The Glitch in a Plan to Lower Transportation Costs in Lakewood
August 31, 2023
CATALANO: Murphy and NJEA Must Respect Parental Rights
September 1, 2023NJCTL Addresses Teacher Shortage as NJ School Districts Prepare for the Fall
New Jersey’s advocates for education are now using such terms as “crisis” and “boiling point” to describe the current teacher shortage.
While there has been a documented shortage for some time, it has been exacerbated by early retirements during the pandemic coupled with fewer and fewer college students choosing to become teachers. As a result, school districts are struggling to fill the ranks with qualified personnel for the 2023-24 school year.
Many school districts are turning to the non-profit New Jersey Center for Teaching and Learning (NJCTL), which has developed specific, low-cost strategies to address shortages of teachers in science, mathematics, and computer science. Since 2009, NJCTL has produced nearly 500 math and science teachers. In 2017, it transitioned all its courses and programs to be online and asynchronous; in 2020 it was licensed as a graduate school of education.
“This summer, NJCTL continued working with school districts across New Jersey to fill urgent vacancies to ensure instructional continuity for the coming school year,” said NJCTL Executive Director Robert Goodman. “We offer effective, affordable ways to address both immediate and long-term STEM teacher shortages.”
Marybeth Landis, the math supervisor at Essex County Schools of Technology in Newark, said there was a time when she would get 30 resumes for one advertised position.
“Now, we’ll advertise a math or science position in April, and three months later, we have only five candidates—and most wouldn’t have the right qualifications,” she said. “It’s like a tug of war. Not only do we have a hard time getting qualified candidates these days, but many of our existing teachers are retiring or being recruited by other districts who offer them bonus pay.”
NJCTL has been a tremendous resource, she said, helping promising candidates quickly pass the Praxis and earn an endorsement. The school has also had current staff go through NJCTL’s endorsement programs to help fill positions.
“We’ve had biology teachers get physics endorsements, and physics teachers get chemistry endorsements,” Landis said.
As part of the NJCTL “Leave Replacement Program,” school districts provide their students access to NJCTL’s online courses so they can continue learning while the district searches for appropriately certified teachers to cover long- or short-term STEM vacancies. NJCTL instructors grade students’ assessments and labs while also meeting online with them weekly to address any questions or concerns. This is combined with comprehensive, weekly support for the substitute or teacher who is covering the class.
“The Leave Replacement Program is an effective immediate short-term solution,” Goodman noted. “The district provides the course administration and classroom management; NJCTL provides the instruction and staff support.”
Leave Replacement should be combined with one of NJCTL’s three long-term solutions to create a permanent teacher with appropriate certification. While these options take three to six months before the teacher enters the classroom, the district gets a long-term solution.
The three options:
- Traditional Alternate Route, for candidates who have 30 credits in the subject they would like to teach and have a GPA of 3.0+. It leads to a certificate to teach physics, chemistry, biology, or mathematics and a Master of Science in Teaching and Learning (MSTL).
- Shortage Area Alternate Route leads to a teaching certificate and MSTL in one of those four subjects but is for those with a bachelor’s degree in any subject, with any GPA. There is no prior background or credits needed in the subject they are to teach; it is all taught within the program.
- Add-On Endorsement is for certified teachers of any subject. This program teaches those candidates the content, and how to teach the content, of a new STEM subject. It leads to an endorsement and MSTL to teach one of the four NJCTL subjects. Endorsements are also available to teach middle school science or mathematics, with the latter leading towards an MSTL Elementary Mathematics.
Angela Joyner, middle school principal at Foundation Academies in Trenton, agreed that it is especially challenging to staff math and science courses, especially during the pandemic.
“Through our partnership with NJCTL, we were able to quickly transition to a co-teacher model that ensured our students’ learning continued without a hitch,” Joyner said. “A NJCTL instructor provided content and pedagogical support for the in-class teacher. This arrangement benefited the students because they could seek help from two teachers—one online and one in person—and get the academic support they needed.”
NJCTL also prepares teachers to teach Computer Science and offers an MSTL Computer Science that should lead towards a teaching endorsement when New Jersey begins offering those certifications in 2027.
It is important to note that NJCTL’s programs are about a quarter of the cost of a traditional college or university; tuition is $180 per credit and there are no additional fees. NJCTL can offer courses and graduate degrees at such a low cost because of the ongoing support of the New Jersey Education Association and the fact that it has no physical campus, debt, or legacy costs; the only expense is for providing staff and curriculum.
“Solid administrator support is crucial throughout this transition, especially when working with staff new to classroom teaching,” Joyner said. “NJCTL provides content support, and administrators offer guidance with classroom management to ensure the classroom environment is conducive to learning.”
Photo, courtesy of NJCTL: NJCTL Executive Director Bob Goodman leads a teacher training class.
5 Comments
Contrary to what Bob Goodman and NJCTL’s staff claims, it is not a matter of there being a lack of science teachers, but rather that many certificated, science teachers are reluctant to enter certain geographic areas and their related districts. The NJDOE’s certification office can certainly supply data on the certified, science teachers it has in its system. It is the responsibility of the DOE’s Recruitment Training Office to accommodate and encourage those certified teachers to enter those areas where a need exists.
NJCTL lacks regional accreditation for good reason. Its programs do not permit subject-area mastery. This is why NJCTL’s students fail to pass the required Praxis, general-knowledge exams for science. They instead receive form letters that claim they can teach in the STEM areas in schools, without certification. Parents have objected to this for years, but NJDOE allows the practice to continue, perhaps due to NJCTL being a NJEA nonprofit organization. NJEA is notorious for its intimidation tactics, as advocate Mike Lilley can attest.
Cutting corners is never a sound remedy, and NJCTL is the epitome of that practice. The organization is more concerned with monopolizing the fine art of making a buck and not the betterment of NJ’s students. In other words, unqualified teachers will not have any positive impact on the reputed, science-teacher deficiency, no matter what NJCTL’s staff spins.
Bob Goodman is a snake-oil salesman and NJCTL is the faulty NJEA product he peddles. The New Jersey Department of Education changed its accreditation requirements for colleges to cater to NJCTL, so that it is covered under national certification. National accreditation consists of predominately diploma mills. NJCTL is a diploma mill. The accreditation that NJCTL holds, as awarded by the NJEA-beholden NJDOE, is substandard. On the whole, NJCTL is substandard. For example, to offer a program in Physics, without any actual, Physics-content courses being taken, is a farce. How-to-teach courses are NOT subject-content courses. This is all part of a money-making scam by the NJEA. To anyone considering attending NJCTL, PLEASE … PLEASE … be wary! Other states will not acknowledge NJCTL’s status or so-called programs and for good reason.
Teacher shortages have existed for decades, for certain subjects in certain districts. That continues even now, and shared data from DOE would help clarify further. However, it used to be that DOE had a recruiter who would search the available pool of certified teachers (not presently working in the school system) and reach out to them to fill much needed vacancies. The process was by no means perfect, but it generally did the job. There came a point where this changed. Now, DOE has a full recruitment office, which joined the certification office about three/four years ago. This recruitment office has little understanding of certification regulations or the teacher-evaluation processes, and makes no visits to districts in need. Instead, it advocates for NJCTL to supply unprepared teachers to fill spots, even if prepared, non-NJCTL teachers are willing to assist. This is the REAL reason for concern.