New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s terrifically honest keynote address at this year’s Excellence in Action National Summit in Washington, DC:

The news is just breaking that Commissioner Bret Schundler has been asked to step down from his position after several missteps over New Jersey’s ‘Race to the Top’ application.

(You can get the back story here.)

We have been pleased to work with our good friend over the past several months to further Gov. Christie’s education agenda for the Garden State, and no doubt, this news will be perplexing to many reformers.

You can bet that Governor Christie will find a great substitute and we applaud the high standards to which he holds himself and his Administration; an attribute lacking in far too many public officials.

Garden State Governor Chris Christie doesn’t mince words, and doesn’t suffer fools. His reaction to a compromised school choice bill, watered down to allow for swift passage in the legislature:

“If you gut the purpose of the program to begin with, what good is it?…

If you compromise yourself away to nothing, then I don’t know what you’ve won…

(Legislators) are irrelevant in this in comparison to the children in 200 plus failing schools in New Jersey who are being stripped of hope…

People wonder why there is violence in our cities. Violence is commited, in the main, at least in my experience, by people without hope.

They wonder why there is drug abuse in our cities. People who turn to drugs are generally people with out hope.

They wonder why families are disintegrating in our cities. Families disintegrate because of the poison of a lack of hope.

And the greatest antidote to a lack of hope is a world class education“.

(Watch his complete response.)