OAN Staff James Meyers
12:57 PM – Friday, January 3, 2025
A New Jersey law that removes a requirement for teachers to pass a reading, writing, and mathematics test for certification went into effect on January 1st, 2025.
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New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy (D-N.J.) signed the law in June 2024.
The law, Act 1669, cleared the state Senate in a 34-2 vote as part of the state’s 2025 budget.
The legislation states: “The State Board of Education shall not require a candidate seeking any instructional certificate, except in the case of a limited certificate of eligibility or a limited certificate of eligibility with advanced standing … to complete a Commissioner of Education-approved test of basic reading, writing, and mathematics skills including, but not limited to, the Praxis Core Academic Skills for Educators test, in order to obtain an instructional certificate.”
Democrat lawmakers argued that removing barriers to obtaining teaching certificates would be the best way to address The Garden State’s teacher shortage.
The bill’s sponsor, state Senator Jim Beach (D-N.J.), declared, “We need more teachers. This is the best way to get them.”
Additionally, a teachers union called the New Jersey Education Association was a major factor behind the bill, calling the testing requirement “an unnecessary barrier to entering the profession.”
Currently, teachers in New Jersey are paid on average $81,102 annually, according to the National Education Association.
Other states such as Arizona and California have lowered their standards for teacher certifications as well. The two states put in place fast-track options for substitute teachers to become full-time educators and eliminated exam requirements in order to make up for teacher shortages that were affected by COVID-19, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Additionally, Massachusetts opted for lowering testing requirements for students in order to allow more to pass rather than make up for the lost education.
Furthermore, only close to half of New York students in grades three through eight tested as proficient in English and Math in the 2022 to 2023 school year. This comes after the Empire State spent almost double the national average on education.
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