Gov Chris Christie Addressing OU Legislative Breakfast - Education Choice in NJ

foreign now foreign oh friday so one oh you okay down yes thank you here thank you very much we've just been told that the governor will be here momentarily and he apologizes for the delay he's uh doing six or seven things today and his previous one did get held up it now gives me great pleasure to introduce the mayor of teaneck mayor hamedu um it makes me great an honor to be here today john just told me i got three minutes hey you're ready so i'm winging it um throughout the last three years my story has been tied to the uh observing orthodox community and i feel such uh warmth whenever i'm here i feel like i'm at home so i feel it necessary i was talking when we talk about what's happening within the jewish day schools and the problems that we're facing as a religious community when we talk about family planning that are similar issues with the muslim community when we talk about family planning issues and how we're going to pay for daycare i think it's important that we let our our political leaders know that next year we're going to want to see some action on this that it's not just words it's not just showing up it's not just having breakfast with us but we want to be able to say that hey your job is to represent everybody and i am in here full support of the positions of the orthodox union when it comes to making education affordable for the jewish community for every community throughout the state of new jersey and i know congressman touched on this and i think it would behoove me to say this but the situation that's going on right now in iran is a very uh dangerous situation to say the least i think that we should all be monitoring that situation because it affects not only israel it affects the entire middle east and the entire world of former former presidents who go from saying from being holocaust deniers to now saying that the holocaust does it exist i don't know what to say other than exactly what netanyahu said was oh thank you you know it was you know just the exact absurdity of this situation so i encourage all of you to make sure that you stay vigilant on this because it affects all of us i'm glad everyone enjoyed the holidays and you've survived and you put on a few pounds i've enjoyed putting on a few pounds with you and i hope to see you next year thank you very much at this time i'd like to introduce josh berzanski for those of you who do not know josh he's on his way in for those of you who don't know josh he is our local advocate in training without him and without the work of his committee and maury libwack and others nothing would get done nothing at all would be able to get done to support our causes so at this time i'd like to introduce josh brazanski who's going to introduce honored governor elected officials honored rabbis sponsors friends supporters and volunteers thank you my name is josh new jersey regional director of the orthodox union advocacy center and i approve this message we are all acutely aware that the number one kitchen table issue in our community is educational affordability a few years ago the orthodox union under the leadership of dr simcha katz the ou began investing resources to open state advocacy offices and new jersey new jersey was the very first i am honored to have been chosen to be director of the first of now four offices to dr katz immediate past president of the ou we thank you we also express our appreciation to other ou leaders who support and promote the work of the ou advocacy center particularly ou president marty knackerson and the ou advocacy chairman your newberger and i thank the senior professional leadership of ou advocacy our director of state affairs and outreach and the executive director of the ou advocacy center nathan diamond but for us to have a real chance of success in our efforts the ou needs partners one individual who stepped up to the plate in order to move this initiative forward quickly is our good friend sammy sacko sammy president of the hillel yeshiva and deal in his usual zealous style worked on this even though he has a tremendously loaded schedule his drive to succeed has catapulted our efforts to unexpected heights sammy thank you for everything i'd also like to thank jonathan gallis barry square and the what as well as all the other members of our leadership team for their dedication to this cause we're stalling for a little bit of time ladies and gentlemen please rise to welcome our governor chris christie so all right thank you that was for me and now for our governor now a year and a half ago i had the opportunity to join the governor on his first and probably at this point only for a trip to israel the only trip in his first term to israel and it was a wonderful experience especially walking to the western wall which we have all done many times and being greeted like a like a rock star with cameras and babies and all these new jersey people just happen to have been there at the same time one story i'd like to share with you that stands out is ambassador dan shapiro gave us a briefing at the king david hotel the last day of the trip and ambassador shapiro said the only way that israel and the palestinians will make peace is if they both learn to trust each other when they negotiate and trust each other to make a settlement i rose up and i said mr ambassador please tell our president and give him the following message tell this is josh prazanski and i suggest that he bring the israelis and palestinians to trenton new jersey to the state house to sit down with governor christie because if he was able to get the democrats republicans to vote for pension embedded for reform and tenure reform it can get the arabs and palestinians and israelis to make at that moment the governor starts going like this and shaking his head i knew i should have left chops josh back in new jersey after what i'm about to say he's going to shake his hands i knew i should have left him back in israel my friends we're here today we have an issue that is not a democratic issue not a republican issue and not even a political issue it's a matter of educational opportunity for all of our children it's a matter of equality it's a matter of free choice and some might even say it's a matter of civil rights we live in a state where there are two classes of people when it comes to educating our children consider two families both families pay property taxes both have 60 percent and more of that burden that is earmarked for education however however only those who avail themselves of public education see any benefit while the families of 10 percent of the total amounts of school children in this state who go to non-public schools see very little or nothing of their investment why is that society benefits when all children receive a quality education this is the basis for the idea of public education three public schools are one means to provide educational opportunity but they are far from the only means non-public schools charter schools online schools and home schooling serve the same goal by providing parents with the means to educate their own children as only a child's parent knows is best for their child we need our state government to provide a funding mechanism that would assist working-class families by reducing costs as a barrier to educational opportunity and doing so can save money improve educational outcomes and crucially make society more equitable governments already use markets and choice to advance a wide range of social goals states allow medicaid recipients to choose their health provider the federal government allows food stamp recipients to choose their diet and housing voucher recipients to choose their apartment the federal government allows help grant and direct loan recipients to choose their college the goal of providing quality education to all students in grades k-12 should be no different now let me make myself perfectly clear our community in no way wants the state to pay for the instruction of religious education we are asking that the state provides support for middle class tax paying families that supports the secular curriculum in their schools parents have filled their obligation mandated upon them by the state's compulsory education requirement we want the help of each person in this room again in the state of new jersey to either offer educational tax credits to working-class families or to provide the instruction of secular education in all schools we want the legislature to pass a special education bill s 1929 and a 2869. this bill will help families that care for their special needs child our most vulnerable children the legislation will ensure fair and effortful treatment of special needs children from religious families alongside every such family in new jersey we need that bill passed by the legislature this november and signed by the governor to help those families afford security technology and transportation every child deserves the same health care the same secure school building the same technological equipment the same rules for transportation if a child resides between two and twenty miles from their school they should be busted regardless of whether there is a public school child being bused in that school district we need to move forward on these proposals and make life a little bit more affordable for these hard hard-working tax-paying citizens we don't want this crisis to hit such epidemic proportions that our schools would have to close what use would that be it would end up blessing taxpayers at today's cost a over four billion dollars per year to absorb these children into the public schools what we see is a mere fraction of what it would cost if our children went to public schools in new york and pennsylvania's funding sources already exist that make nonpublic school education more affordable than here in new jersey however we want to stay here in new jersey i invite each of you to work with us to help make that happen and now let's introduce our keynote speaker man who really needs no introduction what our governor does deserve is a thank you i first met him back in may of 2009 when he was running running before the republican primary what he said was his vision and goals back then have remained true until today he is a man who says what he means and means what he says but the respect and recognition his administration has in the orthodox jewish community in this state is definitely noticed and appreciated we have had unprecedented access to the highest levels in the state government i have had many conversations with the lieutenant governor and other members of his cabinet over these past four years ranging from education red tape for businesses homeland security community affairs environmental and ddd department development developmental disabled etc and in each case i have found the commissioners and their staffs willing to do whatever they can to accommodate the requests we have made and even if they could not they always tried and we're very helpful unfortunately some prior administrations that has not always been the case governor christie sets the tone for his staff and they follow suit and for that we are most grateful you welcome good morning and thank you all for the extraordinarily warm welcome it's great to see so many familiar faces here i appreciate the folks from both sides of the political aisle being here this morning see congressman prescribed here i always appreciate him being here in the state and doing the work that he does for the people of the state and now apparently dr castrell has become a political advisor to me i i read recently in the newspapers that he thinks i should be on tv more and uh congressman i appreciate your kind and heartfelt advice and i look forward to doing it as much as i possibly can especially in the next 30 days other members of the state legislature here like senator weinberg assemblywoman huddle um and others i'm sure i've missed some but i noticed the two i see right up in front i want to thank all of you for being here smiling over the shoulder of assemblywoman huddle which i don't think is something that normally happens to senator cardinale and so um we are bringing people uh together here this morning and i thank the folks here at ou for inviting me um and for your friendship and advice and counsel over over the years it is always dangerous when someone like josh says here's a man who needs no introduction and then gives me the longest there's lots of issues that we hold in common and care about very very much from funding to school choice to charter schools to take care of students with special needs all of which josh mentioned in this introduction your commitment to high quality education has made a difference in many many lives of the citizens of new jersey i commend you for the efforts i stand with you on those efforts and i'm here today to let you know that i share that very same commitment with all of you you know that i believe we need to provide each and every child in new jersey with an outstanding education and the reason we need to do that is very simple no matter where you live no matter what your economic background no matter what your ethnicity no matter what faith you observe the one thing that we know for sure in this country is that a quality education is the thing that opens doors for each and every person no matter who they are or where they've come from and we also know that our state spends more money on public education than any state union and that investment is reflective of the attitude of new jerseyans that there is nothing more important than a quality education for our children yet i would suggest to you that in many ways we have failed in that commitment when we have 200 public schools in new jersey that are family you can look at that two different ways some say well there's 2 200 schools in new jersey and 200 failing is acceptable acceptable you actually have people seeking high office in this state who say that having 200 schools that are failing in new jersey is acceptable and i assume for those folks it is acceptable because i assume their children don't go to one of those 200 schools that are failing in new jersey you see because if your child is going to one of those 200 family schools then you live in a perpetual state of both outrage and sadness outrage because there are people in this state who believe that having 200 family schools is acceptable and sadness because you know that your child will not reach their full god-given potential and let's stop there for a second and remember this that these gifts that we decide whether to exploit or not to their fullest our gifts from god and our failure to exploit those gifts for every child in this state in my opinion is a sin it is a sin and it is immoral and yet we have some in this state who say when looking at this failed system we'll get to it we'll get to it we'll fix it eventually let's throw more money at it because at least the throwing of money at it will at least quell our guilt we can say well we've spent more so you can't blame us it's someone else's fault let me be really clear this morning with an audience that i know is passionate about this issue we will not fix those 200 failing schools and we will not help the thousands and tens of thousands of children in those schools until we change the underlying failed system that created those failure factories in the first place and i need you to be with me in every other aspect of american life we believe that competition creates excellence in every other area of american life we say that our system of democracy our system of free enterprise our system of challenging everyone to be their best and reach their full potential is what contributes mightily to the idea that excellence is available for everyone in this country in a way that is different than most countries around the world except in public education we are sold a bill of goods in this state and across this country that says this is the one place where accountability and competition have no place we must trust that everyone will just do their best not test it not hold those who fail accountable not reward those who succeed and not bring competition into the most important task we ask of our children which is to learn and to grow and so for some folks in this audience and for people like me who have the economic wherewithal to be able to choose a separate path for our children for whatever reason we can take a different road but for the most part for those families in those 200 failing schools in new jersey they cannot take another path they have been consigned by the political powers that be in this state to one path the walk to a neighborhood school which is failing that is immoral those families because of their economic circumstance are being told you must accept failure and by the way you must pay handsomely for it as well if you go to the city of newark and we're paying 24 000 per pupil per year and you are not one of the chosen few who can get into an excellent charter school but you're one of the thousands on a waiting list for one failure is your destiny if you're in asbury park where we pay thirty thousand dollars per pupil per year and two years ago less than fifty percent of the graduates of asbury park high school could read in an 8th grade level we say you shouldn't have the opportunity to take a voucher and send your child to a different school outside the esprit park school system no we say continue to pay your property taxes in asbury park keep quiet and wait for us to fix it well these families have been waiting decades for us to fix it and the only people who have benefited from that system are the adults entrenched in that system with higher salaries higher benefits and lifetime pensions that's what people are standing up to protect oh and one other thing the millions and in my case tens of millions of dollars that they spend against those who dare to call this system what it is which is a failure a failure for the families who need it most because remember this for someone like me whose parents i was fortunate enough to be taken out of newark to livingston to an outstanding public school system so that i could be the first member of my family ever to go to graduate school so that i could grow up to be governor of this state for folks like me life continues on a fortunate and successful path not just for me but for my children but those who need it most those whose lives are filled with economic challenge at societal difficulties those are the ones that were serving the least and the folks who stand up to oppose the things that josh talked about his introduction that would candidly disproportionately benefit the most needy in our society the people who stand up to oppose that are the very people who represent them it is the greatest irony in this state that we don't have educational choice today not because the legislators republican or democrat in the suburbs stand up and oppose educational choice it is because of the representatives the elected representatives of those in our most challenged and failing school districts who stand up and oppose it why why how is it logical when you have thousands of families sitting on waiting lists for charter schools in newark and camden and trenton and jersey city and patterson those parents are speaking they're screaming they are screaming for help and those who represent them turn a deaf ear a deaf ear years ago when i was u.s attorney i went to the robert treat academy in the city of newark one of the best charter schools in this state a 90 minority enrollment african-american and hispanic children from the city of newark with some of the best reading and math scores of any school in new jersey not just of an urban school but of any school and i met a mother there whose son had gotten in through the lottery in kindergarten it was now in the third grade i got introduced to her we started a talk and i said to her what was it like the night you were sitting in that gym waiting to see if your son's lottery number was going to be selected to go to this school and she said to me chris i sat there that night knowing that whether he got picked or not was going to be the difference between him going to college or going to jail now imagine imagine any one of you in this audience this morning imagine yourselves in that same position close your eyes and think about the most precious things we have in our lives our children and imagine if you were confronted with the choice of the bounce of a ball where the selection of a piece of paper out of a barrel was going to be the difference between whether your beloved son or daughter was going to reach their full god-given potential or whether they were going to go to jail not because of what you've done as a mother or father but because of the luck of the draw that is the system that political leaders in this state have imposed upon minority children in this state in our worst schools because they refuse to stand up and fight the powers who fund their campaigns who fund endless television commercials telling you that those 200 family schools are somebody else's fault they blame it on parents some of whom are working three and four jobs in a household to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table they blame administrators and politicians and believe me there's plenty of blame to go around but i will tell you that the things that frustrate me as governor are not the unsolvable problems the mysteries of unfairness in our lives where no one can quite get their arms around the problem to figure out a solution the things that frustrate me in this job are the problems that continue to infect our state when we know what the answer is but we don't have the courage to implement it i'm here this morning to say to all of you who understand this issue personally and better than many that the crisis point has been reached and passed and the time to sit here and console ourselves with the idea that we're paying a lot of money towards failed public education so therefore we shouldn't feel guilty about it because it must be someone else's fault i'd suggest respectfully to all of you this morning it is our fault it is our fault because we are unwilling to stand up and fight it is our fault and when i said earlier that there are others who say having 200 failing schools is acceptable this is someone who doesn't understand what it means to be governor because once you become governor you know what you realize every one of these children is your child this is the most important issue in the state because growing inequality a growing gap achievement gap the largest achievement gap in america exists in this state and those who try to say they're for the poor in the middle class are the same ones who are complicit in keeping their foot on the throats of these families 30 days from an election and elections are important things and they have consequences and if you care about the issue of educational choice which i hear from almost every member of this community no matter where i travel in this state some of the loudest and strongest and bravest voices come from this community that you better figure out you all better figure out where everybody who's on the ballot in november stands on this issue and don't let them give you the hoo-ha about well i love public education i don't want any dollar taken away from public education let me tell you i would be happy to take as many dollars as possible away from failure factories that send children on a no-stop route to prison and to fail dreams if we can take that money and put it into a place where those families have hope this is a moral issue everybody it's a moral issue and there are tons of folks out there who are excuse makers excuse makers for what's happening in our state just remember 200 failing schools is acceptable acceptable it's not acceptable to me and while we have made some progress we haven't made nearly enough it's not going fast enough and if we're truly going to say that our society is one where competition fosters greatness then it is time in fact it is well over time to bring competition to our educational system and so you need to decide what the last four years have proven to you is that no matter how loud my voice is and it tends to be loud sometimes no matter how much i stand up to those interests and take 20 plus million dollars of tv ads in return that try to sell to you because i am for this i am against children no matter how much i do it on my own and even if you give me another four years to do it on my own i can't do it on my own so you need to decide who you're going to stand up and support you need to decide is this that important issue to you because i hear from your community all the time that this is a foundational issue this issue of educational choice well if it is anyone who comes to you and asks you for your vote the next 30 days if this is a foundational issue you better ask him that question and don't let them out of your handshake until they answer you and not with i'll look at it i'll examine it i'll think about it hell everybody we've been looking at this thing for decades there's nothing to look at anymore it's decision time i care deeply for this community and the values you represent i believe you when you tell me that this is a foundational issue that you believe is also got the potential to be a transformational one i agree with you who else agrees with you don't let him out of this room today until you ask them whether they agree with us don't let them out of your grasp in the next 30 days because let me tell you the next 30 days defines what they really care about because politicians are easy everybody we want to win if we don't win people stop returning our phone calls okay it's easy i don't care the republican the democrat independent i don't care if you're congress the goal is to win and be an authority so you can govern so this is your moment in the next 30 days because you're going to decide if it wins and loses and so now's your time to get some commitments that you're going to hold folks to you have my commitment and you've had it for the last four years i'll end with this tell you how many times people uh come to me after i speak on this topic and say man you you're hot on this issue aren't you you get more worked up about this and i see you get worked up about almost anything and people can't quite understand why it's really simple and i alluded to it before but i'll spell it out plainly to you now i was born in the city of newark brought home to a fourth floor apartment on the corner of south arch avenue and 14th street a building that no longer exists it's just an empty lot right across from west side high school where my mother graduated in 1950 back to her old neighborhood where she grew up i lived there until we were almost i was almost five my grandparents lived in newark on both sides my great-grandparents immigrated to newark that's where my family was from both sides but in 1967 my parents left they left because they became convinced that if they kept me in the newark public school system that i would have no chance to get a great education so they borrowed a thousand dollars from my maternal grandmother and a thousand dollars for my paternal grandfather grandmother and they took that money and put a down payment on a 22 000 house in livingston my mother complained to her mother that my father was moving her to the wilderness a woman who spent her whole life in newark saw livingston as the wilderness they brought me and my brother and then ultimately my sister there because they didn't have the money to pay for me to go and pursue another course of my education if i was going to get an education it was going to be in the public system and so they left to take me there and i know i know in my heart as certain as i know anything that if they had not done that i would not be here i would not be the governor of new jersey if they had not moved me out of that school system that is not to say that there are not some successes that come out of that system but what it does say is that's the luck of the draw i look at my classmates from my graduating class at livingston high school in 1980 and i see a parade of success so what that makes me wonder and i hope what it makes you wonder is how many children today are preparing to go to school tomorrow in one of these 200 family schools in our state who have every gift from god that they would need to someday become governor of this state but won't but won't because we didn't have the guts or the will to fight for them that we cared more about the comfort of adults that we cared about the potential of children that's why it's personal to me there but for the grace of god go i there but for my grandmother's willingness to give my parents a thousand dollars each and my parents vision for something better for their children's future and the luck that those resources actually were there at that moment go high that should not be the way this state or this country operates success always has an element of luck but it shouldn't be governed by