STATE OF NEW JERSEY
221st LEGISLATURE
PRE-FILED FOR INTRODUCTION IN THE 2024 SESSION
Sponsored by:
Senator SHIRLEY K. TURNER
District 15 (Hunterdon and Mercer)
SYNOPSIS
Prohibits Commissioner of Education from approving certain tests for teacher certification candidates with extended retake waiting periods.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
Introduced Pending Technical Review by Legislative Counsel.
An Act concerning teacher certification and supplementing chapter 26 of Title 18A of the New Jersey Statutes.
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. a. The Commissioner of Education shall not approve any assessment of basic skills for a candidate for teacher certification that mandates a waiting period of more than 14 days prior to the candidate’s eligibility to retake the test.
b. The commissioner shall not approve any State test of subject matter knowledge for a candidate for teacher certification that mandates a waiting period of more than 14 days prior to the candidate’s eligibility to retake the test.
c. This section shall not be construed to limit the acceptance of any approved alternate means of assessing a candidate’s proficiency in the use of the English language and in mathematics, including, but not limited to, the Scholastic Aptitude Test, ACT Assessment, or Graduate Record Examination.
2. This act shall take effect on the first day of the third month following the date of enactment, except that the Commissioner of Education may take any anticipatory action as shall be necessary for implementation of this act.
STATEMENT
This bill prohibits the Commissioner of Education from approving certain tests for teacher certification candidates with extended retake waiting periods.
Under current State Board of Education regulations, a candidate for teacher certification is required to demonstrate basic skills proficiency through the achievement of a minimum score on a commissioner-approved test of basic reading, writing, and mathematics. Currently, the Department of Education uses the Praxis Core Academic Skills for Educators test (Praxis) as the sole commissioner-approved measure of basic skills proficiency.
The test provider of the Praxis mandates that a teacher candidate wait at least 28 days after the previous test to be eligible to retake the test. Pursuant to the test provider’s policy, any teacher candidate that violates the retake policy will have his or her test scores canceled without reimbursement of test fees.
This bill prohibits the commissioner from approving any assessment of basic skills and any subject matter test for a candidate for teacher certification that mandates a retake waiting period of more than 14 days.
Alternatively, the regulations provide that a candidate for teacher certification may meet the basic skills testing requirement by demonstrating a score on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), ACT Assessment (ACT) or Graduate Record Examination (GRE) at or above the cut score for the year in which the exam was taken. The provisions of the bill do not affect the retake waiting periods for the SAT, ACT, and GRE.