Early childhood licensure programs and middle childhood mathematics concentration licensure programs at colleges and universities in the state of Ohio: Are they meeting the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics standards and the conference board of

This study examined early childhood licensure programs and middle childhood licensure programs in Ohio to determine how closely they meet the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) "Standards for the Professional Development of Teachers of Mathematics", as stated in the Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics (NCTM, 1991), and the Conference Board of Mathematical Sciences (CBMS) recommendations for the preparation of teachers, as stated in the Mathematical Education of Teachers (MET REPORT) (CBMS, 2001). Entrance requirements, semester hours of mathematics content courses, semester hours of mathematics methods courses, and pedagogical practices were examined. Data were also collected on the percent of mathematics methods courses and the percent of mathematics content courses that are taught by full-time faculty.;Results support the conclusion that entrance requirements do not guarantee that teacher candidates have a strong enough mathematical background for the mathematics courses that they must take. Results also show that early childhood licensure programs and middle childhood mathematics licensure programs are not meeting the recommended number of semester hours of mathematics content courses that involve the fundamental ideas of mathematics that early childhood teachers and middle childhood teachers teach. Early childhood programs are not meeting the recommendation that methods courses focusing primarily on mathematics be a required part of the programs. Mathematics content courses that are designed primarily for teachers incorporate more of the recommended pedagogical practices than mathematics content courses that are not designed primarily for teachers. Methods courses that focus primarily on mathematics incorporate more of the recommended pedagogical practices than methods courses that do not focus primarily on mathematics. Colleges and universities need to hire more qualified full-time faculty to teach mathematics methods courses and mathematics content courses that are designed primarily for teachers.