The new law is intended to address the state’s teacher shortage by lowering the requirements for certification.
The new law took effect on New Year’s Day. As a result, individuals seeking an instructional certification no longer need to pass the Praxis Core Test administered by the state’s Commissioner of Education.
While the bill eliminates the basic skills test, New Jersey will still require teachers to hold a bachelor’s degree and pass specialized tests within their subject areas.
Erika Sanzi, the director of outreach for Parents Defending Education, a national organization that advocates for parents to have a voice regarding what their children learn, told The Christian Post that New Jersey eliminated a “very low rigor test.”
The test’s purpose, Sanzi added, is to screen out teachers who lack “basic competency in reading, writing and math.”
She added, “It is a major red flag that so many aspiring teachers fail that test — and it is indefensible that the teachers’ union and state legislature decided that the solution to that problem was to eliminate the test altogether.”
The change also drew criticism from Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who commented in a Sunday X post, “So teachers don’t need to know how to read in New Jersey?” He asked. “Seems like that would make it challenging to teach kids how to read.”