Gov. Murphy Heads To White House To Talk Teacher Shortage

WASHINGTON, DC — Gov. Phil Murphy headed to the White House to "brainstorm" solutions to the nation's teacher shortage, which has impacted New Jersey. The new school year will begin soon for most Garden State schools amid the discourse around education becoming increasingly polarized at the local, state and national levels.

The White House meeting will include First Lady Dr. Jill Biden and several members of President Joe Biden's administration, including Secretary of Education Dr. Miguel Cardona. Murphy will participate in his capacity as chair of the National Governors Association — a role he assumed in mid-July.

Randi Weingarten, president of the New Jersey American Federation of Teachers, was also slated to attend the meeting.

More than 600,000 teachers in the U.S. have left the profession since January 2020, according to government figures. The state of Florida asked veterans with no teaching background to lead classrooms. Some Texas school districts will teach four days a week, and Arizona will allow college students to instruct children.

New Jersey will enter the school year with educator shortages at all grade levels for teaching math, science, special education, English as a second language, world languages, and career and technical education, according to federal officials. The U.S. Department of Education's teacher-shortage reports don't say the severity of the shortages. But New Jersey's issues with producing educators for the workforce preceded the pandemic. Read more: Who Will Teach NJ's Kids After Mass Exodus From Education?

At an unrelated event Tuesday, Murphy blamed New Jersey's shortages partially on the pandemic and former Gov. Chris Christie's often-combative relationship with teachers — especially the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), the state's largest teachers union.

But Murphy has left one bill at his desk designed to help bring teachers into New Jersey classrooms. The legislation would eliminate a required test for teaching candidates, which education officials say has contributed to shortages in the profession.

The measure received nearly unanimous support June from the State Assembly and Senate — two assemblymembers didn't vote. The legislation would immediately take effect with Murphy's approval.

But months later, which several schools in session, Murphy hasn't taken action on the bill. The governor said Tuesday he had "no news" on the matter.

Ninety-one percent of teachers who responded to a survey from the National Education Association released in February said that pandemic-related stress is a serious problem for education. Ninety-percent of members said feeling burned out is a serious problem, with 67 percent saying it's very serious. (The National Education Association is the largest teachers union in the country.)

When asked about potential ways to address the issue, respondents pointed to higher salaries, additional mental support for students, hiring more educators and less paperwork.

State Senate Republican Leader Steven Oroho has different ideas amid his party's escalating criticism of the NJEA. Read more: GOP Attacks On NJ Teachers Ramp Up As New Sex Ed Classes Begin

Oroho's suggestions included the following: ending COVID mandates in schools, letting "teachers focus on English, science, and math instead of gender identity and sex," telling the NJEA to stand down in its defense of the state's updated health curriculum, and restoring funding to the nearly 200 districts that had state aid cut.

The Republican leader used the mask mandate in Newark Public Schools as an example of a COVID mandate that he says forces educators to be "mask police." The state has removed almost all coronavirus protocols from schools but allows districts to institute their own mask mandates, which Newark schools will continue.

"New Jersey Democrats and the NJEA are pushing teachers into unnecessary conflicts with parents over controversial issues while the administration is cutting funding to hundreds of school districts," Oroho said. "Governor Murphy doesn’t need to visit the White House to understand the problems he’s creating in Trenton for our children’s teachers."

The NJEA has stood firm in supporting the state's curriculum, with new standards for health and sexual education set to go into effect this year.

"We are very concerned by the small but very loud group of people who are doing dishonest and dangerous things," said NJEA spokesperson Steve Baker, "like calling educators pedophiles and racists simply because those educators are teaching appropriate in accordance with the state’s approved, age-appropriate standards."