Christie’s Biggest Regret in 2011: Education Reform

Gov. Chris Christie says not getting his proposed education reforms through the Legislature is his biggest regret of 2011.

The governor wants to implement merit pay for teachers, take away some of the job protections provided by tenure and to use publicly funded scholarships to send children in failing schools to private schools.

In the remaining weeks two weeks of this legislative session, he hopes to get rid of sick time payouts for public workers.

Christie and Democrats in the Legislature agree that the current policies on sick leave need to be changed, but are debating whether to eliminate the sick time's cash value completely, as Christie wants.

Some Democrats want employees to be able to collect up to $7,500 to discourage them from abusing sick time.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)