A new rule about the requirements to become a teacher in New Jersey is facing scrutiny.

Lawmakers easily passed, and Governor Murphy signed a law dropping the basic skills Praxis exam requirement for prospective educators that started January 1st.

It was part of an effort to help with the long standing teacher shortage, but recent comments from tech billionaire Elon Musk put a new spotlight on the law and questioned whether teachers in the state need to know how to read.

As senior correspondent Joanna Gorgas reports, lawmakers say this is just the latest example of viral misinformation gone mad.

It's being very mischaracterized as lowering the standards when it's just the elimination of a redundant exam.

If you've been on the social media platform lately, you might be worried that new Jersey teachers no longer have to be able to read or write to step in front of a classroom.

That's what this post by its owner, Elon Musk, said.

Here's what's really going on.

The headline that came out should have been redundant.

Costly tests removed as a barrier to teacher certification that would have eliminated this entire three ring circus that we all just lived through for the past week.

Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia was among nearly all of New Jersey's legislators who voted last year to remove the Praxis Basic Skills Test as a requirement for teacher certification.

That change went into effect January 1st.

The measure had bipartisan support across both houses of the legislature.

All but three legislators agreed it was an extra step that didn't actually measure teacher preparedness.

There is no way that a teacher is graduating from our wonderful higher education systems without being able to read, write and do mathematics.

And those exams that they have to take to be certified are still very rigorous.

Praxis isn't just this one.

Test practice is an entire suite of tests that are very content specific.

So for instance, if you want to be an elementary school teacher in new Jersey and teach grades K to six, you have to take and pass the test in English, mathematics, social studies and science.

Now, this would make you have to take another test again in reading and in writing and in math.

And it's not just exams that aspiring teachers have to pass to make it to the front of the classroom.

You've got to go through, you know, two years plus of student teaching, constant supervision.

You've got to have minimum GPA standards, you know, to even get into that space of your alternate route.

It's a two year path as well.

But to do all of that, pass all of that and say, oh, by the way, for a fee, take this basic skills test when you've already, you know, demonstrated content specific knowledge, in all those ways for multiple years.

It was a waste of time and, quite frankly, a waste of money.

What are we talking about in terms of the cost for this Praxis basic Skills exam?

And then overall, the exams that a teacher has to take to get certified in the state.

These things are hundreds of dollars, adding up to thousands of dollars that you have to do those cost believe to keep students of color from lower socioeconomic areas out of the profession.

And at a time when New Jersey's classrooms are understaffed due to a years long teacher shortage that only worsened after the pandemic, educators and legislators agreed, removing this test was the way to go.

The point is that we have a teaching certification issue in the state.

We don't have enough teachers entering the workforce, and if that's something we can eliminate that it's redundant and lacks efficiency in certification process.

We should be doing that.

And to anyone who says removing the basic skills test will dumbed down our classrooms.

Assemblywoman Rosie Margolies says, when I started teaching, these tests were not required, and I hold ten teaching certificates across different areas in the state, from administration to child study team to elementary education.

In 2014, these tests were implemented.

It was during Governor Christie's second term when many standards were raised to become a teacher.

But ten years later, educators say this added exam had no impact on the quality of teachers in the profession.

We had the best schools in the nation before we got the best schools in the nation.

Now, with all due respect to some of these changes, what we don't have, is, is the number of people coming into the profession now that we had before.

As dean of Rowan University Education Program, Gaetan Jean-Marie believes eliminating the practice exam will have a big impact on her students.

I'm glad the state moved in that direction, following other states who have done the same to help address teacher shortage.

I would like to provide more teachers for our districts.

And Praxis Core has been a barrier for many of our students, and I am looking forward to Rowan University College of Education, helping to continue to address teacher shortages and also diversifying our profession.

A profession that most agree needs all the support it can get.

For NJ Spotlight News, I'm Joanna Gagis.