SAN MARCOS ---- Ask new public school teachers whether their training at Cal State San Marcos got them ready for the rigors of the job, and they will invariably answer yes.

Ask their supervisors whether the university prepared the teachers adequately for the classroom and they will give a thumbs-up, too.

In fact, according to an official at the Cal State College of Education, the San Marcos campus is getting more than just good grades. A new statewide survey shows that Cal State San Marcos grads feel better prepared for public school teaching than the newly minted teachers as a whole from the 21 CSU colleges of education.

More than half the graduates surveyed gave Cal State San Marcos the top grade for getting them prepared, said Peggy Kelly, the interim associate dean at the College of Education. Systemwide, about 40 percent said the same. Cal State San Marcos graduates are especially ahead of the curve in math and special education, she said.

But it did not take a survey to convince area educators.

Noting that she hardly intends to discount the training that teachers have received from other universities, Principal Candace Singh at Discovery elementary in San Marcos says Cal State grads seem especially well-prepared.

"In all my years in San Marcos, I've worked with many different new teachers, folks new to the profession," said Singh, a 14-year veteran of the San Marcos Unified School District. "There is clearly a distinction in the level of education of people coming from Cal State San Marcos ... it's so clear that new teachers from there are really above and beyond in their level of preparation."

The survey, presented this week to the CSU trustees at their meeting in Fresno, asked 2,326 randomly selected CSU grads, who in 2003 completed their first year as public school teachers, just how ready they were to handle the job. Some 374 CSUSM grads took part. The CSU listed a total of 11,517 graduates of teacher-training programs in 2003. The CSU said the samples were large enough to make the data reliable.

Some 1,400 supervisors were also asked how well-prepared the CSU grads were. About 70 supervisors of CSUSM graduates filled out surveys.

"The CSU," a report on the survey concluded, "is extremely productive and efficient in preparing large numbers of classroom teachers who serve in California public schools."

Cal State San Marcos declined to supply its own specific, detailed results, saying they were an "unfinished work product," and exempt from release. Responses from a sample of the more than 70 grads teaching in high schools had not been tabulated. The College of Education at CSUSM graduates about 500 students a year.

Kelly, the interim associate dean, said only 2 percent of the supervisors surveyed found CSUSM grads unprepared for the elementary school classroom, compared with 5 percent systemwide.

None of them, she said, found the CSUSM grads unprepared to teach math. Systemwide, 5 percent of the supervisors cited a lack of preparedness among new teachers in math.

Nor did any teacher find a CSUSM grad unprepared for the rigors of the special-education classroom, Kelly said, whereas 3 percent systemwide faulted the special-ed preparation.

CSUSM grad Jeffrey Schmidt, a fifth-grade teacher at Discovery who is in his second year with the San Marcos Unified School District, credited the teamwork among public school teachers and Cal State San Marcos education professors with giving him valuable hands-on experience as a student teacher. The experience, he said, gave him confidence when he joined the faculty full-time.

"I also think they really prepare you for multiculturalism," he said of CSUSM, "for the diverse community that we live in."

Kelly said the campus results are gratifying. "Together," she said, referring to CSUSM professors and the public school teachers who supervise the college students, "we're doing a good job, but we can always do a better job."

"You know what they say at Cal State San Marcos?" Kelly added. "If somebody says we do it this way because we've always done it this way, they're wrong. There is no always."