Secondary Teacher Preparation in Science:
Missouri

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: Missouri results. State Teacher Policy Database. [Data set].
Retrieved from: https://www.nctq.org/yearbook/state/MO-Secondary-Teacher-Preparation-in-Science-6

Analysis of Missouri's policies

Missouri offers general science certification for secondary teachers. Candidates must take two semester hours of history/philosophy of science and technology, as well as a total of 30 hours of science courses that include chemistry, biology, physics, earth science, astronomy and environmental science. They are also required to pass the Praxis II "General Science" 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 in Missouri must earn a minimum of 21 semester hours in science and, commendably, must also pass the Praxis II "Middle School Science" test.

Citation

Recommendations for Missouri

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. Missouri'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

Missouri asserted that candidates may earn certification in both categorical science and unified science. Categorical sciences (biology, chemistry, earth science and physics) require 20 hours in the particular science area supported by 10 hours of another related science field. Categorical general science includes 30 hours of content coursework in six categories. These individuals are allowed to teach only general science classes at the high school level. The unified science certificate requires 20 hours of science specific to the categorical areas of biology, chemistry, earth science and physics. Candidates must pass the content-specific Praxis II test in their categorical/unified area of science.  

Last word

NCTQ is unable to find policy that limits teachers with a general science certificate to teaching only general science courses. Rather than rely on assumed common understandings regarding which courses a teacher with a general science certificate may or may not teach, Missouri should articulate specific policy ensuring that all science teachers are required to pass a subject-specific content test for each area they plan to teach. 

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).