Testimony for Senate Education Committee on March 7, 2022
From Mike Volpe, Legislative Chair of CJ Pride and
Superintendent of the Moorestown Public Schools

The Central to Jersey Program for the Recruitment of Diverse Educators stands in full support of S-896, the bill that would eliminate EdTPA. It is our stance that EdTPA is a hindrance, not a help, pertaining to schools being able to hire the needed amount of qualified teachers to have NJ schools remain as high quality and effective as they are.

I applaud the efforts that the state of New Jersey has already made to help the current teacher shortage of which you are well aware. This includes the opportunity to hire recently retired teachers as a well as moving towards a suspension of the “NJ First Act” allowing us to recruit teachers who may wish to live out of state.I am asking that you make one more wise decision and eliminate EdTPA as a requirement for teacher certification.

Anecdotally, I am sure you have heard and will hear about the unnecessary additional hoops that prospective teachers must jump through and additional costs that they must bear, leading candidates to question if another profession offers greater opportunities. Knowing that, I would just like to share some data, specific to NJ. The chart below illustrates this well.

Whether correlation or causation, the simple fact is that when comparing the enrollment of students in NJ teacher programs prior to the EdTPA pilot and full implementation, we have seen a 50% decrease in students going into these programs, let alone the further reduced numbers of students completing those programs. These numbers are unbiased, coming from the Federal Title II data. Alarmingly, that data is only accurate through 2018-19. Once new data after 2019 becomes available, I think we will all find that these numbers continue to drop, making it even harder for NJ schools to recruit any teachers, let alone a diverse group of teachers.

Conversely, those who like EdTPA may counter with, “Well, what about teacher quality? What about ensuring high standards for teachers?” Several years ago, as you know, the teaching profession was steered and pushed towards making data based decisions for programs and student progress. That being said, let’s then take a look at the data that supports EdTPA generating higher-quality, more well prepared teachers for our students.

Oh, that’s right. There is no such data. There are plenty of anecdotes for those who want to keep EdTPA, but no data. So is data important… or is it not?

Furthermore, when it comes to recruiting a diverse pool of teachers, the best practices tell us to “go where they are,” meaning is it our responsibility to find them and not simply expect that such candidates will automatically apply to our districts. With the dwindling pool of teaching candidates in NJ, as noted above, in order to find such candidates,

School districts do need to go out of state and “sell” teaching in New Jersey as a career.
When we go out of state, we are often put in the unenviable position of saying something along the lines of, “That’s great that you completed a teacher program… and that you graduated with a great GPA and have all of the qualities that we look for in teachers! We want you! But… your undergraduate program did not participate in EdTPA… so I am going to need you to go through an additional certification process, even though you have graduated with a degree, are fully qualified, and can teach in the state you are currently in.”

My colleagues and I can sell teaching in New Jersey all we want… but what do you think the “data” says about our success rate in doing so in such a situation?

Finally, I want to be clear that education as a profession is under assault. Turn on the news and you can see that Board of Education meetings are strategically becoming a new political battleground where teachers are being told over and over that they are “indoctrinating” children rather than what they are doing - teaching them to be critical thinkers. Not only is this a punch in the gut to our current teaching staff, but prospective teachers see this as well…and they are starting to make decisions about moving to other careers where they can possibly get paid more and do not have to face such a public level of criticism, and in some cases, venom.

All of this being said, we need to make as many pathways towards a career in education as we possibly can. Not put more hurdles in the way. Not dissuade more young idealists from this noble profession. Not create a bleaker future for education in NJ. Passing S-896 will help us do exactly that.

I thank you for your consideration.