Introduction
A New Jersey Department of Education certificate is required for any professional employee in the state’s public or charter schools and other educational institutions. The system of the certification process is based on professional standards for pre-service training and professional development. It improves the quality of New Jersey’s educational possibility to support high levels of student learning and future success in their lives. This paper will examine the program’s components and how they can be improved.
Certification Program
There are many titles and types of certificates, but globally all certificates issued fall into four categories, based on the type of work in the educational field. The state sets the licensure process standards (Fuhrman et al., 2020). One of these categories is teachers who directly lead classes. Another one is administrative, which includes the principal and school administration. A third is educational services staff, like school psychologists, social workers, and others. Also, the last certification category is related to teaching technical disciplines, connected to working professions – cosmetologist, sewer, carpenter, for example. The program is structured into three main stages, each briefly described below.
First, the required type and certification category are established, and each has specific conditions and requirements. Every specialization has its code in the state education department system and is supported by an appropriate document that spells out all the requirements for the candidate. If a candidate meets all the requirements, he or she receives a certificate of eligibility and can begin pre-service teacher education. Many teacher education programs include assignments or modules required for students in the same major (Hinnant-Crawford et al., 2019). The candidate can earn a standard teaching certificate at the end of the learning outcomes.
As in the related programs in other states, the essential components or criteria for certifying and evaluating a prospective teacher are roughly the same. Candidates must demonstrate knowledge of the material in their major and the ability to apply pedagogical practices to its presentation. The candidate must be able to instruct, and task students based on their abilities and needs to maximize each student’s understanding of the material and diversify those instructions if needed. Equally important is the effective and reflective organization of the prospective teacher’s own work: the planning and implementation of methods to increase students’ knowledge of the material. The candidate is also required to provide examples of his interaction with students that demonstrate the ability to create a learning environment.
Various trainings for novice and practicing teachers, of course, contribute to the professional development of the Education Department employee. When teachers finally get the full certification, or permanent sertification, they are already much more professional than they were when they graduated. Also, later on, with mandatory and optional trainings in efficiency, psychology, and pedagogy, the teacher develops and grasps new heights of his profession.
Because of the complexity and cost of the additional certification process after education, the number of applicants to become teachers dropped even before the pandemic. Education degrees accounted for just over five percent of all degrees awarded in New Jersey in 2020, down from as many as ten a few years earlier (Youngs et al., 2020). While due to the pandemic, the number of teachers retiring in the last year has exceeded the statistics of previous years by several thousand (Youngs et al., 2020). It is all the more important to simplify the certification process to maintain the necessary number of candidates in such a critical area of social life.
Teacher retention has become a problem lately. Many school administrators are working on this problem in the field on their own, but there has been no significant change at the state level. According to surveys, sometimes teacher needs a simple praise or a softer attitude from their supervisors, and a little more personal and professional freedom (Ovenden-Hope & Passy, 2020). Furthermore, some teachers would like to acquire higher salary and more flexible work schedules.
A general increase in pay levels to attract more applicants is not even worth talking about, since the level of teacher salaries in New Jersey is relatively high compared to other states. Many students are put off by the quantity of bureaucratic process ses and expenses to get to the teacher work directly, even when choosing a major. It is also possible to recruit practicing teachers to work personally and professionally in pairs with beginners – this will help them not to be afraid and get certified, so the state will get the required specialist.
Conclusion
There are a number of possible improvements to the certification process. Those suggestions are mainly theoretical, as it would take many days of effort to implement them at the state level and the possibility of their potential introduction is negligible. Although it is not globally related to the certification process itself, the general mood of teachers can affect the number of students willing to take this certification and practice. But on the other hand, simplifying the process of certification and supervision of prospective employees of the New Jersey Department of Education may degrade the overall level of educational attainment. In the future, this situation should even out on its own without outside interference. The main thing is for the pandemic period to end as quickly as possible, and for the certification system, like any other reasonably well-functioning system, to regain its balance.
References
Fuhrman, S. H., Cohen, D. K., & Mosher, F. (2020). The state of education policy research. Taylor & Francis.
Hinnant-Crawford, B., Platt, C. S., Newman, C., & Hilton, A. A. (2019). Comprehensive multicultural education in the 21st century: Increasing access in the age of retrenchment. Information Age Publishing Inc.
Ovenden-Hope, T., & Passy, R. (2020). Exploring teacher recruitment and retention: Contextual challenges from international perspectives. Taylor & Francis.
Youngs. P., Kim, J., & Mavrogordato, M. (2020). Exploring principal development and teacher outcomes: How principals can strengthen instruction, teacher retention, and student achievement. Taylor & Francis.