The purpose of this study is to gain insight into the experiences that nationally award-winning, exemplary science teachers have had over their career and examine the alignment of their responses with calls for K-12 science education reform from a selection of prominent commissioned government reports since 1980. From an assessment of the alignment of exemplary teachers, calls for reform have had a limited effect and highlight the weakness of using national reports as a wide-scale, nationalized approach to science education reform. Findings are focused on seven different areas of teacher development: classroom issues, teaching scientific inquiry, use of technology, preservice experiences, professional development of in-service teachers, vertical articulation, and science education reform over time. Among other issues, the teachers indicated one of the biggest barriers to inquiry teaching is the pressure to conform to high-stakes testing and the lack of examples of inquiry teaching during teacher education experiences.