJ 07474
973-715-0986
Email: info@njpecoalition.org
Website: http://www.njpecoalition.org
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/njpec
Twitter: @njpecoalition
Our motto:
Engage parents, students, teachers, administrators, residents, taxpayers and other stakeholders in the battle we face in order to broaden and grow our power-base. Illuminate and illustrate why local school boards and school board elections are important.
Educate the stakeholders so they have factual information and can distinguish and discredit campaigns of disinformation, propaganda and conspiracy theories, while gaining the knowledge needed to make informed decisions about the actions of their local school board and their school board candidates.
Collaborate by creating groups in individual districts, and by county, to grow power bases that appear and speak at local school board elections and remind school board members of their ethical, legal and sworn, under God obligations to every resident, parent and student. Create alliances with other like-minded organizations so we do not duplicate the work and promote our cause in an efficient and effective manner.