New Jersey Increases Student Teaching Requirements

Want to be a teacher in New Jersey? You’ll have to student teacher for longer, the state Board of Education decided Wednesday.

The New Jersey State Board of Education on Wednesday adopted “significant enhancements” to requirements for teacher preparation and certification.

Among the changes are an increased duration for student teaching. Student teachers will have to do a one-year assignment. Previously, just one semester was required.

According to the State Department of Education, other key changes approved Wednesday include:

• Ensure teacher candidates are exposed to multiple types of classrooms, including at least one setting with students with disabilities, prior to student teaching.
• Require “alternate route” candidates to receive sequential training from a single teacher-preparation program. Previously, candidates could receive piecemeal training from multiple teacher-preparation providers.
• Require all teachers to complete a performance assessment in order to earn their certification. In addition to existing licensure assessments, which measure how well teachers know the content they’ll be teaching, performance assessments require candidates to demonstrate their ability to plan and teach a lesson.
• All teachers will now earn their standard teacher certification after demonstrating competency through the statewide AchieveNJ educator-evaluation system rather than a separate system.

This initiative is intended to complement the state’s improved evaluation and professional growth systems for practicing teachers, state officials say.

“In light of our recent PARCC and NAEP results, we have a clear call to action to do better in preparing our students,” said David Hespe, Commissioner of Education. “One way we can do this is to provide better support for our teachers, given how critical they are in helping all students succeed. Today, the State Board has helped us take another big step in that direction.”

Hespe added, “In particular, we know that hands-on experiences are invaluable in preparing teachers, and not all candidates have been getting enough of that time in the classroom. Providing more of these experiences will lead to better prepared teachers, which in turn leads to increased student achievement.”

Some of enhancements will take effect immediately, others will be phased in over the next few years, state officials said.

The increased student teaching requirement will take effect in 2018-19, NJ.com reported.