[desigooner]

2 points to be noted:

1) NJ is very notorious when it comes to unions. this extends to public schools. not many people care about actually teaching as much as they care about the 3 month vacation and a very steady paycheck + a very healthy pension.

2) Up until this point, the NJ state controlled Newark public schools. Now, the gov has agreed to hand over the control of the public schools in Newark to the mayor, Corey Booker (who's the best thing to happen to Newark in recent history).

Recently, Gov. Christie cut higher ed funding to divert it to the public school systems. Now this doesn't help public universities like Rutgers in the state. Being a recent alum, I know the first hand effect of the state's constant budget cuts to the university since 2006-07 (about 61 million $ then through about 20 mill in 2010) ..

all in all, it's pretty much a cluster%^