her first NJRR interview, Heather Warburton sits down with friend and fellow
comrade Melissa Tomlinson. Melissa is an education activist who boasts some
impressive credentials. Apart from her role in South Jersey Women for
Progressive Change, she was Atlantic County freeholder candidate for the Green
Party of New Jersey and is vice president of her local NJEA association.
Comrades Melissa Tomlinson and Heather Warburton
A bad Governor sparked an amazing activist
got her start in activism about five years ago. While in grad school, she came
across Professor Diane Ravitch from whom she learned about Badass Teacher’s
Association. She says her true break came after a debate with former New Jersey
Governor Chris Christie. “I asked him why he continued to portray our schools
as failure factories, when we are usually second or third in the nation,” she
Running 3rd Party
was also the Green Party candidate for Atlantic County Freeholder. She
remembers testing the waters after the Christie debate to learn the campaign
process and the potential of her own name recognition. “Having the Green Party
behind me with a set of values that I believed in was really exciting,” she
says. She notes the challenges of running as a third-party candidate, but says
that meeting people was her favorite part of the whole campaign process. “The
two-party system is really diminishing and silencing voices. We always need
that party from our side to push the agenda.” She recommends potential
candidates focus on central issues to change and use that as messaging, “If you
repeat that over and over again, the parties that are in power right now will
Teaching
hosted a workshop at the Green Party of New Jersey’s annual convention in 2017 to
speak to and train future candidates. She has also attended the 2017 Labor
Notes conference in Chicago, which organizes around union support and worker’s
On Union Support
core issue of importance to Melissa is teacher’s rights. She takes issue with
the leadership of educators’ unions in their lack of support for members, and
that nationwide teachers are striking because the past decades of education
reform have failed. “For too long teachers have been blamed for poor test
scores, when really test scores are nothing more than a reflection of the
socioeconomic status of the community around them,” she explains. Melissa
recommends social media as a way to get involved, along with donations raised
through GoFundMe which are aimed to help striking teachers.
Hunger in Schools
says one of the most pressing concerns is the availability of food to children
whose only meals are given to them at school. “That even shouldn’t be a
concern,” she states. “As a community, we should be able to take care of our
children even outside of school, but the fact that some of these schools are
over like a 70% free and reduced lunch rate, and we have to make sure that they
are still getting food on the days th
