EDISON, New Jersey – “As a fellow educator in an urban district for more than thirty years, I appreciate that Ras Baraka is making public education a primary focus of his campaign and I am proud to convey our endorsement. Vital public services like education and healthcare are under attack, so we need to elect leaders who are committed to preserving and improving the public good, not allowing for privatization of community assets for profit,” said American Federation of Teachers New Jersey (AFTNJ) President Donna M. Chiera.
Baraka’s economic development plan includes working with Rutgers and NJIT to spin off new businesses, but also for the universities to play more integral roles in community development and helping foster a bottom up approach to creating jobs in the city. “I am grateful for the AFTNJ for its endorsement as it represents the best in collaboration in education from pre-kindergarten through higher education in Newark,” said Baraka. “However an endorsement is not enough, I will be looking to members at these institutions to play a direct role in creating a better city under my administration.”
The Newark Teachers Union (NTU), the state’s largest pre-kindergarten to 12 local, endorsed Baraka last month. The Union of Rutgers Administrators (URA), a local of more than 2,000 staffers at the state university’s three campuses including Newark, endorsed Baraka as well. AFTNJ includes both NTU and URA, and is the largest higher education union in the state with faculty, staff and graduate worker locals at Rutgers-Newark, NJIT and Essex County College in Newark among its 30,000 members statewide.
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