Earlier this week during a discussion-only joint session of the Senate and Assembly education committees about teacher shortages and how New Jersey certifies aspiring teachers, Senator Vin Gopal had this to say:

“That was probably the most alarming thing I’ve heard in the last five hours, that we have folks in New Jersey who are not certified currently to be teaching who are teaching in New Jersey,” said Sen. Vin Gopal (D-Monmouth), the senate education chairman. “I do think there’s a big difference between a certified teacher in Mississippi versus New Jersey.”

Senator Gopal is correct: there is a big difference between a certified teacher in Mississippi and one in New Jersey. 

But not in the way he thinks.

There are two ways Mississippi is a model for rigorous screening of prospective teachers, one that NJ should emulate. First, we should model our teacher preparation programs so that prospective teachers receive a thorough preparation in the science of reading. Second, Mississippi’s test to use to gauge prospective teachers’ proficiency in reading instruction is much more reliable than New Jersey’s.

The  National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) recently rated teacher preparation programs in each state to on how well they prepare teachers to teach kids to read. Seventy percent of Mississippi’s programs get a “A” or “A+.” None get an “F.”

How do New Jersey’s programs compare with Mississippi’s? Poorly: Ninety percent of our teacher preparation programs get an “F” for adherence to tenets of the science of reading. The highest rated programs get a “C.”

Now let’s look at how we certify our teachers are ready to teach reading, one of Sen. Gopal’s concerns. Mississippi uses a teacher certification test that NCTQ rates as “Strong” because it “addresses more than 75% of topics in each component and does not combine reading/ELA with other subjects.” New Jersey’s test is rated as “Weak” because the test “does not adequately address all five core components of reading.”

Now, let’s be fair. The oversight for both teacher preparation programs and the certification process are the bailiwick of the State Department of Education but maybe that’s not the most effective way to go. Again we can look to Mississippi as an example. Way back in 2013 the Mississippi State Legislature passed a law called the Literacy-Based Promotion Act, a statewide effort to improve  literacy outcomes for all students that requires school districts to align curriculum and instruction to the science of reading and to provide academic interventions and additional resources, such as summer camps and tutoring. Massachusetts, currently the top-rated school system in the nation, is working on a similar law.

New Jersey? Bupkes.

Bottom line: what does this mean for students? In the state Sen. Gopal denigrates, 2023 reading proficiency scores have rebounded since the pandemic, with 46.7% of students proficient in reading. That’s the highest rate ever in the state, in spite of three out of four students living in poverty. In the Garden State, with far fewer students burdened by poverty, only 42% of students are proficient in reading, well below pre-pandemic levels. 

New Jersey, we can do better. Let’s be like Mississippi.