Calls for New Jersey education reform are coming from an unlikely group, the New Jersey Gasoline, C-Store, Automotive Association (NJGCA).

Sal Risalvato
loading...

Executive Director Sal Risalvato says he's noticed a disturbing trend for decades that has outraged him, students who are so poorly educated that he can't hire them to serve as gas station attendants.  "My employees being incapable of performing task that require only fundamental education."

In an Op-ed piece he wrote, "Think about it. If a person doesn't have the skills to pump gas, then what can they be employed as? What contribution to society can they make? Ultimately society pays for the uneducated and the unskilled through higher taxes and costs associated with crime and poverty."

Risalvato expresses a great deal of his anger toward the NJEA, which has only recently begun calling for education reforms.  He faults them for being more concerned about money and benefits for decades and not concerned about the education of students.  He says "from a professional point of view, they should have been outraged years ago, that the standards have been lowered over the years.  That students have been allowed to not be accountable.  That parents have been allowed to not be accountable."

Risalvato is calling on the State Legislature to pass teacher tenure reforms as well as the Opportunity Scholarship Act, which will help students attending failing schools, pay to attend schools in other districts.

 

More From 92.7 WOBM