Speaking to almost 200 students and staff members at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the New Jersey governor drew rounds of applause with his talk of sharply limiting teacher tenure, rigorously evaluating teachers and administrators, curbing the power of teachers’ unions and pledging to appoint more-conservative justices to the State Supreme Court.
Mr. Christie’s first ovation came when he said, “The reason I’m engaging in this battle with the teachers’ union is because it’s the only fight worth having.”
The ground he covered would be familiar to anyone who has watched the town hall-style forums in New Jersey that have made Mr. Christie a YouTube star. There, at least a few detractors usually show up to question him, and his policies and pugnacious statements can make even some supporters uncomfortable.
But here, during Mr. Christie’s 40-minute opening talk and a question-and-answer session of the same length, the response was less equivocal.
“I came away very encouraged, and I admire him for saying things that might be unpopular,” said Matt Shiraki, 26, a graduate student at the Kennedy School of Government.
The closest thing to a hostile question Mr. Christie faced came after he embraced the title bestowed on him recently by The New York Times Magazine: The Disrupter. Jenny Hanson, a graduate student in education, told him that she liked his ideas, but added, “I think using language like ‘disrupter’ and ‘battle’ and ‘fight’ could prevent buy-in.”
Mr. Christie, uncharacteristically, said he often thought about — and “struggled a lot” with — the notion that he is too combative, his language too harsh.
But he said he would not change his tone until the teachers’ union, the New Jersey Education Association, agreed that schools are in crisis and showed more willingness to make major changes.
“I have to convince the public that the house is on fire,” he said.
The friendly response here could reflect concerns about the state of American schools among those who study and may some day run them. It parallels opinion poll findings that Mr. Christie is more popular around the country than he is back home. And, of course, the audience was a self-selected one, turning out for a visiting Republican governor best known for videos in which he publicly berates people.
Still, many of those applauding him described themselves in interviews afterward as politically liberal. Any objections they raised tended to be technical rather than philosophical — like how, not whether, to evaluate teachers.
The tone of the session was polite and subdued, and the questions alternately supportive and wonkish. More than usual, Mr. Christie stayed away from incendiary language, though toward the end he loosened up and opened fire on the teachers’ union (“a political thuggery operation”).
He broke some new ground in saying that he planned to change New Jersey’s system of elected local school boards, though he did not say how. The teachers’ union is a powerful force in electing board members, and it is those boards that have approved contracts with the benefits and job protections the governor reviles.
“They’ll be the next step,” he said. “Even for me there’s just so much you can swallow at one time.”
Mr. Christie said that when he told his young son, Patrick, that he was traveling to Harvard, the boy replied, “You don’t go there, do you?”
A graduate of the University of Delaware and the Seton Hall University School of Law, the governor quipped that it had taken him 30 years to get here. But he also reflected on the stature of Harvard and the influence the audience would have.
“You are among the leaders of our educational future,” he said, “and if you’re not disrupted yet, I’m going to disrupt you now.”
