New Teachers Should ‘B’ Ready for Tougher Standards

In what is billed as another way to improve teacher quality, the Christie administration wants to require would-be teachers to have at least a B average.

Regulations that would raise the required college grade point average (GPA) of new teachers to 3.0, the equivalent of a B, were proposed yesterday by state Education Commissioner Chris Cerf.

The current minimum is 2.75, although at least half of the state’s teacher education programs already require a 3.0 for both enrollment and graduation. The state has twice before tried to bring the statewide minimum up to 3.0, but fell short each time amid concerns that it would unfairly limit the teaching pool.

Those issues came up again last week at the state board meeting as Cerf’s staff, led by assistant commissioner Peter Shulman, presented the new GPA requirement as part of a wide-ranging package of changes in regulations for teacher preparation. The package is just one of a series of initiatives the administration has pressed pertaining to teacher quality, highlighted by its controversial rules for a new evaluation system for current teachers.

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