Some education reformers wish teachers unions would focus more on improving education than on lobbying. If so, 2006 was a disappointing year from New Jersey’s largest teachers union. According to the Star-Ledger:

Lobbying expenditures by two prominent unions — the New Jersey Education Association, representing teachers, and the Communications Workers of America, representing state workers — topped $675,000 last year, state Election Law Enforcement Commission reports show. That was double what the two groups spent pressing their issues in Trenton in 2005, according to ELEC records.The two unions, which staged a noisy Statehouse rally of 7,000 protesters in December, also added $335,000 in campaign contributions to the cost of the effort. That pushed their total expenditures to more than $1 million last year.