To NJEA President Barbara Keshishian , who said in an NJEA press release yesterday,

When Commissioner Schundler claims that school district salaries are rising three times faster than the rate of inflation, that’s an outright falsehood. Over the past five years, the average rate of inflation was 2.76 percent. Over the past five years, the average teacher salary increased by 2.86 percent. Commissioner Schundler is misleading the public on this issue.

Hmm. That would mean that NJEA members have negotiated contracts that yield .57% per year over the last five years. Actually, annual increases over the last 5 years have averaged anywhere from 4.3% – 5%, not including increases in health benefits. Marlboro Township is a good example: the School Board there fought as hard as they could, proceeding through the entire ladder of negotiations at considerable cost to taxpayers — Mediation, Fact-Finding, Superconciliation — and teachers ended up with a 23% salary increase over 5 years, or 4.6% per year. If we’re using the average rate of inflation, as Ms. Keshishian does, the final settlement in Marlboro is almost 10 times the rate of inflation.

*New award from NJ Left Behind in honor of Mr. Glenn Beck of Fox News whom Jon Stewart describes as “a guy who says what people who aren’t thinking are thinking.”