Three years ago the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) graded teacher preparation programs on how thoroughly they cover the science of reading. Fifty percent of New Jersey’s teacher prep programs got an “F.” 

Yet there’s more than enough blame to go around: according to a new analysis from Excel in Ed, the New Jersey Department of Education has failed to adopt “minimal fundamental literacy principles.” In fact, of the 17  identified principles, our DOE has adopted only four.

Excel in Ed divides the 17 principles into four categories. Here is where NJ comes out:

• In the first category, Supports for Teachers and Policy, we have implemented Literacy/Reading Coaches and Funding for Literacy Efforts but not Science of Reading (SOR) Training or Teacher Prep Program Alignment to SOR and/or SOR Assessment.
• In the second category, Assessment and Parent Notification, we have implemented Dyslexia Screener for At-Risk Students but not Universal Screener or Notify Parents of Students Identified with Reading Deficiency.
• In the third category, Instruction & Intervention, we have implemented Regularly Monitor Student Progress but not District Adoption of High-Quality Instructional Materials, Eliminating Three-Cueing Instructional Materials, Individual Reading Plans, Evidence-Based Interventions, or Summer Reading Camps.
• In the fourth category, Retention & Intervention, we have not implemented one of the “minimal fundamental literacy principles”: Initial Determinant Retention at 3rd Grade Based on State Assessment, Multiple Options for Promotion, or Good Cause Exemptions for Some Students.

The only states that met fewer principles than New Jersey were Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire.

Recently Politico reported that Education Law Center’s spokeperson Sharon Krengel “delivered a scathing rebuke of the the state Department of Education which she said is currently operating at a fraction” of their capacity and “this limited capacity means that the DOE is unable to provide the necessary assistance” to districts” due to its lack of “leadership, staff, and expertise.” Krengel was speaking about the DOE’s seeming inability to oversee a preschool expansion but the same could be said of its oversight of literacy programs.

A standout tidbit from today's joint committee meeting on public schools: @EdLawCenter's Sharon Krengel says the state DOE "no longer has the leadership, the staff or the expertise to perform the functions that are at the center of successful preschool expansion."

— Carly Sitrin (@CarlySitrin) February 8, 2023

Maybe that’s because the DOE is using its limited capacity to wage culture wars, issuing mandates on gender identity instead of ensuring that all NJ children have access to data-informed reading instruction.

Meanwhile, over 60% of NJ high school graduates can’t pass a 10th grade reading test and the DOE hasn’t mandated that NJ teachers are properly trained in the science of literacy. We’re fighting the wrong war.