Connecticut's High School Science Teacher Certification Found Wanting

A recently published report by the National Council on Teacher Quality gives us more disturbing news about the quality of the teachers put in front of high school science classrooms. Some States, including Connecticut, have set the bar very low -- expecting little specific knowledge about the different science disciplines before being permitted to teach some of the most demanding and important high school subjects.

Connecticut received the lowest possible score in this report -- a RED light. Here are some pulls:

The US suffers not only because of the math and science teachers we don't have -- in many cases we also set unacceptably low expectations for the STEM teachers we do have.

[M]any states fail to guarantee that biology, chemistry and physics teachers have mastered the content they teach. . . . The bottom line is that the so-called flexibility of the "broad field" science teacher is a fantasy. In reality, the concept of the all-purpose science teacher not only masks but perpetuates the STEM crisis, and does so at the expense of students.

[Connecticut's] approach does not guarantee adequate knowledge in particular areas of science. Candidates are only required to pass the Praxis 2 General Science (and content essay) test. These combination assessments fail to note performance in any specific science discipline, and a candidate could answer many questions wrong in one area yet still pass the test.