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Attacks Fly in New Jersey for Losing Out on $400 Million Education Grant
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| Contributor | particleman |
| Last Edited | particleman Aug 25, 2010 10:17pm |
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| Category | News |
| Author | SHARON OTTERMAN |
| Media | Newspaper - New York Times |
| News Date | Thursday, August 26, 2010 04:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | It was, according to New Jersey’s governor, a $400 million mistake.
The state was drenched in recriminations on Wednesday as Gov. Chris Christie said a clerical error by a midlevel official had caused the state to lose out on $400 million in federal school reform money — an error that caused its Race to the Top grant application to fall short of the 10-member winner’s circle by just three points.
The mistake, reported Tuesday by The Star-Ledger of Newark, resulted from a failure to correctly read a straightforward question worth not quite 5 of the competition’s 500 points. The application asked states vying for billions in federal funds to compare their 2008 and 2009 school budgets to illustrate their commitment to education financing. Instead, a New Jersey official, whom the governor would not identify, compared the state’s 2010 and 2011 financing, thus forfeiting the points.
Not so fast, the state’s largest teachers union responded. The real problem was the governor’s failure to secure support from a large number of school districts — which cost more points than the clerical error and was cited specifically by some judges as a weakness.
In a lengthy news conference on Wednesday, Governor Christie, a Republican, said he took ultimate responsibility for the error, which “believe me,” he said, “I am not thrilled about.” But he said no one would be fired over the matter, then he assumed his signature anti-Washington tone. The Obama administration, he said, should have called, or checked the state’s Web site, when it discovered the error, which was on just one page of a 1,000-page application. |
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