Dr. Marc Gaswirth, a retired public school administrator, has written extensively for more than 40 years about public sector bargaining and school human resources.

What a celebratory mood it must have been last week in Atlantic City at the annual two-day NJEA workshop, buoyed by the election of Mikie Sherrill and further lifted by the solidified Democrat supermajority in the state assembly.

The state union is currently beset with embarrassing legal charges against it and an unprecedented public relations nightmare that it wasted more than $40 million dollars of union dues on a campaign trying to install its former president as the state’s top official. The NJEA will still take credit for Sherrill’s victory despite opposing her in the Democratic primary. 

No surprise that it eventually supported her in the general election with a clear expectation that its interests will be rewarded generously in the coming years.

Should the governor-elect follow through on these interests, meaningful education reform during the next four or perhaps eight years will be stymied.  What we are likely to see is a continuation of the Murphy administration’s policies, which were great for school employees but far less so for students in the lower socio- economic bracket whose performance levels on standardized tests stagnated or declined. 

Mikie Sherrill’s substantial victory over her Republican opponent should be attributed not to messaging, clearly–stated principles and values, well-articulated policies, or the likeability of the two candidates. It was largely about the voters’ revulsion at the Republican chief residing several hundred miles from the state. 

Overwhelmingly, independent-minded state voters turned their backs on the man who in last year’s presidential election nearly won a majority of the electorate in a traditional blue state.

Sherrill’s impressive win even might warrant sending the president a thank you note for alienating in one year so many state voters who might have supported another Republican candidate who wasn’t beholden to him. 

The governor-elect, however, would be mistaken to believe that she received an overwhelming mandate to pursue and implement her policies. 

What is certain is that her victory will have the unintended consequence of blunting or stifling any serious discussions of education reform. The state’s Republican Party may now be all but irrelevant, but its education platform in the recent election raises issues meriting further attention. 

These include increasing the number of charter schools to address under-performing students attending under-performing schools, and introducing a school voucher program to further avail parents of options other than sending their children to local public schools that have failed to fulfill their primary mission to educate their children. 

In fairness, both gubernatorial candidates offered only bromides and generalizations to make school districts less reliant on rising property taxes; failed to address the complex and confounding nature of the state education aid formula; and, at the risk of challenging the cherished but outdated notion of local control, and deflected questions on why 600 state operating school districts might be excessively expensive. 

Nor did either candidate state a position or opinion on perhaps the most compelling immediate issue now before the courts, namely, whether many of the state’s schools are inherently racially segregated and what effect this might have on student opportunity and achievement.

On a lesser scale, they were also largely silent about the current collective bargaining model primarily designed to protect employee (union) interests rather than somehow also serving and protecting those of students, or whether the level of salaries, benefits and job protections provided to school employees aligns with any degree of performance accountability required of them.

Expect that these serious policy questions to be left largely unaddressed  during the Sherrill administration as they were during the departing administration in the face of formidable opposition from the customary interest groups calling the shots in the state capital. 

Firmly ensconced in power, the Democrats will probably continue to skirt and resist while not seriously addressing longstanding and admittedly difficult and uncomfortable political discussions. 

The governor-elect, in her recent victory speech, declared that “Good government doesn’t just manage problems. It solves them.” Few would disagree with her.

But, let’s see what happens now that she and her party control the levers of power. When all is said and done, much more is likely to be said than ever done. 

Photo courtesy of flickr.