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New Jersey teachers are no longer required to pass basic literacy tests
Not The Bee ^ | January 06, 2025 | Staff

Posted on 01/06/2025 7:28:42 AM PST by Red Badger

Call me old-fashioned, but I have always been under the impression that a minimum requirement for teachers would be basic literacy skills.

But that's just some outdated mumbo jumbo, I guess. Because in New Jersey, they need teachers and they don't care if they can even read or not.

A 6th-grade reading comprehension is NOT hard! Heck, there was a time when this was required to, you know, graduate to the 7th grade.

But after years of schools just passing kids along, grade by grade, learning apparently nothing, now we have teachers who have teaching degrees and licenses but who can't read as well as a 12-year-old!!

From Campus Safety Magazine:

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.

'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.'

Translation: "We just need bodies in the building." The people who voted in favor of this law will, in the same breath, tell you that homeschooling is not a quality education.

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, was a driving force behind the bill and called the testing requirement 'an unnecessary barrier to entering the profession.' NJEA is associated with the National Education Association (NEA).

Teachers' unions, what would education be without them? (Good. Education would be good without them.)

It's really quite insane.


TOPICS: Education; Government; Military/Veterans; Politics
KEYWORDS: arth; newjersey; nj
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To: V_TWIN

I graduated high school (NJ) in ‘69 and headed to college to study engineering. As a freshman, I found that calculus was required for physics. Having never heard the word ‘calculus’ in the public school system, it was ‘learn as you go’. At times I had to study ahead of the class to pass physics.
Interestingly, in the ‘50s, CA had one of the best schools in the country. They improved them so much it’s now near the bottom.
The big problem seems to be too much homework and GRADES!


21 posted on 01/06/2025 7:54:35 AM PST by sasquatch (Do NOT forget Ashli Babbit! c/o piytar)
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To: T.B. Yoits

I grew up in Mississippi when there was no compulsory education.

I knew kids my own age that had never set foot inside a schoolhouse...............


22 posted on 01/06/2025 7:55:55 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: Red Badger

“Those who can read, do. Those who can’t read, teach.”


23 posted on 01/06/2025 7:56:58 AM PST by FoxInSocks ("Hope is not a course of action." — M. O'Neal, USMC)
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To: FoxInSocks

XLNT!......................


24 posted on 01/06/2025 8:03:22 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: Red Badger

The students aren’t required to pass literacy tests (or any other tests) either. As such, they’ll be perfect actors, journalists, and Democrats.


25 posted on 01/06/2025 8:06:19 AM PST by Da Coyote
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To: Red Badger

I checked into this story, and I don’t think it’s a big deal.

For the record, I am NO fan of Murphy or public schools.

But, apparently, some NJ schools have had trouble finding teachers. So, they are turning to the teacher assistants who’ve been working there for years. I guess they want them to teach right now, instead of requiring them to pass a test first.

With the teacher shortage, some schools have been using educational software, instead of teachers. IMHO, educational software is the way to go. The kids would learn at their own pace at a much lower cost.

But, as long as parents continue to believe their kids can’t learn unless they’re sitting in a classroom learning the exact same thing at the same time as 20 other kids, the schools will want teachers.


26 posted on 01/06/2025 8:07:26 AM PST by Tired of Taxes
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To: Red Badger

And we wonder why the our HS students who want to have a STEM career can’t compete with the rest of the world’s students that engage in STEM careers.


27 posted on 01/06/2025 8:07:28 AM PST by antidemoncrat ( )
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To: antidemoncrat

Waaaay back in the early 70’s, when I was in HS, we had a transfer student from Iran, they were our friends at that time, and she was so far ahead of us in HS chemistry class that she was essentially college level educated compared to us.............


28 posted on 01/06/2025 8:10:30 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: Red Badger

ROFL!!!!

That’s a good one....


29 posted on 01/06/2025 8:11:34 AM PST by JBW1949 (I'm really PC.....Patriotically Correct)
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To: Tired of Taxes

Software doesn’t pay union dues.................


30 posted on 01/06/2025 8:14:24 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: Red Badger

Almost no doubt that illegal aliens who can’t speak, read, or write English, will soon be the new teachers in our public schools.


31 posted on 01/06/2025 8:18:50 AM PST by Sicon ("All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." - G. Orwell)
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To: HombreSecreto

I think NJ has a pathway for career professionals to become teachers. The shortage of teachers is nationwide.

Maybe the political climate in the school system is the reason people don’t want to teach now. I don’t blame them.


32 posted on 01/06/2025 8:19:36 AM PST by Tired of Taxes
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To: Red Badger

Exactly.


33 posted on 01/06/2025 8:19:55 AM PST by Tired of Taxes
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To: FoxInSocks

😁😎😂...............................


34 posted on 01/06/2025 8:22:18 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: Red Badger

New Jersey teachers are no longer required to pass basic literacy tests


An especially good boon for wannabe English literature teachers


35 posted on 01/06/2025 8:23:40 AM PST by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: Red Badger

“But after years of schools just passing kids along, grade by grade, learning apparently nothing, now we have teachers who have teaching degrees and licenses but who can’t read as well as a 12-year-old!!”

A fine example of the paragraph above was the “performance” of the NOLA FBI ASAC trying to explain away an ISIS flag with “not terrorism” while using her best Ebonics syntax & hoping her nose jewelry adequately covered for her obvious DEI status.


36 posted on 01/06/2025 8:24:43 AM PST by T-Bird45 (It feels like the seventies, and it shouldn't. )
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To: Red Badger

Another reason to homeschool. But poor families in the poor areas of New Jersey will be the ones who suffer.


37 posted on 01/06/2025 8:40:23 AM PST by Rummyfan ( In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.)
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To: Red Badger

You can’t have a congress full of Jamie Raskins without ignorant constituents.


38 posted on 01/06/2025 8:43:42 AM PST by niteowl77
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To: Red Badger

Lower that bar while raising that pay! It’s the Dimocrap way!


39 posted on 01/06/2025 8:44:57 AM PST by vpintheak (Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug. )
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To: Red Badger; Bon of Babble; Tell It Right; Flag_This; Sicon; metmom

Since most or all will have a four-year degree, what does that tell you about the value of a college education?


40 posted on 01/06/2025 8:52:22 AM PST by Retain Mike ( Sat Cong)
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