Education and Certification Qualifications of Departmentalized Public High School-Level Teachers of Core Subjects: Evidence from the 2003-04 Schools and Staffing Survey. Statistical Analysis Report. NCES 2008-338

This report examines the postsecondary majors and teaching certifications of public high school-level teachers of departmentalized classes in a selection of subject areas, using data from the 2003-04 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), a sample survey of elementary and secondary schools in the United States. SASS collects data on American public, private, and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)-funded elementary and secondary schools and their related components, and provides information on a range of teacher qualifications in the United States. While this report does not link teacher qualifications to student outcomes, it does examine the qualifications of high school-level teachers of departmentalized classes in three ways: (1) by percentage of public high school-level teachers who held either an in-field postsecondary major, in-field certification, or both, in a selection of main assignment fields (the subject in which teachers reported teaching the most classes); (2) by percentages of high school-level classes taught and students taught by a teacher with one or both in-field qualifications; and (3) by percentage of teachers in selected subfields of science and social science who held a major and/or certification in that specific subfield in relation to the percentage of teachers who held qualifications in any field within science and social science. Findings are reported at the teacher, class, and student levels; estimates were produced from cross-tabulations of the data. T-tests were performed to test for differences between estimates. All differences cited in the text of this report are statistically significant at the p less than 0.05 level. No corrections were made for multiple comparisons. Readers are cautioned not to make causal inferences about the data. Among the reported findings were: (1) Among teachers with a main assignment of English or mathematics, 71 percent and 65 percent, respectively, held both a major and certification in their main assignment; (2) Among teachers with a main assignment of science, 87 percent held a major in science, 80 percent held a certification in science, and 72 percent held both a major and certification in science; (3) Among teachers with a main assignment in social science, 84 percent held a major in social science, 82 percent held a certification in social science, and 71 percent held both qualifications; (4) Some of the highest reported rates of qualifications were seen among teachers with a main assignment of ar