In New Jersey, a teacher certification "backlog" has meant that over one thousand new teachers have entered classrooms without official credentials—some have been waiting for as long as nine months for their certificates. Without the requisite certification status, schools haven't been able to employ these teachers in full-time permanent positions, so instead they were hired as substitutes, earning nearly half the pay due to them--$22,000 versus $40,100. Still more ludicrous, these "substitute" teachers could only spend 20 days at a stretch in a single classroom by New Jersey law, so principals who didn't manage to secure waivers had to swap teachers among classrooms or tell these teachers to stay home for a few days.

Governor James McGreevey finally got wind of this problem, declaring a “state of emergency??? Tuesday that extends the maximum for substituting to 50 days, by which time McGreevey expects state ed officials to have cleared up the backlog. He has also ordered school districts to retroactively pay teachers their full salaries from the beginning of the year.

Just who was supposed to be minding this shop and why did it take a governor's attention to make it right?