Christie tries to shift focus from education blunder

Nothing like a $100 million gift to make some bad PR go away.

That's no doubt the moral that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has taken away from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's nine-figure charitable gift to the troubled public schools of Newark, just a few weeks after his own administration muffed a potential $400 million infusion of federal funds thanks to a one-sentence clerical error. What's more, Zuckerberg announced his gift on Oprah--a venue with a far greater profile than the local news broadcasts showing New Jersey education bureaucrats at a loss to provide the basic budget figures required under the federal "Race to the Top" grant program.

Christie barely spoke on the Oprah show, deferring to Zuckerberg and charismatic Newark Mayor Cory Booker as they gushed on about the mega-gift, which will promote charter schools in the city. But now, Christie is rolling out a pair of reform-friendly, pro-charter school initiatives of his own that will continue to shift the focus from the Race to the Top fiasco and onto his education reform agenda in time for the midterm elections.

Christie announced the new programs yesterday--in an event that also featured education reform darling Geoffrey Canada, who oversees a successful Harlem-based charter school operation. He explained that he wants to drastically increase the number of students enrolled in independent charter schools in the state, and called for the legislature to pass a bill permitting around 19,000 students to receive tax-credit scholarships to attend private schools.

A few days ago, Christie said he wanted to tie teacher pay to student performance on tests, an initiative that the state's union is not happy about.

"Teachers shouldn't be paid for breathing," Christie said, according to the New Jersey Star-Ledger. "We're saying teachers should be held accountable for the progress of our students. We want teachers doing that to feel rewarded."

State Democrats hit Christie hard over the Race to the Top mistake in August, which Christie at first tried to blame on the Obama administration before eventually conceding the error and firing his schools chancellor. A Sept. 21 Monmouth University poll found that the mistake likely eroded support for Christie, who dropped below a 50 percent approval rate. Most people who were aware of the incident said they blame the loss of the $400 million in federal funding on him, not the chancellor he fired.

Democrats have also criticized Christie for cutting $820 million in school funding when he closed the state's $11 billion budget gap, a move that marked him as a rising star in the national Republican party.

(Photo: Christie/Getty.)