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All states / New Jersey

New Jersey

Verified against current sources (2026-05-10) Cite this page ↓

New Jersey offers Bilingual Education as an add-on endorsement; ELD/ESL is an add-on endorsement. SEI training is not mandated for all teachers. As of 2023, 10.6% of public-school students are classified English Learners (NCES). Re-verified against current SEA sources on 2026-05-10.

10.6%
classified ELs (2023-10-15)
view trend →
Bil + ELD
credential types offered

Credentials

Bilingual/Bicultural Education Standard Certificate (1480)

  • Add-on endorsement
Approved program
Required
Coursework
Required
Practicum
Unknown
Subject test
Unknown
Language proficiency
Required

Bilingual/Bicultural Education endorsement (code 1480) under N.J.A.C. 6A:9B-11.5. Add-on to a CE, CEAS, or standard NJ instructional certificate. CEAS path: complete a Department-approved bilingual/bicultural preparation program. CE path: 12 credit hours of formal instruction. Target-language proficiency required via a Department-approved nationally recognized oral/written test (or equivalent undergrad/graduate education in the target language).

English as a Second Language Standard (1475)

  • Add-on endorsement
Approved program
Required
Coursework
Required
Practicum
Unknown
Subject test
Required

English as a Second Language endorsement (code 1475) under N.J.A.C. 6A:9B-11.6. Add-on to an underlying NJ instructional certificate. Path A: Department-approved NJ college/university preparation program. Path B: 15 credit hours of formal instruction across seven topic areas. Department-approved nationally recognized test of oral and written English proficiency required. languageProficiency=false because the ESL endorsement is not premised on a non-English target language; the proficiency requirement is English.

Sheltered English Instruction (SEI)

Not mandated for all teachers.

No statewide SEI mandate for general classroom teachers. NJ requires ESL teachers to hold an ESL endorsement; LEAs serving 10+ multilingual learners must offer one period daily of ESL by a certified teacher (N.J.S.A. 18A:6-38; N.J.A.C. 6A:9B-11.6).

State policy signals

Seal of Biliteracy

Recognition for graduating students proficient in English plus another language.

Adopted in 2016.

Source: sealofbiliteracy.org (opens in a new tab)

ELP assessment

Annual English Language Proficiency test used for EL identification and reclassification.

ACCESS for ELLs · WIDA Consortium member.

Source: wida.wisc.edu (opens in a new tab)

History of licensure

Dated policy and verification events shaping this state's EL teacher credentials.

  1. New Jersey Bilingual Education Act enacted (P.L. 1974, c. 197)

    P.L. 1974, c. 197, codified at N.J.S.A. 18A:35-15 to -26, required any school district enrolling 20 or more EL students of the same native language to operate a full bilingual education program in that language and English, plus an ESL component for any EL student regardless of language threshold. New Jersey was among the earliest states to mandate bilingual instruction by statute (after Massachusetts 1971, New Mexico 1973, Texas 1973, Illinois 1973). The 1975 statute remains the legal backbone of NJ's bilingual/bicultural and ESL endorsements (N.J.A.C. 6A:9B-11.5 and -11.6) and of the 20-student program-trigger threshold the State still enforces.

    nj.gov (opens in a new tab)

  2. New Jersey State Seal of Biliteracy enacted (P.L. 2015, c. 303)

    Governor signed P.L. 2015, c. 303 on January 19, 2016, creating the New Jersey State Seal of Biliteracy administered by NJDOE. First seals awarded in the 2016-17 school year.

    nj.gov (opens in a new tab)

  3. EPAA 29(100) document analysis (Leider, Colombo & Nerlino, 2021)

    Leider, Colombo & Nerlino published in Education Policy Analysis Archives 29(100) a comprehensive document analysis of every state and DC's bilingual, ELD/ESL, and SEI teacher-credentialing requirements, professional teaching standards mentions, and EL-percentage figures, based on primary SEA sources collected October–December 2019. The 2019 coding of New Jersey's EL-credentialing landscape is preserved as a temporally-anchored research baseline against which the catalog's later verifications are framed.

    doi.org (opens in a new tab)

Sources

  1. [1] New Jersey Department of Education (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2019-11-15 (via Leider et al. 2021)
  2. [2] Leider, Colombo & Nerlino (2021), EPAA 29(100). Tables 2-5 + Appendix A. (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2019-11-15 (via Leider et al. 2021)
  3. [3] N.J.A.C. 6A:9B-11.5 — Bilingual/bicultural education endorsement (Title 6A Chapter 9B) (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  4. [4] N.J.A.C. 6A:9B-11.6 — English as a second language endorsement (Title 6A Chapter 9B) (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  5. [5] NJDOE — Multilingual Learners (MLs) Educator Certification (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  6. [6] NJDOE — English as a Second Language (ESL) Requirements (district-side) (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  7. [7] NJDOE — Bilingual Education Requirements (district-side) (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  8. [8] N.J.A.C. 6A:9-3.3 — New Jersey Professional Standards for Teachers (Title 6A Chapter 9) (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  9. [9] NJDOE — State Seal of Biliteracy (P.L. 2015, c. 303; established 2016) (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  10. [10] WIDA Consortium membership listing (NJ uses ACCESS for ELLs) (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  11. [11] NCES Digest 2023, Table 204.20 — EL students by state (NJ fall 2021: 8.2%) (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-08
  12. [12] New Jersey Department of Education, 2023-2024 School Performance Reports — State Detail (opens in a new tab) — retrieved 2026-05-10

Cite this page

Site content is published under CC BY 4.0. When citing a fact from this page, please cite both projectcert and the original Leider et al. (2021) paper the dataset extends.

APA
projectcert. (2026, May 10). New Jersey EL teacher certification. https://projectcert.org/states/nj/
Leider, C. M., Colombo, M. W., & Nerlino, E. (2021). Decentralization, teacher quality, and the education of English learners: Do state education agencies effectively prepare teachers of ELs? Education Policy Analysis Archives, 29(100). https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.29.5279
BibTeX
@misc{projectcert_nj_2026,
  author  = {{projectcert}},
  title   = {{New Jersey EL teacher certification}},
  year    = {2026},
  url     = {https://projectcert.org/states/nj/},
  urldate = {2026-05-10},
  note    = {Last verified 2026-05-10}
}
@article{leider2021decentralization,
  author  = {Leider, Christine M. and Colombo, Michaela W. and Nerlino, Erika},
  title   = {{Decentralization, teacher quality, and the education of English learners: Do state education agencies effectively prepare teachers of ELs?}},
  journal = {Education Policy Analysis Archives},
  volume  = {29},
  number  = {100},
  year    = {2021},
  doi     = {10.14507/epaa.29.5279}
}

See the methodology for how these data were collected, or the glossary for term definitions.