In Ridgewood yesterday, golfer Jim Furyk was disqualified from The Barclays tournament because he arrived five minutes late, a misstep that could ultimately cost him $10 million.
“I’ve got no one to blame but myself,” he said.
For contrast, flash to the governor’s painful performance in Trenton, where he tried to dance away from his team’s $400 million error by blaming President Obama.
“He’s going to have to explain to the people of state of New Jersey why he’s depriving them of $400 million,” the governor said.
Let’s start with the obvious: Obama is not the villain here, any more than he is a Muslim. The mistake was New Jersey’s.
The Christie administration, seeking $400 million through the federal Race to the Top initiative, failed to supply needed information on state education spending. The panel of reviewers took away five points for it, out of a total of 500. That was enough to push us into 11th place, and to give Ohio the final chunk of money.
It may have been the most expensive clerical error in the history of mankind.
The governor started out yesterday by acknowledging his own responsibility, and then did what politicians always do when they screw up: He spread the blame.
Yes, the rules of this competition were obnoxious. Even when the reviewers discovered the error, New Jersey was not allowed to fix it.
No doubt, the feds were worried that every state would want to tweak its application after the deadline, so they drew a hard line in advance. But everyone knew the rules. Somehow, 49 states managed to obey them.
The Assembly and Senate will hold hearings on this, as they must. Let’s hope they go beyond scolding and get some answers.
For example, did we lose this money as a indirect result of the governor killing the compromise deal that Education Commissioner Bret Schundler had worked out with the state’s teachers union?
The union yesterday circulated documents indicating this was the case. In the last-minute rush to rework the document, the data was apparently dropped out.
Is there a chance that New Jersey could get at least a portion of the $100 million left over in Race to the Top funds?
Most important, how will this loss affect school reforms? A portion of this money would have helped help build a data system to track student test scores more effectively so we can accurately assess teacher performance. That effort needs to move forward, with or without federal help.
As for Christie, he could learn something from Furyk: Everyone is a loser once in a while. Whining doesn’t change that — it only makes you a sore loser.