SAN BERNARDINO - A plan to compress and unify teacher preparations programs at California State Universities should help get teachers in classrooms faster, a Cal State San Bernardino official said. But it could also overload already swamped students.

The state Legislature sent a bill to Gov. Gray Davis last week asking the California State University system to offer integrated credentialing programs that would allow students to earn a bachelor's degree and teaching credential at the same time.

Some of the future elementary teachers studying in the Cal State University system already have this option. But the program is only available at five of the 23 Cal State campuses. Cal State San Bernardino is not among them.

The bill also asks the Cal State University system to work with state community colleges in developing a core of lower-division classes that would transfer directly into these programs.

If the governor signs the bill, the program must be implemented by the 2005-2006 school year.

Next week, the Cal State University system's board of trustees plans to approve a resolution to modify integrated credentialing programs so students can finish in four to 4 years.

This will include limiting the number of classes needed to complete the program, establishing common course requirements among California State University campuses, at least regionally, and working with community colleges. A committee of professors and administrators will hammer out the details.

"At least on a regional basis, students need to be able to choose among two or three (California State University) campuses (when they transfer),' Cal State's Chief Academic Officer David Spence said. "It's really important because so many of our students begin at community colleges.'

Squeezing the degree and credentialing requirements, which often take five or more years to complete, into four years could be tough.

"The pressure to revise is asking us to put a size 12 foot into a size 10 shoe,' Pritchard said. "It's going to pinch a little.'

Already, the integrated program operates much like an honors program. To finish in time, students must enter without needing remediation in math or English. Then they take a carefully prescribed, and heavy, course load.

And it could get tougher, Pritchard said.

State requirements Cal State San Bernardino plans to implement next school year outline specific courses, instead of just content, that must be taught.

For example, the program has to add a world geography class. Before, geography was integrated into world civilizations. The program also must offer more science, math and child development theory classes.

"The standards are going to be elevated,' Pritchard said, "partly because they got more explicit.'

The shift also comes as school standards get tougher. With eighth graders taking algebra, elementary school teachers are expected to teach more than before.

"They're expecting just superhuman things, in my mind, from elementary school teachers,' Pritchard said. "It's a very noble attempt California is making, but it's also put us in a bind.'

Extra requirements may make for burned-out, but not better, teachers.

"I think we're turning out frenzied students, and they aren't staying in the field very long,' Pritchard said.

Instead of simply scrunching more into less time, Pritchard hopes the university can streamline the integrated program so the "what to teach and how to teach it' are combined.

"It's got to happen if we're going to get five years done in four,' Pritchard said.

Right now, it's not. For example, students take a bunch of math classes and then a class on how to teach math.

At the Chancellor's Office, Spence agreed.

"We hope that some of the course work will truly be blended where, as students are learning the material, they're learning how to teach it as well,' he said.