As this article shows, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey has decided that the state needs charter schools so badly that he can’t wait for the Legislature to act. He plans to do by regulation what the Legislature has thus far failed to do: To allow more charter schools and possibly an online charter school as well.
What’s the hurry?
The evidence is clear that charters don’t get different results from public schools when they enroll the same children. And the evidence is equally clear that online charters get worse results than public schools. There is no miracle in calling a school a charter, although it is true that nearly 90% of charters are non-union. Maybe that’s the point of having more charters: to get rid of union jobs.
There may be another reason for the governor’s impatience. As an article in the Star-Ledger showed last April, many of Christie’s bills are closely aligned with the ALEC model legislation. ALEC calls for charters that receive the same funding as public schools, and for for-profit online schools.
The Legislature is dragging its feet.
But Governor Christie can’t let Bobby Jindal and other rightwing governors outdo him in putting the ALEC plans into action.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
NJEA has entered the charter school dialogue to help change the law so that the public is served. NJEA has also announced a campaign to recruit charter school employees. This new campaign for organizing charter school employees is official. There are many reasons but one that most people do not think about is this: Charter school employee salaries bring down the salaries of their neighboring public schools. If, in fact, charter schools exist to bust unions, the NJEA is doing its level best to take that result out of the equation.
LikeLike
So he is going to do an executive order? Isn’t this what they decry about Obama?
LikeLike
Yes, it is what “they” (whoever they are but I’m assuming those nasty Republicans) decry just as the Democrats should have been decrying all those Bush executive orders that went against the intent of the lawmakers. And as we all should have been decrying since they were first instituted. From Wiki:
Until the early 1900s, executive orders went mostly unannounced and undocumented, seen only by the agencies to which they were directed. However, the Department of State instituted a numbering scheme for executive orders in 1907, starting retroactively with an order issued on October 20, 1862, by President Abraham Lincoln. The documents that later came to be known as “Executive Orders” probably gained their name from this document, captioned “Executive Order Establishing a Provisional Court in Louisiana.”[4]
Until the 1950s, there were no rules or guidelines outlining what the president could or could not do through an executive order. However, the Supreme Court ruled in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 US 579 (1952) that Executive Order 10340 from President Harry S. Truman placing all steel mills in the country under federal control was invalid because it attempted to make law, rather than clarify or act to further a law put forth by the Congress or the Constitution. Presidents since this decision have generally been careful to cite which specific laws they are acting under when issuing new executive orders.
Critics have accused presidents of abusing executive orders, of using them to make laws without Congressional approval, and of moving existing laws away from their original mandates.[6] Large policy changes with wide-ranging effects have been effected through executive order, including the integration of the armed forces under Harry Truman and the desegregation of public schools under Dwight D. Eisenhower.
It is quite common for presidents to issue executive orders that instruct federal agencies to enact administrative regulations in order to circumvent the legislative process altogether, though, as alluded to above, this can violate the constitution in a number of ways. Presidents are quite aware that congressional politics can defeat or otherwise prevent the passage of legislation presidents deem politically important. In this regard, US Presidents have issued executive orders calling upon federal agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Energy (DOE), to amend administrative regulations where the political process of adopting new congressional legislation necessary to implement multilateral environmental regulatory treaty obligations a president wishes for the US to assume would prevent US ratification of/accession to that treaty.
LikeLike
Now, I’m not sure how executive orders work for the governors of each state. I’m sure that each states spell out what can and can’t be done.
LikeLike
Appreciated this history lesson.
LikeLike
YES and I for one am sick of it. Although we have DOE’s that bypass the legislature too.
LikeLike
Regulations cannot legally be used to change (vs. interpret) the underlying legislation.
Governor Christie/Chris Cerf cannot make these changes via regulations unless the NJ Legislature allows it. The Legislature can override regulations that exceed the law through two majority votes. No signature is required from the Governor.
Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg and Senator Nia Gill have co-sponsored legislation in the Senate to do just that and the same legislation has been introduced in the NJ Assembly by Education Chair Patrick Diegnan and Assemblywoman Mila Jasey.
LikeLike
It’s rather obvious that ALEC-aida and its cronies are trying to smash-&-grab as much as they can before they start losing elections. This is predicated on the fact that it’s very hard to repeal bills once passed, and all but impossible to recover public property and resources once they’ve been sold off to private entities.
LikeLike
He’s also in a race against himself. He knows he will not get re-elected so he has to do as much damage as he can before he leaves.
LikeLike