Secondary Teacher Preparation in Science:
Alabama

Delivering Well Prepared Teachers Policy

Goal

The state should ensure that science teachers know all the subject matter they are licensed to teach.

Meets goal in part
Suggested Citation:
National Council on Teacher Quality. (2011). Secondary Teacher Preparation in Science: Alabama results. State Teacher Policy Database. [Data set].
Retrieved from: https://www.nctq.org/yearbook/state/AL-Secondary-Teacher-Preparation-in-Science-6

Analysis of Alabama's policies

Secondary science teachers in Alabama have the option of a comprehensive teaching license with a specialization in general science. These candidates must take a minimum of one course in each of the specified areas included in the comprehensive teaching field—namely biology, chemistry, physics, and earth and space science—and they are required to pass the Praxis II "General Science" content test. Teachers with this license are not limited to teaching general science but rather can teach any of the topical areas.

Middle school science teachers have two options: either a comprehensive teaching license with a specialization in general science or one in a single teaching field. Commendably, candidates are also required to pass the Praxis II "Middle School Science" test. 

Citation

Recommendations for Alabama

Require secondary science teachers to pass tests of content knowledge for each science discipline they intend to teach.
States that allow general science certifications—and only require a general knowledge science exam—are not ensuring that these secondary teachers possess adequate subject-specific content knowledge. Alabama's required assessment combines all subject areas (e.g., biology, chemistry, physics) and does not report separate scores for each subject area. Therefore, candidates could answer many—perhaps all—chemistry questions, for example, incorrectly yet still be licensed to teach chemistry to high school students.

State response to our analysis

Alabama recognized the factual accuracy of this analysis. The state added that it provides a general science option at both the middle and secondary levels to meet the needs of schools that cannot afford to employ a full-time chemistry or physics teacher who would carry less than a full teaching load. Program completion requires a "pure" arts and sciences-type major in one area of science, which includes at least 32 semester hours of credit with at least 19 semester hours of upper-division credit, in addition to courses in other areas of science needed to document compliance with the general rules for all science teaching fields and the rules specific to general science. Candidates must also pass the Praxis II General Science test.

Alabama also noted that it provides options in the specific disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics and requires a passing score on those subject-specific Praxis II tests. Program-completion requirements are similar to those stated above. 

Last word

There is no doubt that districts, especially small and/or rural districts, appreciate the flexibility offered by the general science certificate. The state need not do away with this license but rather change its requirements to ensure that a teacher with such a license has the requisite knowledge and skills to teach all included subjects. There are also other ways to address situations where a full-time teacher might not be needed without sacrificing teacher content knowledge, including distance and blending learning or a part-time adjunct license as described in Goal 2-D. 

Research rationale

For an examination of how science teacher preparation positively impacts student achievement, see Goldhaber, D., & Brewer, D. (2000). Does teacher certification matter? High school certification status and student achievement, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 22, 129-145; Monk, D. (1994). Subject area preparation of secondary mathematics and science teachers and student achievement, Economics of Education Review, 12(2):125-145; Rothman, A., (1969). Teacher characteristics and student learning. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 6(4), 340-348.  

See also, NCTQ "The All-Purpose Science Teacher: An Analysis of Loopholes in State Requirements for High School Science Teachers."(2010). 

In addition, research studies have demonstrated the positive impact of teacher content knowledge on student achievement.  For example, see D. Goldhaber, "Everyone's Doing It, But What Does Teacher Testing Tell Us About Teacher Effectiveness?" Journal of Human Resources, vol. XLII no.4 (2007).  See also Harris, D., and Sass, T., "Teacher Training, Teacher Quality and Student Achievement". Teacher Quality Research (2007). Evidence can also be found in White, Presely, DeAngelis "Leveling up: Narrowing the teacher academic capital gap in Illinois," Illinois Education Research Council (2008); D. Goldhaber and D. Brewer, "Why Don't Schools and Teachers Seem to Matter? Assessing the impact of Unobservables on Educational Productivity." Journal of Human Resources (1998).