NJ Education Commish Asked To Be Fired For Unemployment

The saga of New Jersey's $400 million education funding SNAFU continues. When we last left off, Governor Christie was so upset over the mistake that he fired state Education Commissioner Bret Schundler. But now, Schundler says he asked Christie to fire him instead of forcing him to resign. The reason? College is expensive! He told NorthJersey.com, "“I asked if they would mind writing a termination letter, instead of a resignation letter, because I do have a mortgage to pay, and I do have a daughter who’s just started college."

Schundler was forced out after Christie accused him of feeding him the wrong information for the application (which Christie said the federal government could have just found on the internet anyway). But now Schundler is saying Christie made the mistakes all by himself. Citing a saved batch of emails between him and the governor, Schundler said, "The governor made an error. But it wasn’t an error caused by me giving him the wrong information...It’s very important for it not to be perceived that I tried to hide something or mislead someone. I didn’t."

Schundler told the Wall Street Journal (paywall) he gave the governor accurate information, and Christie just happened to forget it during the interview with the federal government. "I said to him, 'No I did not have the data and I did not seek'" to give the federal judges the missing financial information," said Schundler, and guessed his "best interpretation, what I like to imagine, is that the governor, when he's on a roll and he's moving so quickly, he was thinking of what he was going to say and he's forgetting what I said two minutes ago."