1

June 2005

Studies of the qualifications of elementary and secondary

school teachers have focused on whether or not teachers have

educational backgrounds (a postsecondary major/minor or

equivalent) and state certification that match the subjects they

teach (Ingersoll 1999; Seastrom et al. 2002). Teachers are

described as “in field” or “out of field” based on the presence

or absence of a postsecondary major and state certification in

the subject taught. However, among teachers who are out of

field, further analysis can show the extent to which their training is related to or distant from the field in which they teach.1

To the extent that out-of-field teachers differ in the subjects

in which they have been trained, teachers may differ in the

useful knowledge they bring to instruction.

This Issue Brief introduces a measure of teacher qualifications that includes additional detail on the educational backgrounds and certifications of out-of-field teachers. The focal

subject for the Issue Brief is biology/life science (called biology in this Issue Brief) at the secondary level. Biology was

selected because of its high enrollment rates—in 1998, 93

percent of high school graduates had taken at least 1 year of

biology at the secondary level (Roey et al. 2001). For each

qualification—postsecondary major/minor and state certification—teachers are grouped first by whether or not they

have the qualification in biology. Then, teachers lacking the

qualification in biology are grouped by their fields of study

or fields of certification. These subjects are grouped by similarity to each other in terms of subject matter and skills. The

list of subjects is taken from Seastrom et al. (2002), the most

recent National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Statistical Analysis Report on out-of-field teaching.2

 Teachers

are grouped first in terms of educational background and certification separately (table 1) and then grouped based on

the combinations of their postsecondary majors/minors and

certification (table 2). The Issue Brief makes no judgment

about which subjects are further out of field than others, but

provides the information that allows the reader to make such

Qualifications of Public Secondary School

Biology Teachers, 1999–2000

U.S. Department of Education

Institute of Education Sciences

NCES 2005–081

IssueBrief

an assessment. Teachers who reported more than one nonbiology qualification are included in each group. Thus, the

groups of teachers lacking biology qualifications are not mutually exclusive.

Data are drawn from the NCES 1999–2000 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) teacher and school surveys. The sample

used in the analysis includes teachers who reported teaching

predominately in the middle or high school grades (called

“secondary level” in the balance of the Issue Brief) and teaching “biology or life science” to at least one student.3

 Information on teachers’ qualifications and grade level and number

of students are drawn from teachers’ reports. Findings are

reported in terms of the percentage of biology students taught

by teachers of various qualifications (see also Seastrom et al.

2002).

Estimates are reported separately for students in each of four

poverty categories based on the percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. SASS schools were asked

to report the number of students eligible for free and reducedprice lunch. Each category includes approximately 25 percent of the sample: less than 10 percent of students in school

qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch, 10–25 percent, 25–

50 percent, and more than 50 percent. This allows the Issue

Brief to address the extent to which students in high- and

low-poverty schools experience more or less out-of-field teaching in biology and to explore the variation of out-of-field teachers’ qualifications across the settings.

Majors, Minors, and Certifications Reported

Separately

What proportion of biology students has a teacher with a

major or minor in biology? About 60 percent of biology students at the secondary level in 1999–2000 were taught by

teachers with a postsecondary major or minor in biology, leaving about 40 percent of students taught by teachers who were

considered out of field in terms of their postsecondary education (table 1). Among this 40 percent of students, there were

differences across school settings in the educational backgrounds their teachers brought to the classroom. Students in

the schools with the highest poverty rates were the least likely

to have teachers with a major or minor in another natural

science (26 percent of the more than 50 percent group, compared with 46 percent of the 25–50 percent group, 62 percent of the 10–25 percent group, and 58 percent of the less

than 10 percent group). Secondary-level biology students in

1

 Research on biology and physics teachers has examined courses

taken within science, but has not differentiated among teachers who

have taken other science coursework in place of subject-specific

coursework and those who have taken other science coursework in

addition to subject-specific coursework; nor has other research

examined coursetaking beyond science (see Wood 2002).

2

 Differences from the Seastrom et al. (2002) list are the addition of

categories for “other subjects” and “no subjects” and the inclusion

of arts, music, foreign languages, and bilingual education/English

as a Second Language in the “other subjects” category. There were

too few cases in which out-of-field biology teachers had qualifications

in these subjects to provide an accurate estimate of their prevalence

separate from the “other subjects” category.

3 The sample includes 1,680 public school teachers. The analysis

weighted cases using the TFNLWGT weighting variable.
2

the highest poverty schools were more likely to have out-offield teachers with elementary education majors or minors than

those in all other types of school settings.

What proportion of biology students has a teacher with a certification in biology? Overall, 25 percent of secondary-level

biology students were taught by teachers without a state certification in biology. Students in the highest poverty schools were

more likely to be taught by teachers with out-of-field certifications than were those in the two lowest school poverty categories (37 percent of the more than 50 percent group, compared

Table 1. Percentage of public school students in biology classes

taught by secondary-level teachers, by percentage of

students in the school qualifying for free or reducedprice lunch, and by subject field of teachers’

postsecondary majors, minors, and certification:

Academic year 1999–2000

# Rounds to zero.

! Interpret data with caution. Standard error is more than one-third as large

as the estimate.

NOTE: Secondary-level teachers include teachers who taught students in

grades 5–12; teachers who taught in grades 5–9 who identified themselves

as elementary or special education teachers were not included. Detail may

not sum to totals because of rounding. Detail below “No major or minor in

biology” and “No certification in biology” do not sum to totals because

they are not percentages of the table total, but percentages of the

category (“No major or minor in biology” or “No certification in biology”);

they do not add to 100 percent, because teachers could report majors/

minors or certifications in multiple subjects. Not all apparent differences in

this table are statistically significant. Standard errors are available at http://

nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2005081.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education

Statistics, Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), 1999–2000 “Public School

Questionnaire,” “Charter School Questionnaire,” “Public Teacher

Questionnaire,” and “Charter Teacher Questionnaire.”

4

 In the highest poverty group, 46 percent of students had a teacher

with both qualifications, but the estimate for this group had a large

standard error and, as a result, apparent differences compared with

the lower poverty groups are not statistically significant.

with 22 percent of the 10–25 percent group and 17 percent of

the less than 10 percent group).

Majors, Minors, and Certifications Reported in

Combinations

Among students of teachers with a certification in biology:

Fifty-two percent of secondary-level biology students had

teachers with both a certification and a major or minor in

biology (table 2). Students in the two lowest school poverty

categories were more likely than those in the 25 to 50 percent

school poverty category to have teachers with both qualifications (58 percent of the less than 10 percent group and 57

percent of the 10–25 percent group, compared with 44 percent of the 25–50 percent group).4

Among students taught by teachers who reported having infield certification but out-of-field educational backgrounds,

the most common type of postsecondary major or minor was

natural science (56 percent of these students). Among the students with teachers who were certified but had out-of-field

educational backgrounds, those in the highest poverty schools

were more likely than those in the lowest poverty schools to

have teachers with an elementary education major or minor

(38 percent of the more than 50 percent group, compared

with 4 percent of the less than 10 percent group).

Among students of teachers with no certification in biology:

Overall, 9 percent of secondary-level biology students had a

teacher who had no certification in biology but did have a

major or minor in biology. This combination was more prevalent among the teachers of students in the highest poverty

schools than in the two lowest school poverty categories (17

percent of the more than 50 percent group, compared with 7

percent of the 10–25 percent group and 6 percent of the less

than 10 percent group).

Among all secondary-level biology students, 16 percent had

teachers with neither a certification nor a major or minor in

biology. For these students, those in schools in the two lowest

school poverty categories were more likely than those in the

highest poverty schools to have teachers with a major or a

minor in a natural science (56 percent of the less than 10 percent group and 69 percent of the 10–25 percent group, compared with 10 percent of the more than 50 percent group).

Also in this group, students in the highest poverty schools

were more likely than those in the 10–25 percent school poverty category to have teachers with a major or minor in elementary education (53 percent of the more than 50 percent

group, compared with 13 percent of the 10–25 percent group).

Conclusion

Measures of out-of-field teaching that report only the absence

or presence of educational and certification qualifications provide important but incomplete information about student exposure to teachers with differing qualifications in the subjects

Teacher's subject field

of major, minor, or 10– 25–

certification Total <10% 25% 50% >50%

Major or minor in biology 60.8 63.8 64.0 52.6 63.4

Major in biology 55.3 59.8 58.3 46.3 57.0

Minor in biology 5.6 4.0 5.7 6.4 6.4

No major or minor in 

biology 39.2 36.2 36.0 47.4 36.6

Major or minor in:

Other natural science 49.3 57.7 61.9 46.5 26.0

Elementary education 22.3 8.2 ! 19.0 22.0 46.2

English 3.9 ! 8.3 0.4 ! 3.3 ! 3.4 !

Mathematics 7.8 1.8 ! 21.2 3.6 ! 5.3 !

Physical education 15.4 12.0 ! 23.5 14.7 ! 10.6

Secondary education 14.9 23.0 8.8 ! 15.4 11.1 !

Social science 11.7 12.4 9.3 ! 9.8 17.2

Special education 7.1 7.0 6.2 9.2 4.7 !

Other subject 10.4 11.8 8.1 9.4 13.5 !

No major or minor 4.7 ! 3.6 ! # 11.8 ! 0.3 !

Certification in biology 74.7 83.4 78.2 71.3 62.9

No certification in 

biology 25.3 16.6 21.8 28.7 37.1

Certification in:

Other natural science 36.6 18.0 ! 34.7 51.4 34.1 !

Elementary education 5.7 ! 23.5 ! 0.5 ! 3.2 ! 1.7 !

English 3.4 ! 5.7 ! 1.1 ! 5.7 ! 1.5 !

Mathematics 7.9 ! 2.7 ! 21.9 ! 3.9 ! 3.9 !

Physical education 8.3 ! 2.8 ! 3.6 ! 20.2 ! 3.2 !

Social science 4.5 8.1 ! 3.3 ! 3.1 ! 4.6 !

Special education 12.0 9.6 9.2 ! 9.9 18.0 !

Other subject 3.2 3.7 ! 3.3 ! 1.1 ! 5.0 !

No certification 35.5 32.9 ! 29.3 33.8 43.7

Percent free/reducedprice lunch
3

The Issue Brief series presents information on education topics of current interest. All estimates shown are based on samples and are subject to sampling

variability. All differences discussed are statistically significant at the .05 level as measured by Student’s two-tailed t tests. In the design, conduct, and data

processing of National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) surveys, efforts are made to minimize the effects of nonsampling error, such as item nonresponse,

measurement error, data processing error, or other systematic error. For more information on the Schools and Staffing Survey, visit http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/

sass.

This Issue Brief was prepared by Daniel J. McGrath and Emily W. Holt of the Education Statistics Services Institute (ESSI) and Marilyn M. Seastrom of the National

Center for Education Statistics (NCES). This Issue Brief was formatted by Carol Rohr of Pinkerton Computer Consultants, Inc. For further information, contact Edith

McArthur, NCES, at 202-502-7393 or edith.mcarthur@ed.gov. To order additional copies of this Issue Brief or other NCES publications, call 1-877-4ED-PUBS or visit

http://www.edpubs.org. NCES publications are also available on the Internet at http://nces.ed.gov.

Table 2. Percentage of public school students in biology classes

taught by secondary-level teachers, by percentage of

students in the school qualifying for free or reducedprice lunch, and by combinations of teachers’

postsecondary majors/minors and certification subject

fields: Academic year 1999–2000

# Rounds to zero.

! Interpret data with caution. Standard error is more than one-third as large

as the estimate.

NOTE: Secondary-level teachers include teachers who taught students in

grades 5–12; teachers who taught in grades 5–9 who identified themselves

as elementary or special education teachers were not included. Detail

may not sum to totals because of rounding. Detail below “And no major or

minor in biology” do not sum to totals because they are not percentages of

the table total, but percentages of the category (“And no major or minor in

biology”); they do not add to 100 percent, because teachers could report

majors/minors or certifications in multiple subjects. Not all apparent

differences in this table are statistically significant. Standard errors are

available at http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2005081.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education

Statistics, Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), 1999–2000 “Public School

Questionnaire,” “Charter School Questionnaire,” “Public Teacher

Questionnaire,” and “Charter Teacher Questionnaire.”

they teach. For subjects like secondary-level biology in which

close to 40 percent of students have teachers without a major

or minor in the field, 25 percent have teachers without a certification in the field, and 16 percent have teachers with neither

a certification nor a major or minor in the field, it is useful to

examine in more detail what certifications and majors and

minors these teachers actually have. This Issue Brief reported

the combination of certifications and majors and minors to

which secondary-level biology students are exposed and how

these qualifications vary across schools with differing levels

of student poverty. Students of teachers lacking a major or

minor in biology in the highest poverty schools were less likely

than those in all other schools to have teachers with a major

or minor in another natural science and more likely than those

in all other schools to have teachers with a major or minor in

elementary education. Similarly, among those students with

teachers who had neither a certification nor a major or minor

in biology, students in the highest poverty schools were less

likely than those in the two lowest school poverty categories

to have a teacher with a major or minor in natural science.

Of course, certification and postsecondary education are not

the only routes through which teachers can gain subject matter expertise in the subjects they teach. Teachers may bring

other professional and life experiences that provide them the

subject matter grounding needed to teach effectively; future

data collections may address these issues. However, with current data, additional research could also examine if similar

patterns of teacher qualifications across school settings are

apparent among other subjects.

References

Ingersoll, R. (1999). The Problem of Underqualified Teachers in

American Secondary Schools. Educational Researcher, 28(2):

26–37.

Roey, S., Caldwell, N., Rust, K., Blumstein, E., Krenzke, T., Legum,

S., Kuhn, J., Waksberg, M., and Haynes, J. (2001). The 1998

High School Transcript Study Tabulations: Comparative Data

on Credits Earned and Demographics for 1998, 1994, 1990,

1987, and 1982 High School Graduates (NCES 2001–498).

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education

Statistics. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Seastrom, M.M., Gruber, K.J., Henke, R., McGrath, D.J., and Cohen,

B.A. (2002). Qualifications of the Public School Teacher

Workforce: Prevalence of Out-of-Field Teaching: 1987–88 to

1999–2000 (NCES 2002–603). U.S. Department of Education,

National Center for Education Statistics. Washington, DC: U.S.

Government Printing Office.

Wood, K.D. (2002). 2000 National Survey of Science and

Mathematics Education: Status of High School Biology

Teaching. Chapel Hill, NC: Horizon Research, Inc.

Teacher's combination of 10– 25–

major/minor and certification Total <10% 25% 50% >50%

Certification in biology 74.7 83.4 78.2 71.3 62.9

And major or minor in 

biology 51.8 57.8 57.1 44.5 46.3

Major in biology 47.4 54.7 51.7 40.2 41.4

Minor in biology 4.4 3.2 5.4 4.3 4.9 !

And no major or minor

in biology 22.9 25.6 21.1 26.8 16.6

Major or minor in:

Other natural science 55.5 58.5 57.2 56.3 44.9

Elementary education 17.6 4.4 ! 23.4 ! 16.2 ! 37.8

English 2.9 ! 6.0 ! 0.3 ! 2.1 ! 2.6 !

Mathematics 4.1 0.4 ! 10.4 ! 2.5 4.1 !

Physical education 19.1 14.4 ! 26.4 20.7 ! 13.0 !

Secondary education 20.8 29.3 8.9 ! 23.8 ! 17.0 !

Social science 12.2 11.7 ! 13.8 ! 10.4 ! 14.4 !

Special education 5.0 4.4 ! 4.6 ! 8.3 ! 0.3 !

Other subject 6.9 8.7 ! 5.4 ! 7.9 ! 3.7 !

No major or minor 1.7 ! 5.1 ! # 0.4 ! #

No certification in biology 25.3 16.6 21.8 28.7 37.1

And major or minor in 

biology 9.0 6.0 6.9 8.2 17.1

Major in biology 7.9 5.2 ! 6.6 6.1 15.6

Minor in biology 1.2 ! 0.8 ! 0.3 ! 2.1 ! 1.5

And no major or minor 

in biology 16.3 10.6 14.9 20.6 20.0

Major or minor in:

Other natural science 40.4 55.7 68.6 33.7 ! 10.3 !

Elementary education 29.1 17.4 ! 12.7 ! 29.7 ! 53.2

English 5.2 ! 13.7 ! 0.6 ! 5.0 ! 4.0 !

Mathematics 13.1 ! 5.0 ! 36.6 ! 5.0 ! 6.3 !

Physical education 10.2 6.3 ! 19.3 ! 6.8 ! 8.6 !

Secondary education 6.5 7.8 ! 8.7 ! 4.5 ! 6.1 !

Social science 10.9 14.0 ! 3.0 ! 9.0 ! 19.4 !

Special education 10.0 13.5 ! 8.6 ! 10.4 ! 8.4 !

Other subject 15.4 19.3 ! 11.9 ! 11.3 ! 21.6 !

No major or minor 9.0 ! # # 26.7 ! 0.6 !

Percent free/reducedprice lunch