Aspiring public school teachers in New Jersey are no longer required to pass the state’s basic skills exam in order to be certified.
New Jersey Democratic Governor Phil Murphy passed Act 1669 as part of the state’s 2025 budget in June to address a teacher shortage, Read Lion reports. The law went into effect on Jan. 1, 2025. Individuals seeking an instructional certificate will no longer need to pass the Praxis Core Test, a basic skills test for reading, writing, and math that is administered by the state’s Commissioner of Education. Candidates still do, however, need to pass the Praxis Subject Tests that are specific to their degree.
“We need more teachers,” Democratic Sen. Jim Beach, who sponsored the bill, said in May 2024 when the chamber cleared the bill in a 34-2 vote. “This is the best way to get them.”
Just a few months prior, Murphy also signed a similar bill into law that established an alternative pathway for teachers to sidestep the testing requirement. According to Read Lion, the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), a teachers union that is associated with the National Education Association (NEA), was a driving force behind the bill and called the testing requirement “an unnecessary barrier” to those who want to teach but may not perform well on standardized exams.
New York, California, Arizona Lower Teacher Requirements
In 2017, New York also scrapped its basic literacy requirements for teachers, noting it was meant to increase diversity among teachers. However, according to the NEA, only about half of New York students in grades three through eight tested proficient in English and math during the 2022-2023 school year despite the state spending almost twice the national average on education.
California and Arizona also lowered requirements for teacher certification by implementing fast-track options for substitute teachers to become full-time educators and eliminating exam requirements to make up for shortages in the field that were worsened by the pandemic, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
What Are New Jersey’s Teaching Requirements?
Although New Jersey eliminated passing the Praxis Core Test as requirement, other significant steps must be taken in order for someone to obtain their instructional certificate.
Like the rest of the U.S., New Jersey requires a bachelor’s degree to teach, according to Teachers of Tomorrow. As of Sept. 2016, candidates must achieve a cumulative 3.0 GPA out of 4.
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Teaching candidates must also complete an accredited teacher preparation program offered by an approved provider and complete a minimum of 175 field hours.
Former Educator’s Opinion on Eliminating Teacher Literacy Exams
Erika Sanzi, former educator and current director of outreach at Parents Defending Education, a national grassroots organization, spoke to the National News Desk about why she is against Act 1669.
“It’s important to know that the teachers union, specifically in this case, the NEA, pushes really hard for this. I’m a former member of the NEA in two states. Generally, whatever they push for, tends to be something that’s not particularly good for students,” said Sanzi. “The NEA wants to eliminate all barriers to teaching because that increases their number of dues-paying members, and when that’s your mission, student learning and quality control really aren’t priorities at all and so that’s a concern, for sure.”
Sanzi says she took a similar test in Massachusetts in 1998 to get her teaching certification and that removing the requirement will hurt both students and teachers.
“These are low-rigor tests. We’re not talking about the LSAT here. So the fact that the failure rates on these tests have been so high for so long, that is a problem. That’s really an indictment of not only of the education system that these aspiring teachers are coming out of but the colleges of education that give them a degree even though they’re not remotely qualified,” she said. “Teacher shortages are real in some subjects, that is true, but eliminating the test requirement, in my opinion, does not bode well for students who are still trying to recover from massive learning losses during the pandemic.”
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According to an annual report from the state’s Department of education, New Jersey is especially in need of math and science teachers.
Heather Peske, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, agrees that lowering the bar for becoming a teacher is detrimental to the profession and students.
“For states to drop standards without replacing them with another meaningful measure of academic aptitude doesn’t do anyone a favor in the long-term,” she told USA Today “States are making it easier to become a teacher, though the job of being a teacher hasn’t gotten any easier.”
What Proponents Have to Say About Eliminating Praxis Core Test
Researcher Gloria Ladson-Billings, known for her work on culturally relevant pedagogy, has previously stated that exams like the Praxis don’t actually demonstrate a candidate’s ability to teach and prevent strong candidates from entering the field, according to Kappan Online. These artificial barriers, Ladson-Billings and other researchers say, disproportionately impact teacher candidates of color.
USA Today reports that many education leaders have applauded the shift away from standardized testing because it will allow more students of color, first-generation students, and students from low-income families – groups that historically score lower on standardized tests and are less likely to retake is after initially failing – a chance at becoming teachers. The exam costs approximately $150.
Weadé James, vice president of organizational advancement at the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE), told USA Today that she believes the exams are duplicative.
“Why would a candidate applying to a teacher preparation program need to meet additional requirements, like a basic skills assessment, when they’ve already met the requirements for admission to the university?” she said.
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In 2021, AACTE looked at the history of these assessments and found their impact on teachers of color has been profound and persistent for decades.
In May 2024, the North Carolina Association of Colleges for Teacher Education announced it and its public and private independent member institutions support the remove of the Praxis Core, or an equivalent, as a requirement for entry to traditional educator preparation programs (EPPs). The group says in 2021, 60% of states did not require Praxis Core or any other basic skills exam to enter a teacher education program.
During the pandemic, North Carolina suspended the requirement for the 2020-2021 academic year. Statewide enrollments in EPPs increased 34.3% from the previous year, according to the group. Enrollment increased specifically for minoritized teacher candidates during this time, with Black and Hispanic candidate enrollment increasing 51.5% and 48.2% from the previous year.
The Teacher Shortage’s Impact on School Safety
Teachers of Tomorrow reports various studies place the current teacher shortage in the U.S. at 55,000 vacant positions and an additional 270,000 teaching positions currently filled by underqualified teachers.
While many feel lowering standards isn’t the best solution for addressing teacher shortages, studies have proven shortages not only impact student academic achievement but also student safety. According to a 2023 Scholaroo study, of the 10 states with the lowest teacher-to-state population ratio, three of them – Nevada, California, and Arizona – also ranked in the bottom 10 states for student safety.
Although New Jersey continues to deal with a teacher shortage, on a positive note, it is among the 10 states with the highest teacher-to-state population ratio and is also ranked in the top 10 for student safety.
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School safety has also proven time and again to impact teacher retention and recruitment. A survey of 15,000 educators found a growing trend of students verbally and physically harassing teachers. One-third of surveyed teachers reported experiencing at least one incident of verbal or threatening violence from students during the pandemic, and over 40% of school administrators reported verbal or threatening violence from parents. All respondents reported significant verbal or threatening victimization from students, parents, colleagues, or administrators.
With violence in schools on the rise, more teachers are leaving the profession and many who were once interested in becoming teachers have now changed their career paths due to safety concerns. Each issue fuels the other, and various entities are trying to come up with ways to combat the shortage.
Education Department Announces 5-Year Plan to Improve Teacher Recruitment, Retention Strategies
In Sept. 2024, the Institute of Education Sciences, the U.S. Department of Education’s research wing, announced a newly-funded five-year initiative intended to find more effective teacher recruitment and retention strategies for American schools. Retention policies being studied by the group include:
- Grow-your-own initiatives designed to address shortages of teachers in high-needs districts and increase teacher diversity;
- Financial support to teacher candidates in exchange for work commitments;
- Provision of labor market information to teacher candidates intended to influence their decisions about specialization and job searching;
- Licensure reforms that provide temporary licensure and/or change the cut scores required to pass licensure tests;
- Financial incentives, including salary floor policies, pay-for-performance policies, and financial incentives targeted to teachers in low-income schools and/or in specific shortage subject areas; and
- Teacher working conditions, including the 4-day school week, Advanced Teaching Roles, and working conditions negotiated in collective bargaining agreements.
