Tomorrow, Thursday, December 7th, the Senate Judiciary Committee will not interview Mary Bennett for a spot on the New Jersey State Board of Education. This is the third time the Committee has pulled her name from the agenda despite the lobbying efforts of the Murphy Administration, NJEA, and the NAACP.

Why does this committee keep pulling her name? Because some Republican senators are concerned about her decision not to disclose she is on the Board of the New Jersey Coalition for Diverse and Inclusive Schools (NJCDIS), which is in litigation against the state for failing to integrate school districts. Committee members want the right to ask questions during the meeting but each time the nomination involves an interview, Bennett backs out.

Why is she so shy? And why does Gov. Murphy keep nominating her? Let’s start with this: there are large gaps in her résumé. Here are three.

• Bennett describes herself as an “educational consultant for the Seton Hall University Academy for Urban Transformation,” and this title is in the Governor’s press release the first time he nominated her in September 2022. 

However, Seton Hall’s website makes no mention of such an academy. There are related ones—”The Urban Education and Policy Initiative”–but Bennett’s name is nowhere to be found.When I called Seton Hall, two different administrators had never heard of the “Academy for Urban Transformation.”  There is also no record of her having ever worked for Seton Hall.

• In the press release, and in an interview in the New Jersey English Journal, she says she is “a University Instructor and Education Mentor at Montclair State University since 2005.

One might assume she is a professor at Montclair. She’s not: she mentors students who are doing their student teaching, a position many retired teachers take on to earn extra money.  Indeed, in a short piece in the same journal she defines her status as “retired.”

• While Bennett notes her leadership role with NJCDIS, she doesn’t mention she chaired a committee that created Newark Public Schools’ transition plan to local control. In that document she writes the “core to this vision” for better outcomes for all students is “a shared responsibility” among district schools and charter schools. This which directly contradicts the stance of NJCDIS. Instead, NJCDIS claims (incorrectly) that charters increase segregation.

Bennett also does not mention she is currently under contract with Newark Public Schools to run a program called Project Grad Newark, for which she is receiving $25,000.

There’s nothing new about burnishing a resume. Yet these deliberate omissions seems like more than a polish.

It’s unclear if Murphy will continue to push forth Bennett’s name; after all, he’s coming into his seventh year in the Governor’s Office and has failed to replace a single State Board of Education member. Maybe he should stop doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Side note: Senate Republicans aren’t the only ones upset with Murphy’s nomination of Bennett:

“Democratic firebrand Lisa McCormick slammed Governor Phil Murphy’s political cowardice and Senate Republicans’ obstructionism in the ongoing saga surrounding the confirmation of Mary Bennett to the New Jersey State Board of Education.

“Weak and cowardly people should not buy a job that they cannot do,” said Lisa McCormick. “Murphy had no problem using his Wall Street fortune to get Bob Menendez re-elected or endorsing Bob Menendez Jr.’s congressional candidacy, but he won’t lift a finger to fight for good, honest, patriotic people like Mary Bennett.”

“After nearly six years in office, Murphy still hasn’t gotten a single one of his picks for the State Board confirmed. It’s time for him to stop acting like a Wall Street CEO and start acting like the leader New Jersey deserves,” said McCormick.”

[photo credit] Flickr: Phil Murphy