"Nobody is forcing a state to take this money," said Charles Barone, policy director for Democrats for Education Reform, a group that pushes for test-based teacher evaluations and has battled teachers' unions.
In office about a half and a year, Mr. Christie has battled teachers' unions and leaders of municipalities trying to find ways to balance their own budgets with less state aid.
"It only gets more complicated for him if the strike drags on for a long time," said Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, a national advocacy group that has often battled teachers' unions.
Welch is seconded by groups such as Ben Austin's Parent Revolution and Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst, with funding help from Eli Broad and the Walton Family Foundation, all of which have battled teachers unions and supported charter schools and "transformational" change in public education.
If half the battle for teachers is engaging students, the other half is engaging their parents.
The city is currently locked in battle with teachers and community groups that continue to resist closing large schools with failing records.
On the day I visited, a group of schoolchildren was acting out a battle for teachers and parents manning video cameras.
The Republican governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, escalated his battle with teachers and other public service workers over union rights today when he threatened to send out redundancy notices next week.
I staggered outside, dizzy with the realization that I could "battle" my teachers — that the ethos of the hip-hop rhyme cipher translated perfectly to the classroom, and I didn't have to wait until after school to use verbal dexterity, improvisational acuity and unexpected knowledge to try to bust somebody's ass.
In a nutshell, the group wants to preserve and extend the education policies of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and battle the teachers union, which has had an increasingly rancorous relationship with Bloomberg.
