Investigated was academic achievement of Earth Science Curriculum Project (ESCP) students in permissive and authoritarian classes. Authoritarian and permissive teachers were identified in the formal ESCP program using McGee's F-Scale; Form 30. Random samples of students and teachers were chosen from the 15 test centers throughout the United States. The difference of the means of student scores on the ESCP Comprehensive Final Test in both authoritarian and permissive classrooms was statistically analyzed. Some findings were (1) student achievement was significantly different in authoritarian and permissive classrooms under teachers with different academic majors, (2) student achievement was not found to be significantly related to number of semester of hours of teacher preparation in education, related science, physics and mathematics, and (3) classes taught by teachers with 13 or more semester hours in education made greater gains than those in which the teacher had zero to 12 semester hours. (BC)