“All you guys did was listen to her side of the story — which was grossly inaccurate,” the governor said during a campaign appearance at the Nutley Diner this morning.
On Saturday, Melissa Tomlinson — a teacher at Buena Regional Middle School — showed up at a Christie campaign rally in Somers Point to protest the Republican governor’s education policies.
She said she approached the governor and asked him, “Why are you portraying our schools as ‘failure factories?’” She said Christie cut off the conversation and responded: “What do you want? I’m tired of you people.”
The governor today denied saying that.
“She said, ‘Why do you call schools “failure factories”?’” Christie recalled. “I said, ‘Because they are.’ She said to me, ‘Well, it’s because you cut funding.’ I said, ‘No. In fact, there’s more state funding for education today than any other time.’
“I never said, ‘I’m tired of you people,’” he continued. “What I said was, ‘It’s never enough for you people. No matter how much money I give, it’s never enough for you people.’”
A picture of Christie pointing his finger at the teacher during the conversation spread throughout social media websites this weekend. The story also sparked a wave of backlash on Christie's Facebook page.
And the rally ends, inevitably, with Christie arguing with a teacher pic.twitter.com/YyLsoJVTWQ— daveweigel (@daveweigel) November 2, 2013
Christie, who is running for re-election Tuesday, has lately accused his Democratic opponent, state Sen. Barbara Buono, of running a campaign colored by “anger,” while he focuses on positives.
But asked whether the argument with the teacher was a sign of anger, the governor said it wasn’t.
“The fact is: I’m happy to spar with anybody at any time on things that I believe in,” Christie said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m angry. This is my job, and people expect to hear from me about what I think about these things.”
Christie cut more than $1 billion in state aid to schools in his first year in office and has often battled with the New Jersey Education Association, the state teachers union.
He supports expanding charter schools and instituting a voucher program called the Opportunity Scholarship Act, which would give students in low-performing districts tuition for private schools.
During a speech to the Orthodox Union in Teaneck last month, Christie said he “would be happy to take as many dollars as possible away from failure factories that send children on a non-stop route to prison and to failed dreams, if we could take that money and put it into a place where those families have hope.”