California's elementary school teachers feel much less confident in teaching science than they do reading or math, and there is room for significant improvement in elementary school teacher preparation, according to a new report by CCST.

The Preparation of Elementary School Teachers to Teach Science in California: Challenges and Opportunities Impacting Teaching and Learning Science is an eighteen-month study funded by the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation. The project provides a descriptive and qualitative review of how well elementary school teachers are prepared to teach science.

"In its 2007 report Critical Path Analysis of California's Science and Mathematics Teacher Preparation System, CCST found that, despite troubling performances of California 4th and 8th graders on national assessments, little attention has been paid to the preparation of elementary school teachers to teach science," said CCST Executive Director Susan Hackwood. "The problem is that much of the discussion about science and math education focuses on high school, where single subject credentials are required to teach in the various disciplines. The preparation of K-6 teachers is fundamentally different."

In these grades, almost all teachers hold a multiple subject credential, which enables them to teach all subject areas, including science in a self-contained classroom. The CTQ data indicate that K-6 teachers rate themselves as substantially less prepared to teach science than mathematics or reading.

The supervisors, however, gave more positive ratings to the teachers - a difference that was most prominent for science, and which increased over the course of the survey. By the final year of the study, the difference between student and supervisor assessment reached 20%. This finding is consistent with previous research suggesting that teachers remain less confident about teaching science than other subjects.

"The fact is that despite a general rise in student science proficiency scores, and considerable focus on science and math teacher preparation at the secondary level, elementary school teachers have not shown a rise in confidence over the course of the study, suggesting that significant work remains to be done," said CCST Education Committee Chair Stephen Rockwood.

In addition to assessing the preparedness of elementary school teachers, the study also profiles 9 teacher preparation programs identified by a working group of educational experts as having initiatives reflecting promising approaches to improving the preparation of elementary teachers to teach science.

"The framework for elementary science teaching in California currently focuses on understanding of, adherence to, and communication of the standards - reflecting what teachers are expected to know before entering the classroom," said CFTL Executive Director Margaret Gaston. "However, California's institutions of higher education science requirements for individuals pursuing multiple-subject teacher certification vary and as a result the alignment to standards also varies."