Rick Scott releases education plan: Should high school graduation requirements equal university admission requirements?

Rick Scott released an education plan today (hat tip to Orlando Sentinel’s Central Florida Political Pulse blog).

Allow me to dig this out of the weeds of the Scott education plan:

Due to a lack of post-secondary readiness, a Florida student can earn a high school diploma but still not meet the minimum requirements for admission to any of Florida’s state universities.  This is unacceptable.

Should every high school graduate have the minimum admission requirements for a state university?

This isn’t a radical Scott thing (there aren’t any radical Scott things – the whole plan looks like standard Florida Republican education doctrine).  In fact, I heard a relatively progressive state official say the same thing recently – that the high school graduation requirements should match the state university admission requirements.

So does that make sense?

What’s college for, anyway?: Students comment on block tuition

The Gainesville Sun has an article on block tuition, the idea that students would pay for 15 credit hours each semester, regardless of how many credits they take.  At present, many students take 12 hours per semester, the minimum to be considered a “full-time” student.  At 15 hours per semester, a student accumulates 120 hours in 8 semesters, the amount required for graduation.  The Board of Governors is presently considering a block tuition proposal  (Hat tip to Gradebook).

Here’s two interesting comments from UF students:

“I think it’s great to be more academically focused … but at the same time, that responsibility will lessen the college experience”:  a 21-year-old UF senior.  And some of us thought that academics were the core of the college experience…

“It’s not a right of someone to spend four years of college having fun”:  a 21-year-old UF junior.  At taxpayers’ expense, he might have added…

Florida TaxWatch releases piece on STEM-ready high school grads

Florida TaxWatch has released my piece on ensuring that the state’s university-bound high school grads are STEM-ready.

From the Florida TaxWatch “E-communique”:

According to a recent report, Florida state will need “100,000 more science and technology professionals than we are on track to produce” during the next five years.  Of the 50,000 bachelors’ degrees awarded by Florida’s public universities each year, only 8,500 students are in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields.  The state’s independent colleges and universities add another 1,200 bachelors’ degrees in engineering and information sciences to the total.  Because the number of STEM bachelors’ degrees produced each year in Florida is so small compared to the shortfall, it is clear that meeting Florida’s needs for science and technology professionals in the next decade will require a major shift in the culture and priorities of the state’s educational system.

Under the New Florida Initiative being pursued by the State University System’s Board of Governors, a substantial investment will be made in building the capacity of the state’s universities to educate STEM professionals.  However, the New Florida Investment will be wasted unless Florida’s public high schools dramatically increase the number of students they send to our universities who are both interested in science and engineering careers and well prepared for the rigor of undergraduate programs in those fields.  Doing so will require our high schools to recast their missions.  The core science subjects of biology, chemistry, and physics must become central to our high schools’ curricula and the preparation of every university-bound graduate for rigorous undergraduate programs in science and engineering fields must become a high priority for each high school.

Alex Sink’s TV ad on education: Who are the stakeholders in the K-12 system?

Before I get into it, I should say this:  I am an Alex Sink fan.  If each of our public servants was as devoted, sincere and talented as Alex Sink, our nation would be a much better place.  I’ve seen Sink speak, and I understand (at least a little) the political tightrope she is walking.

But Sink’s TV ad on education raises an important question.  If you can, watch the ad before reading on.

The question – and it’s a big one – is this:  Who are the stakeholders in Florida’s K-12 system?  In the ad, Sink says parents and teachers.  Perhaps we can argue about whether the policy-makers in the legislative and executive branches should be included among the stakeholders.

But I’ll certainly make this argument:  The postsecondary educators who work with the students who have graduated from Florida’s high schools are primary stakeholders in the K-12 system, beyond any doubt.  And we are almost always excluded from any discussion about K-12 policy.  When “higher education” is included in discussions about K-12 math and science education, it’s not the math and science professors who are included.  Instead, it’s my friends down the street who teach in the College of Education and work in that college’s research arms.  Maybe a scientist or mathematician who happens to be an institute director or a Dean will be included.  But the folks who are actually trying to teach calculus and physics to high school graduates almost never get a say.

The failure to include real live math and science professors among those making math and science policy for the K-12 schools will be an even bigger problem when the Florida Legislature starts tying university funding to STEM degree production, as Frank Brogan seems to be encouraging with his (so far anemic) New Florida initiative.  The preparation and interest of the students we get at the universities from the K-12 schools will impact how well we can meet the STEM degree production targets that will soon be imposed by the legislature on the SUS institutions.

There have been a few exceptions to the exclusion of math and science faculty from K-12 policy-making.  The processes for producing Florida’s new math and science standards were exemplary in the way they brought together K-12 educators and real live math and science faculty from the postsecondary institutions.  Yes, I continue to argue that we should give those up in favor of the national Common Core standards.  But Florida’s standards committees were terrific.

Were those standards committees among the “Tallahassee politicians and bureaucrats” that Sink complained about in her ad?  Is Sink complaining about the new math and science requirements for graduation?  Probably not – in her detailed education plan, she says that the new requirements don’t go far enough.

Saying that “teachers and parents” are the only stakeholders might be good politics, but it’s bad policy.  If Sink is elected, I hope she remembers that when she starts to put her stamp on the state’s K-12 system.

Postscript:  It’s easy to find things to criticize in Alex Sink’s education statements, because she’s said a lot.  Rick Scott’s statement on education amounts to 208 words.  Not much to work with.

Requiring biology, chemistry AND physics for university admission – Is it nuts?

It is only a matter of time until the Florida Legislature makes university funding partly contingent on the number of STEM degrees produced – including at the bachelors’ degree level.  Of course, a university’s outputs (number of high quality bachelors’ level scientists graduated) depend in part on the inputs (the preparation for and interest in STEM degree programs of the incoming high school graduates).  And the student is not well-prepared for a major in science or engineering unless she or he has taken biology, chemistry and physics (the emphasis on “and” is intended to contrast with the new high school graduation requirement, which says “chemistry or physics”).  Therefore, Florida’s universities – at least the ones that aspire to contribute significantly to the state’s future innovation economy – should require high school biology, chemistry and physics for admission.

If Florida’s universities did so, would we be way out of line with other first-class public universities in the southeast?

Of course not.

Take a look at freshman admissions requirements from universities in our region:

University of Georgia

“For GA public school students who will graduate from high school in 2012 or later, 4 units of science are required. The courses must include two courses with a laboratory component. Overall, students must complete; at least one unit in Biology, one unit of physical science or physics, one unit of chemistry, earth science or environmental science, and one additional science unit. For out-of-state and private schools, 4 sciences must be taken, including 2 lab sciences and a biology and physical science class each.”

University of Mississippi

For 2012, 4 units of science:  “Choice of Biology, Advanced Biology, Chemistry, Advanced Chemistry, Physics, Advanced Physics, or any other science course with comparable rigor and content. One Carnegie unit from a rigorous Physical Science course with content at a level that may serve as introduction to Physics and Chemistry may be used. Two of the courses chosen must be laboratory based.”

Louisiana State University

3 units of science, including “One unit of biology, one unit of chemistry, one unit of physics”

University of Texas

“If you are on track to meet the state’s high school coursework requirements, the transcript you submit should indicate that you will graduate under the Recommended or Distinguished/Advanced High School Program.”

Spring 2011 admissions requirements:

3 science units:  “Students may choose from the following areas. Biology, chemistry, and physics are strongly recommended.

1. Integrated Physics and Chemistry
2. Biology, Advanced Placement (AP) Biology, or International Baccalaureate (IB) Biology
3. Chemistry, AP Chemistry, or IB Chemistry
4. Physics, Principles of Technology I, AP Physics, or IB Physics
5. Physical science, physiology and anatomy, geology, meteorology, marine science, or astronomy”

By the way, as you can see above the state of Texas has a differentiated high school diploma program.  The “Distinguished Achievement Program” (and how many students do you think are admitted to the University of Texas at Austin without one of those?  Besides, the football players, basketball players and swimmers, that is) requires  biology, chemistry and physics.

Ensuring that Florida’s university-bound high school graduates are STEM-ready

When Democratic candidate for Governor Alex Sink released her education platform last week, she hit on an important point regarding the new high school graduation requirements in math and science passed by the Florida Legislature and signed into law by Governor Crist last spring:  while they are a step in the right direction, “we can do even more to raise the bar for math and science achievement.”  Sink’s plan also says that while “the demand for scientists and mathematicians continues to grow, the number of students going into these fields is not growing at an equal rate.”  Sink pledges to work toward a strong curriculum “that will help students meet competitive collegiate standards.”

Indeed, it will require a major shift in the culture and priorities of the state’s educational system to meaningfully address the shortfall in scientists, engineers and mathematicians, a group of careers often abbreviated as STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).  The report Closing the Talent Gap released by the Florida Council of 100 and the Florida Chamber of Commerce in January, 2010, said the state needs “100,000 more science and technology professionals than we are on track to produce” during the next five years.    While Florida’s colleges and universities must build their capacities for educating scientists and engineers, it is equally important – as candidate Sink says – that Florida’s public high schools dramatically increase the number of students they send to the state’s universities who are both interested in science and engineering careers and well prepared for the rigor of undergraduate programs in those fields.

The undergraduate preparation for all science and engineering majors – including those selected by students who intend to pursue health careers as physicians, pharmacists and physical therapists – requires at least two semesters of general chemistry and two semesters of general physics.  Prospective health professionals must endure organic chemistry as well.  Yet one-third of the students in my general physics classes at Florida State University say that they did not take physics in high school and that they did not know courses like chemistry and physics would be required for them in college.  Common sense says that students who have taken strong high school courses in chemistry and physics are more likely to succeed in the college-level chemistry and physics classes, and research backs that conclusion up.

How can we make sure that all of our university-bound high-school graduates are “STEM-ready” – that is, well-prepared for the rigors of undergraduate programs in science and engineering?  Unfortunately, the present system that relies on students obtaining advice from parents, teachers, guidance counselors and peers is not working.  While the new high school graduation law that requires biology and “chemistry or physics” will improve the scientific literacy of all high school graduates, it will fall short of what is need to prepare students for careers in science, engineering and the health professions.

Instead, it appears that to achieve the goal of dramatically increasing the number of STEM-ready university-bound students a new incentive will have to be put in place.  There are three policy options for providing such an incentive.  One is that Florida can initiate a program of differentiated high-school diplomas like that recently adopted in Virginia. The highest-level diploma, which in Virginia is called an “Advanced Studies Diploma,” should require that each graduate take courses in biology, chemistry and physics.  A second is to modify the eligibility requirements for Bright Futures Scholarships to require biology, chemistry and physics.  Finally, Florida’s public universities could require biology, chemistry and physics for university admission.

Making sure that every university-bound student is STEM-ready isn’t just about preparing the scientists, engineers and mathematicians needed to keep Florida’s high technology and health industries fed.  It is also about providing the greatest possible range of opportunities for Florida’s students.  In the future, the state’s highest paying and most secure jobs will be concentrated in the STEM fields.  It only makes sense to be sure our best and brightest don’t cut themselves off from these opportunities while they are still in high school.

Florida’s higher ed funding in free fall – and the decline is far from over

The Miami Herald highlighted the continuing budget decline at the state’s public postsecondary institutions.  Budgets have fallen nearly 20% for the state’s public colleges and universities since 2006-2007.

With Florida facing a $6 billion shortfall in the next fiscal year, things are likely to get worse yet.

Ensure that Florida’s university-bound high school graduates are STEM-ready

According to the report Closing the Talent Gap released by the Florida Council of 100 and the Florida Chamber of Commerce in January, 2010, our state will need “100,000 more science and technology professionals than we are on track to produce” during the next five years.  Of the 50,000 bachelors’ degrees awarded by Florida’s public universities each year, only 8,500 students are in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields.  The state’s independent colleges and universities add another 1,200 bachelors’ degrees in engineering and information sciences to the total.  Because the numbers of STEM bachelors’ degrees produced each year in Florida is so small compared to the shortfall, it is clear that meeting Florida’s needs for science and technology professionals in the next decade will require a major shift in the culture and priorities of the state’s educational system.  While Florida’s colleges and universities will need to build their capacity for educating scientists and engineers, it is equally important that Florida’s public high schools dramatically increase the number of students they send to the state’s universities who are both interested in science and engineering careers and well prepared for the rigor of undergraduate programs in those fields.  Doing so will require our high schools to recast their missions.  The core science subjects of biology, chemistry and physics must become central to our high schools’ curricula, and the preparation of every university-bound graduate for rigorous undergraduate programs in science and engineering fields must become a high priority for the mission of each high school.  This imperative must be as high a priority as raising graduation rates.  While the new high school graduation requirements in math and science passed by the Florida Legislature in 2010 and signed into law by Governor Crist are an important step forward in making sure that every high school graduate is mathematically and scientifically literate, they do not accomplish the goal of making sure that every university-bound student has a comprehensive preparation in all the core science areas of biology, chemistry and physics.

To illustrate why such a fundamental shift in our high schools is necessary, let’s go back to Haley, the ninth-grader that Orlando Sentinel reporter Leslie Postal had with an Orange County ninth-grader talked with for an article published in April.  Haley expressed an interest in advanced life sciences classes like Anatomy and Physiology, marking her as a possible future health professional.  However, Haley also complained about the new chemistry-or-physics requirement for high school graduation, saying, “Other courses are just so much more interesting…Not all careers do you need to know chemistry and physics.”

But of course if Haley is heading for a career as a pharmacist, physical therapist or physician, she will have to deal with both chemistry and physics in college, in addition to a heavy load of the life science courses in which she professes an interest.  Research [Philip M. Sadler and Robert H. Tai, Science, Vol. 317, Pgs. 457-458 (2007)] says that students who have taken strong high school courses in chemistry and physics are more likely to succeed in the college-level chemistry and physics classes.  Those of us who actually teach science at the college level knew that even before Sadler and Tai published their paper.

In high demand university courses such as General Chemistry, General Physics and Organic Chemistry, the failure of a student to prepare properly often has financial consequences, both for the university (and therefore taxpayers if the university is public) and the student.  If the student earns a grade of “D” or “F”, she or he must repeat the course, extending the student’s time to graduation and keeping another student from taking the class in a timely fashion.  If the student earns enough D’s or F’s, she or he can be forced to change career plans altogether, costing the state one more STEM professional.

Our concerns about STEM-readiness should not be confined to students like Haley who set their sights on STEM careers in high school or before.  No one would argue that a student should be held to a career choice she or he made at age 15.  Yet a talented high school student who decides to forgo chemistry or physics classes and precalculus mathematics because of a conviction that she or he will be pursuing a career in the arts is cutting off an important range of career options.  In fact, it is not uncommon for upper division university students to realize that they find a STEM career attractive but that they have massive math and science deficits that stretch all the way back to their high school days.

How can we make sure that our best and brightest — our university-bound high-school graduates — are well-prepared for the rigors of undergraduate programs in science and engineering?  Unfortunately, the present system that relies on students obtaining advice from parents, teachers, guidance counselors and peers is not working.  While the new high school graduation law – that requires “chemistry or physics” – will have a dramatic effect on the chemistry course-taking rate, it is less likely to increase the physics course-taking rate since chemistry is generally listed as a prerequisite for physics in Florida’s school districts.

Instead, it appears that to achieve the goal of dramatically increasing the number of STEM-ready university-bound students a new incentive will have to be put in place.  There are three policy options for providing such an incentive:

Initiating a program of differentiated high school diplomas:  Florida can initiate a program of differentiated high-school diplomas like that recently adopted in Virginia. The highest-level diploma — which in Virginia is called an “Advanced Studies Diploma” and is intended for university-bound students — should require that each graduate take courses in biology, chemistry and physics. The same bill (SB 4) that installed Florida’s new high-school graduation requirements also called for a study of differentiated diploma options by the Florida Legislature’s research and analysis unit, the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability. The report will be completed in time for the Legislature to consider this option during its 2011 session.

Modifying requirements for Bright Futures Scholarships:  The eligibility requirements for Bright Futures Scholarships could be modified to require biology, chemistry and physics.  Bright Futures is an immensely popular program among voters, and steps taken the last few years to arrest the rapid increase in the program’s budget have already incited considerably grumbling among university students and their parents.  It is unlikely that legislators would be willing to tighten the eligibility requirements further at this time.

Requiring high school biology, chemistry and physics for admission to the state’s public universities:  Requiring a full slate of science courses for university admission is the most direct way of ensuring that every university-bound student is STEM-ready.  However, the state’s universities have been emphasizing the issues of accessibility and graduation rate.  The Florida Board of Governors, which would have to make the change to admissions requirements, might not be willing to impose additional graduation requirements in science because of the possible perception that they would be limiting access to the universities.

All three of these options face significant political obstacles.  However, it is likely that the Bright Futures option faces the steepest obstacles of all because the scholarship program is such a hot button issue with middle class voters.

Making sure that every university-bound student is STEM-ready isn’t just about preparing the scientists, engineers and mathematicians needed to keep Florida’s high technology industries fed.  It is also about providing the greatest possible range of opportunities for Florida’s students.  In the future, the state’s highest paying and most secure jobs will be concentrated in the STEM fields.  It only makes sense to be sure our best and brightest don’t cut themselves off from these opportunities while they are still in high school.

Orlando Sentinel op-ed on demand for chemistry teachers

My op-ed in the Orlando Sentinel on the huge demand for chemistry teachers Florida is facing is here.

SB 4 Folklore File: What NOT to be concerned about

There are three major concerns about SB 4 that are expressed by the K-12 community and others – that SB 4 is a “huge unfunded mandate”, that the new graduation requirements in science in SB 4 will cause a catastrophic drop in the graduation rate, and that the highly qualified chemistry and physics teachers needed will not be available.  Two of these – the “huge unfunded mandate” concern and the graduation rate concern – have no basis in fact and belong in the SB 4 Folklore File.  The third concern is valid and must be addressed – if necessary by means of top-down edicts – quickly.

Here’s a look at the two concerns that belong in the Folklore File:

“Huge unfunded mandate”:  The only cost imposed on the school districts by SB 4 is the cost of finding enough new chemistry teachers to teach chemistry to the 40,000 additional Florida high school students who will be taking chemistry every year.  Every high school math teacher in Florida is already qualified to teach Algebra 2 (one of the new graduation requirements imposed by SB 4).  The course-taking rate for Biology 1 (another new graduation requirement) in Florida is already 95%.  And the course-taking rate for physics will not go up at all because chemistry is a prerequisite for physics.  So chemistry is it, and teaching the additional 40,000 students per year will probably require in the neighborhood of 400 new chemistry teachers statewide.

The districts do not need new science teaching positions to meet the chemistry demand since the number of courses required for graduation is already three – equal to the SB 4 number.  So the big shift will be to replace science teachers who are unqualified to teach chemistry with teachers who are.  Alternatively, science teachers who are not qualified to teach chemistry could be retrained to become qualified to teach chemistry.

As discussed in a previous post, the only possible additional cost of hiring new chemistry teachers into existing science teaching positions is the $5,000 per year salary differential that market salaries indicate for chemistry teachers (but which has not yet been collectively bargained in any of Florida’s 67 school districts, to my knowledge).  If each of 400 new chemistry teachers receives the $5,000 salary differential, that amounts to $2 million per year statewide.  The cost of retraining science teachers to become qualified in chemistry might be as high as $15,000 per teacher.  That would amount to a one-time cost (for 400 teachers) of $6 million.

Are these costs an unfunded mandate?  Yes.  Are they huge?  Hardly.  I’d settle for the descriptor “modest.”

Catastrophic drop in graduation rate:  There is no evidence that the new graduation requirements in science will cause a catastrophic drop in Florida’s graduation rate.  In fact, there is substantial credible evidence that any drop will be small and temporary.  As I have done previously (here and here) I will cite three sources of evidence.  The first is a study recently released by the University of Chicago that examined the impact on the graduation rate in the Chicago Public Schools of an increase in the science graduation requirements implemented in 1997.  The graduation rate dropped 4% in the first year of implementation and then an additional 1% the next year.  But by the fifth year after implementation, the graduation rate had recovered to the pre-implementation level.  The second source of evidence is the graduation rates in four Florida districts – the Super Science Counties – that have had more stringent graduation requirements in science for years.  Their 2008-2009 NGA graduation rates (Brevard 95%, Duval 64%, Monroe 81%, and Polk 72%, compared to the statewide rate of 76%) don’t support the argument that higher graduation requirements significantly depress graduation rates.  The third source is yesterday’s Boston Globe article on the implementation of the science end-of-course exam requirements on Massachusetts high school students.  The new requirement caused a drop in this year’s graduation rate of less than 2%.

Yes, there will be a modest, temporary drop in the graduation rate due to the science requirement in SB 4.  But in the 21^st century, science is a central subject along with math and language arts.  As the Chicago study stated, it took the new 1997 graduation requirements to get school personnel to accept that.

And the one issue we really should be worried about?  It’s the supply of qualified chemistry teachers.  If you’re really worried about that (as you should be), this is what you should do.  First, walk over to the science teacher education unit at your friendly neighborhood college or university and ask how many experienced chemistry teacher educators they have on staff.  I don’t mean biology teacher educators who took some chemistry as undergraduates and maybe covered a chemistry class or two during their years in a public high school – I mean people who have made a career out of preparing chemistry teachers and (even better) who have published research on the issues specific to chemistry classrooms.  If your local science teacher education unit doesn’t have any such people on staff, suggest that they hire some.  If that doesn’t work, talk to (or write to) their Dean.  If that doesn’t work, either, write to the President of the college or university.  If that fails, write to the Commissioner of Education.  If none of that works and you’re absolutely desperate, write an op-ed.  Or find out who your legislators actually listen to and talk with them.

FSU researcher Carolyn Herrington expressed her concern to the Miami Herald some weeks ago that there would be an attempt to roll back the new graduation requirements in SB 4.  And preventing that – and keeping the science education momentum pointing forward – is what I’m trying to do.