New Jersey Joins the Move Away from Standardized Performance Assessments for Teacher Licensure

By Drew Gitomer, Emily Hodge, Rachel Garver, and Colleen McDermott

In 2022, New Jersey eliminated the requirement that all teacher candidates pass a standardized performance assessment for certification.  Instead, educator preparation programs (EPPs) must now administer a performance assessment of their choosing.  In this blog entry, we describe how the actions of New Jersey are part of a larger movement across states during the last five years.  While states with very different political profiles made similar decisions to first adopt and then later reject standardized performance assessments, the reasoning behind such actions can vary markedly.

By 2019, 19 states had put in place standardized performance assessment requirements.  The assessment that states most frequently required teacher candidates to pass was the Educative Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA).  However, several states also allowed their candidates or EPPs to adopt alternative measures, such as the Praxis Performance Assessment for Teachers (PPAT) test offered by Educational Testing Service (ETS).  The table below identifies states that initially required a standardized performance assessment requirement for teacher licensure, as well as the current status of this requirement.

While the COVID-19 pandemic led to short-term testing waivers across states in the ensuing few years, ten states—or about half of states—that mandated some type of standardized performance assessment in 2019 no longer have this requirement. As in New Jersey, many of these states prohibit the use of such assessments as part of the state’s certification process, indicating that something in the political environment has significantly shifted from widespread support of these standardized instruments to strong disapproval. Notably, states that did not require standardized performance assessments in 2019 have not changed their policies in this regard.

Discussions about the use of standardized performance assessments continue. In 2019, Texas committed to a pilot study of the edTPA and anticipated adopting the assessment in 2022.  However, their plan met resistance and was rejected in 2022 after unsuccessful attempts at developing a state-specific assessment.  California adopted a required standardized performance assessment for teacher licensure but is currently considering legislation that would review the use of performance assessments.

In reviewing legislative language as well as the media coverage around changes in certification requirements, most states’ policies seem to be driven by a perception that standardized performance assessments limit access to the teaching profession. However, the focus on access is quite different across states.  In Iowa, for example, the legislative sponsor saw the removal of the requirement as part of a larger effort to significantly broaden who could teach, eliminating any educator preparation requirements.  In New Jersey, as we have discussed in previous blog entries, the move to change requirements was heavily driven by EPPs.  The New Jersey policy reflected a concern that the edTPA was unduly burdensome in terms of cost and required effort, with particularly troubling impact on candidates from underrepresented groups.

So, as with many policy initiatives, we see isomorphic trends across states, in which states have gone down similar legislative paths but with motivations that are partially shared but distinct.  Regardless of the motivations, these requirements, even when eliminated, may have shaped states and EPPs in more enduring ways.  For example, in New Jersey, we are finding that many aspects of standardized performance assessments are being embedded in institutional practice, albeit without using external assessment providers and without state oversight.

Drew Gitomer, Ph.D. is a professor and Colleen McDermott is a senior program coordinator at the Rutgers Graduate School of Education, and Emily Hodge, Ph.D. is an associate professor and Rachel Garver, Ph.D. is an associate professor at Montclair State University.