Despite the fact that some districts spend as much as $33,000 on pupils per year, less than one-third graduate and up to 90 percent of those who continue on to college require remedial courses, Christie said.
“Money is not the answer to this problem,” he said. “New Jersey is the laboratory which proves the failure of that. No one spends more.”
The audience of several hundred responded enthusiastically to Christie’s remarks, and gave him several standing ovations. However, one member of the audience, Ed School student Jennifer L. Hanson, criticized Christie’s incendiary rhetoric and for boasting about his nickname “The Disrupter.”
In response to Hanson’s comment, Christie said he would tone down his rhetoric only after he could find a successful compromise with union leaders.
“You can’t reason at the moment with these folks,” he said. “They’ve gotten their own way, all the time. This fight has to be had.”
—Staff writer Michelle M. Hu can be reached at michellehu@college.harvard.edu.