US News ranks Florida’s high school graduates #5 in the nation for “college readiness”. The state’s SAT math scores are dismal. So why is the ranking so high?

You may have heard or read that US News and World Report ranked Florida #1 for education in its annual ratings of states. While higher education was Florida’s stronger suit (ranked #1 in that), the state was ranked a respectable #10 in K-12. One component of the K-12 ranking that I found surprising was that Florida was ranked #5 in “college readiness”.

What is the US News definition of college readiness? It is “the approximate percentage of 12th-graders who scored in the 75th percentile or higher on SAT, ACT or both”. I’ve invested some effort in looking at Florida’s SAT scores over the years. Florida has a high SAT-taking rate: 90% of the Florida high school graduating class of 2023 took the SAT, according to the College Board. If we compare Florida’s SAT results to those of other states that had 90% or more of their 2023 graduates take the SAT, which is the only fair comparison, then Florida looks pretty good on the English Reading and Writing section of the SAT and dismal on the math section.

So why did Florida rank so highly on college readiness with dismal math SAT scores? I have a hypothesis, and I will not prove it here because I don’t have enough information. But here is my hypothesis: While the number of American students taking the ACT and SAT has declined significantly since the pandemic as colleges and universities have dropped the standardized test admissions requirement, the number of Florida students taking the ACT and SAT has increased. A student can’t earn a score in the 75th or higher percentile if she or he doesn’t take a test. So Florida has an edge over most states in the US News college readiness race because nearly all Florida students take at least the SAT if not both the SAT and the ACT.

The two figures below show how the numbers of students taking the SAT and ACT changed from the high school graduating class of 2019 to the class of 2023. Nationally, the numbers of students taking the SAT and ACT declined by 13.8% and 22.2%, respectively. In Florida, those numbers increased by 7.5% and 8.2%.

Why do so many Florida high school students take the SAT and ACT? Florida’s public universities still require standardized test scores for admission, while those in many other states do not. Florida’s college-bound students also want to earn Bright Futures scholarships, and most students must take standardized tests to qualify for those awards. Finally, some students struggling to pass the state’s high school graduation exams in math and English take the ACT and/or SAT hoping to earn “concordant” scores, which then clear the way to graduation. However, students in that latter category probably don’t contribute to Florida’s high “college readiness” ranking.

I haven’t proven anything here. That is, I haven’t debunked Florida’s high college readiness ranking. But it seems likely that that the state’s continued emphasis on college entrance exams has contributed at least a little bit to the state’s high ranking.

Just so you don’t have to look it up: The College Board lists an SAT score of 1150 as the 74th percentile and 1160 as the 76th percentile. ACT lists a composite score of 23 as the 74th percentile and 24 as the 78th percentile.

I was a reviewer of science instructional materials for the Florida Department of Education this school year. Here is a bit of what I learned about the review process and what I decided about one publisher’s high school physics materials.

Any day now, the Florida Department of Education will post its “Science Instructional Materials Adoption List” and its “Science Instructional Materials Not Recommended List” for the 2023-24 review cycle, which was focused entirely on science. Last year, the FLDOE posted its Social Studies adoption and not-recommended lists on May 9, generating a significant amount of media coverage (Here are articles from last May from the Tampa Bay Times and Orlando Sentinel). The science materials review results certainly have the potential to generate media coverage that is just as kinetic as last year’s social studies coverage. (See what I did there?)

I signed up to be a reviewer for this process to see how it works and to have a bit of influence over what physics materials are adopted. I was assigned to do a review of the materials for STEMscopes high school physics. When I was asked to do a second one as well, I declined, citing exhaustion.

Here is the first thing I learned: Doing a credible job of reviewing instructional materials is really, really demanding. I spent a huge amount of time trying to make the connections between each of the standards (which were mostly set back in 2008 when I was a member of the committee recommending standards to the State Board of Education) and the materials in the STEMscopes high school physics package. When I completed the STEMscopes review, I was asked to review another set of materials. I declined because I didn’t think I could survive the end of the fall semester while also performing another review. I salute the individuals who took this task seriously and hung in there to review multiple set of materials.

Yes, as a reviewer I was asked to look for critical race theory and other presumably evil ideological offenses in the materials. I didn’t see any. But then again, I was much more focused on trying to understand the difficulties a serious high school physics teacher would face while using the STEMscopes materials than I was trying to root out hidden ideological messages.

Did I like the STEMscopes physics materials? Nope. And I don’t mean sort-of-nope. I mean really nope. I’ve pasted in my summary paragraph below, and I’ll warn the squeamish reader that this paragraph is not subtle. But for those of you who want to learn more about how the review process works, I’ve also provided my full review document (which was provided to me after I completed the review) for download below.

The summary paragraph for my review of the STEMscopes high school physics materials. The full document generated by my review is available for download below.

instructional-materials-review-documentDownload

I will not pontificate about the purpose of a university, but here is what I think the purpose of my college physics classroom should be.

During the last few years, I’ve watched professors and policymakers debate about the purpose of a college education. Some argue that students should learn virtue during college. Others argue that professors should teach students to be social activists.

I will not tell colleagues, particularly those from other disciplines, what they should do in their classrooms. But I keep my own teaching goals simple. In each of the calculus-based introductory college physics classes I teach, I have two primary obligations:

• To provide my students with the best possible opportunity to learn physics with deep understanding, given the other responsibilities of my job; and,

• To assess my students’ understanding of physics with integrity and assign course grades that reflect that assessment.

I make an effort to treat each student with the dignity and respect they inherently deserve, regardless of whether they are struggling to learn physics or finding it easy.

But I am not trying to make my students better people. I would have little chance of success with that since I spend about 80 hours in class with these students and they have spent several orders of magnitude more time with their parents and peers.

I am trying to make them better scientists and engineers – by giving them the opportunity to learn with understanding the physics that forms the foundation of their disciplines. Scientists and engineers who understand the scientific foundations of their disciplines have more potential for innovation than those who don’t.

And perhaps the teamwork we foster in our studio physics classes helps some students understand that human beings are more productive scientists and engineers when they work in collaboration with peers. But helping students build better relationship skills is not on my syllabus, nor on any hidden agenda I have.

When it comes to assigning course grades, I keep in mind that I am sending a signal to the professors who will be teaching these students in their upper division courses in engineering, science and computing. Engineering professors have told me that students who earn B or better in our physics classes are highly likely to succeed in their engineering programs, and that a C in a physics class is a flashing red light. Of course, a D or F stops a student’s progress almost completely. Some students who earn D or F do so because they haven’t taken the challenge of learning physics in my class seriously. Those students can try again. There are other students who have had some sort of disruptive experience in their lives during the semester that prevented them from learning. Withdrawals were invented for those students so that they can have another chance without an academic penalty (although they have lost a semester of their lives, and that is a real cost). There are also a few students who seem to just not have the intellectual gifts required to learn physics at the level I am requiring. That is sad but true.

But I do not give a student whose level of physics understanding is poor enough to merit a grade of “D” a better grade because they are ready to graduate or because they had a disruptive experience. To the best of my ability, I give students grades that reflect their levels of physics understanding.

This is not the sort of thing that makes me popular with students or administrators or even with some colleagues in other departments. But it’s still the right thing to do.

A bit about the “given the responsibilities of my job” phrase in the first item at the beginning of this post: The reader should note that my assignment of responsibilities says that I should spend 30% of my effort teaching my 63- or 72-seat studio physics class. I spend more than that, but there has to be a limit. That means I cannot justify spending out-of-class time tutoring my students individually except during my two office hours per week (each of my two TA’s also holds two office hours per week, so in total we are available to students 12 hours per week including the six class hours). That time constraint also means that I cannot give my students individual oral exams, particularly because I give weekly quizzes on Fridays, which I then grade in time to return at the beginning of our 8 am Monday classes. I’m sure there are professors on my campus who give their students individual oral exams and spend many hours in one-on-one meetings with students each week. Good for them and their students. I can’t do that and also do the other things I am asked to do.

My graduate teaching assistants Sogoud and Tristen have helped me rediscover hope in my classroom this semester.

The SCALE-UP instructional model adopted for FSU’s Studio Physics Program is built on a foundation of years of research on teaching and learning at universities around the nation and the culture of respect that exists in my physics department.

But without great graduate teaching assistants, it fails.

This semester, I had great graduate teaching assistants.

Sogoud Sherif and Tristen White made my studio-style calculus-based course in electricity and magnetism a welcoming place for all of my students, coaxing them to push beyond the boundaries of their comfort and confidence.

Occasionally, I was jealous of the way that Sogoud and Tristen earned the students’ trust. Of course, I am in my 60’s and Sogoud and Tristen are (I think, anyway) in their 20’s, so it is easier for students to confide in the two of them than it would be for them to share their learning frustrations with me. But that’s why graduate teaching assistants are so important – because they can relate to students in ways that professors cannot.

I was blessed to have Sogoud not just for this spring semester but also for the fall 2023 semester. She has helped to keep me grounded for this entire academic year.

In closing, I’ll note that the learning gains my students posted this semester were the strongest of any group I’ve had since the pandemic. In fact, their gains were comparable to my stronger classes before the pandemic.

And aside from learning gains, it’s been a privilege to get to know this spring’s students.

Along with the fatigue that the end of this semester has brought, I’ll also carry a candle of hope into the next academic year.

Sogoud Sherif (center, standing)

Tristen White (standing)

Tristen and Sogoud

Will the solar eclipse get your student excited about a career in astronomy or astrophysics? Read this to be prepared…

It’s Monday evening, and your middle or high school student has just decided she or he wants to be an astronomer because of the student’s experience with the solar eclipse.

What advice do you give this student?

Part of your advice should be to take chemistry, physics, precalculus and (if possible) calculus courses in high school to prepare for the rigors of a college astronomy or astrophysics program. The University of Kansas Department of Physics and Astronomy provides this guidance for high school students who are considering an astronomy major:

Astronomy is applied Physics, applied using the tools of advanced mathematics, the technology of modern telescopes, and state-of-the-art computer software. As a high school student, you are encouraged to take any and all math and science classes available that can reasonably fit within your schedule, with an emphasis on Physics and, if possible, Pre-Calculus and Calculus. AP classes in Math or Physics should be taken as a preparation rather than a substitute for university-level classes.

That seems like common sense. And yet students who arrive at my university and select our “Physics and Astrophysics” major are often shocked to learn that the major involves high level mathematics and lots of physics – and not just gazing through telescopes full-time. The gentle reader will not be surprised to learn that students who are blindsided by the mathematical and physics demands of our astrophysics program are generally unsuccessful.

Astronomy and astrophysics are not the only college majors in which students often arrive on our university campus completely unprepared. To a large extent, meteorology is the physics of the atmosphere, and college students choosing this field must be prepared accordingly. The Penn State Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science advises high school students that:

People who major in Meteorology and Atmospheric Science need a strong background in science, mathematics and computer skills. In high school, students should take earth sciences, physics, chemistry and mathematics through at least pre-calculus. Generally, students who have completed a course in calculus and/or a course in computer programming will have an advantage when starting their Meteorology and Atmospheric Science studies.

Is your student considering a college major in engineering? Engineering can be exciting work, but it is also well paid. According to the New York Fed, eight of the ten college majors with the highest early-career median wages in February 2024 were engineering fields. So what should a high school student do to prepare for success in a college engineering program? The American Society for Engineering Education says:

Most engineering schools require four years of math, including Pre-Calculus, although Calculus or AP Calculus is strongly encouraged. Engineering schools are also looking for at least three years of science, including Physics and Chemistry.

At Florida’s public universities, we cannot screen out unprepared students the way that other engineering schools can. So we can’t “require” precalculus, physics and chemistry. But students who arrive in the college physics course that I teach without having taken a high school physics course are much less likely to succeed than students who did take a high school physics course. About one-third of the students who arrive in my first-semester college physics course have not had a high school class in the subject. They earn, on the average, one full letter grade lower than their better prepared classmates. That can be the difference between passing the course and failing, or passing the course but losing a Bright Futures scholarship.

And engineering majors who have to start in a pre-calculus math class are almost certain to take more than four years to graduate.

Taking chemistry, physics, precalculus and calculus may seem like a heavy lift for a high school student. But it’s not nearly as heavy as trying to succeed in college STEM classrooms without proper preparation.

If the eclipse or some other event sparks your student’s interest in a science or engineering career, give your student the gift of good advice – particularly about taking challenging math and science courses in high school.

Does the economic status of a high school’s students completely determine course enrollment rates in upper level math and science courses? A look at public high schools in Northwest Florida.

Course enrollment data released by the Florida Department of Education every year show that students who are classified by the state as economically disadvantaged are much less likely to take Advanced Placement courses in chemistry, physics and calculus (and this year precalculus) than students who are not economically disadvantaged.

That result suggests this question: Do high schools with fewer economically disadvantaged students always have higher course enrollment rates in chemistry, physics, precalculus and calculus?

Here I will explore that issue by looking at course enrollment data for 38 public high schools in Northwest Florida – a region bounded by Leon and Wakulla Counties on the east and extending all the way to Escambia County, which is bounded on the north and west by Alabama.

[Spoiler Alert: The answer to the question is “no”.]

I started by using the FLDOE’s Fall 2023 school-level course enrollment data to determine course enrollment rates (the percentages of a school’s students taking a subject) for chemistry, physics, precalculus and calculus. The course enrollment data include dual enrollment as well as regular high school level courses. The first plot below ranks the 38 public high schools I examined by the sum of the course enrollment rates for the four subjects. The schools I chose generally have 100 or more students in each grade. The five schools with the highest enrollment rate sums include two from Leon County (Chiles and Lincoln), one from Santa Rosa County (Gulf Breeze), one from Okaloosa County (Niceville) and one collegiate school, this one affiliated with Northwest Florida State College in Okaloosa County.

The FLDOE classifies students according to economic status as either economically disadvantaged or non-economically disadvantaged. The criteria that the FLDOE uses for this classification divides the state’s public school students almost exactly in half, so that 50% are classified as economically disadvantaged. The top five schools in the course enrollment rate ranking all have relatively small percentages of students classified as economically disadvantaged. At Chiles, 13% are economically disadvantaged. At Northwest Florida Collegiate, Gulf Breeze, Lincoln and Niceville, the percentages are 19%, 22%, 29% and 18%, respectively.

In the second graph below, I plot the course enrollment rate sum against the percentage of students who are economically disadvantaged. That is, the schools on the left side of the graph have more affluent student bodies, and the schools on the right side have student bodies that are much more economically challenged. By far the most economically challenged school among the 38 I examined is Gadsden County High School, where 91% of the students are classified as economically disadvantaged. Not surprisingly, they are ranked fourth from the bottom by the course enrollment rate sum.

The economic disadvantage plot shows the correlation between enrollment in upper level math and science courses and economic disadvantage that is enshrined in conventional wisdom (which in this case is correct). But even for a given percentage of economic disadvantage, there can be quite a spread in the summed course enrollment rates. I’ll start with the good news. Leon County’s Godby High School has a high economic disadvantage percentage (62%) but also a relatively high course enrollment rate sum (24.4). That not only places Godby far ahead of other schools with economic disadvantage percentages in the 60’s (Rutherford, Walton, Pine Forest and Escambia) but also far ahead of two schools with quite affluent student bodies (North Bay Haven and Destin, at which 22% and 18% of students are economically disadvantaged, respectively).

It would be easy enough for me to wave my hand around and speculate that school culture is the secret sauce that drives even economically disadvantaged high school students into the upper level math and science courses they need to be prepared to succeed in college STEM majors, but the anecdotes I’ve collected over the years are not data. The very best I can do here is to acknowledge the influence of student body economic status on enrollment rates in chemistry, physics, precalculus and calculus, but to note that there are other strong influences on student course enrollment patterns and, therefore, on the STEM career opportunities open to students. We should all focus on that latter set of influences.

Show up for class! University leaders and educators should stop deemphasizing classroom instruction.

With very few exceptions, I like the students in my class.

I have colleagues who would do just about anything to avoid teaching the introductory calculus-based physics classes that I teach. These classes are taken by students majoring in engineering, computer science and the mathematical and physical sciences, including physics. So almost none of my students want to do what I do for a living. But that’s OK. They are all interesting human beings, even the few that I never learn to like. I get to know all of them at least a little in my studio-style classroom that holds sixty or seventy students. I get to know some of them pretty well, and that is almost always a gratifying experience.

So it would seem only natural that I want them to show up for class. And mostly they do. On the average, about 90% of my students show up for each of my three-hour classes. Each class period, there are one or two students missing because of illness. Every semester, I have a few who habitually miss class, and they generally perform poorly on the weekly Friday quizzes and final exam that accounts for 70% of the course grade. Of course, they also lose a large chunk of the 25% of the course grade given for in-class activities, including lab exercises and collaborative problem-solving that they do in groups of three.

Teaching a 60-student studio-style introductory physics course is an intense experience. I have seven classroom hours scheduled per week (Six of them with my two graduate TA’s. The seventh is the quiz that I proctor myself.) My students take their quizzes at 9:20 am every Friday morning. With rare exceptions, the graded quizzes are returned to them shortly after 8:00 am during Monday morning’s class.

Given all of this, there is not much I can do for a student who misses a class or quiz. The studio model is built on collaboration within the groups of three students and the well-supported assertion that students generally learn better in groups than on their own. In principle, a student can perform the in-class assignments on their own and turn them in, but they are unlikely to learn nearly as much as they would have if they had worked on the same exercise with their groupmates in class. And of course rescheduling lab activities is pretty much impossible. The bottom line is that missing a class almost always negatively impacts a student’s learning.

Students who are going to be away from campus on quiz day, which is Friday, often ask if they can take the quiz early. But showing a quiz to a student a day or two before the class takes it seems like a terrible idea. As my mother taught me, “Once more than one person knows it, it’s not a secret anymore”. And allowing a student to take the quiz the following week after I’ve already returned the graded quizzes to the rest of the students is an equivalently bad idea.

If a student is going to be away for an official university activity, I offer to negotiate an arrangement with the faculty member accompanying the student to proctor the quiz wherever the student is on Friday. I send the quiz to the faculty member earlier in the week and the faculty member snaps a picture of the completed quiz with her or his cell phone and emails the picture to me. With this arrangement, I can even grade the quiz and return it with the other students’ quizzes on Monday morning. It is a bit of a hassle for the faculty member (or other academic advisor) accompanying the student, but it’s a hassle for me as well. I’m willing to share the responsibility and work involved with accommodating a student’s travel schedule with the faculty member or academic advisor accompanying the student. But I’m not willing to deal on my own with the train wreck that results if a student takes the quiz before Friday or the following week.

All of this is particularly relevant now because we seem to be experiencing a post-pandemic trend in which students, faculty and administrators are taking classwork less seriously than they did five years ago. Club and academic department advisors have always looked for activities on and off campus that they believed would engage and encourage their students. They used to recognize that they had a responsibility to assist their students in meeting the obligations associated with the classes that the students missed because of the activity. That attitude seems to have faded. Now if an advisor pulls a student out of class for an activity, the advisor generally believes it is entirely the class instructor’s responsibility to find a way to allow that student to make up any missed work. And that belief is increasingly backed up by the university administration.

If a course instructor is juggling increasing demands for classwork, quiz and exam make-ups from multiple students who are engaged in multiple activities, that instructor has two choices. First, the instructor can absorb the additional class workload and reduce the amount of effort she or he invests in the research and service activities that are a normal (and presumably valued) part of being a professor. Second, the instructor can reduce the amount of effort being invested in improving student learning to make room for the additional work required to provide make-up opportunities. For example, if weekly quizzes (which are intended to provide frequent timely feedback to students on their progress) generate too many demands for make-up opportunities, the instructor can simply fall back to a more traditional system in which students’ course grades are determined largely by one midterm exam and one final exam. Studio class periods that involve multiple in-class laboratory and collaborative problem-solving assignments can be replaced by traditional lectures. The impact on student learning would be dramatically negative, but these steps would eliminate much of the angst associated with missing classes for student activities.

Some of my K-12 colleagues tell me that academic policy changes like those underway at my university are already in full bloom in their schools. Perhaps the most pernicious such policy is the requirement that students can ask to retake exams or turn in assignments late. Students and their parents are taught in high school that there is no accountability for academic neglect and no reward for being a disciplined student, and they expect this to continue at the university level.

A recent New York Times article on the post-pandemic rise of K-12 absenteeism quotes a Duke University professor saying that during the pandemic “Our relationship with school became optional”. At my university (and probably at many others) we are careening toward a culture in which class is the place to go only if you have absolutely nothing else to do. Our leaders must realize that the classroom is the core of the university learning experience and halt that trend now.

Few students taking dual enrollment courses in Florida’s public high schools are making progress toward STEM bachelors’ degrees

An outside observer might expect that Florida’s aggressive program to dual enroll public high school students in college classes, and in many cases have them awarded A.A. degrees at the same time they receive their high school diplomas, would be good for the state’s pipeline to bachelor’s degree-level STEM careers. But course enrollment statistics recently released by the Florida Department of Education reveal that the dual enrollment program doesn’t make a significant contribution to the Florida’s STEM pipeline.

The 25 most-dual enrolled college courses (a table is shown below) are generally courses that satisfy the state’s general education requirements. The course most dual-enrolled by far in the Fall of 2023 (data provided by the Florida Department of Education) was the first semester English composition class, ENC 1101. Second was College Algebra (MAC 1105), which is a math course that is much lower level than the first calculus course required for many STEM majors (MAC 2311). The only other math courses in the top 25 are Intermediate Algebra (MAT 1033) which is at a still lower level than College Algebra, and Precalculus Algebra (MAC 1140), which is also a course at a lower level than MAC 2311.

The only science course listed in the top 25 is the general education biology class, BSC 1005, although as I’ll explain below the first semester biology class for biology majors has a large enrollment that is masked by variations in course numbering schemes among state colleges.

The foundational science courses taken in college by students majoring in fields like the physical sciences and engineering are the two-semester introductory chemistry sequence, CHM 1045 and CHM 1046, and the two-semester calculus-based introductory physics sequence, PHY 2048C and PHY 2049C. The numbering scheme for these courses varies from institution to institution in the Florida College System. The first digit in the course numbers can be 1 or 2 or even the letter “C”. If I comb the enrollment numbers for these courses and add the enrollments from these different numbering schemes together, I arrive at enrollment totals of 1,124 for CHM 1045, 166 for CHM 1046, 280 for PHY 2048C and 21 for PHY 2049C.

The first two biology courses taken by students majoring in life and health sciences are BSC 2010 and BSC 2011. If I add up the enrollments in these courses over the different numbering schemes, I find 2,216 for BSC 2010 and 313 for BSC 2011. That total for BSC 2010 would put it in the top 25 and would make it the only science course for science majors in the top 25.

It’s also worth addressing the two-semester introductory physics sequence for life and health science majors, PHY 2053C and PHY 2054C. PHY 2053C enrolled only 80 students, while PHY 2054C enrolled only 15.

A few paragraphs ago, I mentioned the first calculus course for STEM majors, MAC 2311. If I once again sum over the different course numbering schemes, I arrive at a total enrollment of 716. The second course in the calculus sequence, MAC 2312, enrolled 357.

In math and science courses for aspiring STEM majors, Advanced Placement course remain much more popular than dual enrollment courses. In the plot below, enrollments in dual enrollment courses are compared to those of the corresponding AP courses. Outside of math and science, the first semester college writing course, ENC 1101, which has the highest enrollment of any dual enrollment course at 18,893, is still far behind the AP equivalent, AP English Language and Composition, which had 29,202 students enrolled this past fall.

UCF President says he will dramatically increase the numbers of students earning STEM degrees – but he is ignoring his biggest obstacle

In a recent Orlando Sentinel column, University of Central Florida (UCF) President Alexander Cartwright declared his intention to “grow our capacity to educate students in technology-related programs, engineering, and computer science by 50% — ultimately educating 25,000 students annually in these high-demand disciplines.”

The president’s goal is certainly ambitious. During the 2021-22 academic year, all of the State University System (SUS) institutions together awarded 5,320 bachelors’ degrees in engineering and 3,219 in computing, according to the IPEDS service of the US Department of Education. UCF was the leader among the SUS institutions, with 1,365 engineering B.S. grads and 756 computing B.S. grads. The University of Florida was close behind in engineering grads (1,261) and Florida International University was UCF’s nearest competition for computing grads (667).

But if Cartwright’s UCF is going to make large jumps in its numbers of engineering and computing graduates, it will have to confront a challenge that originates not on its own Orlando campus but instead on the campuses of Florida’s K-12 schools. Our state is notoriously poor at preparing its high school graduates for college majors in engineering, computer science and other math-intensive fields like meteorology and physics.

What should high school students be doing to prepare themselves for these math-intensive STEM majors? The American Society for Engineering Education says that engineering schools are generally looking for students who have taken chemistry, physics, precalculus and, if possible, a year of calculus in high school. The Orlando Sentinel reported in 2019 that the head of UCF Computer Science Department advised high school students who are aspiring to major in computer science to take calculus and physics in high school. Chemistry, physics, precalculus and calculus are important for high school students intending to major in meteorology and physics as well.

Unfortunately for President Cartwright and the rest of us who teach students majoring in math-intensive STEM fields, there is a limited pool of Florida high school students who are well prepared to succeed in majors like engineering and computer science. In the fall of 2023, only 4.1 percent of Florida’s public high school students were taking a physics course (data from the Florida Department of Education). The most recent national physics enrollment rate was measured in 2017-2018, when 11.1 percent of American public high school students were taking physics. That same year, 4.7 percent of American public high school students were taking calculus. This past fall, only 2.7 percent of Florida’s public high school students were taking calculus.

Being well-prepared matters. At Florida State University, I teach the introductory physics courses taken by students majoring in engineering, computer science and other math-intensive STEM fields. About one-third of my students did not take a high school physics class. On the average, those students earn a full letter grade lower than students who did take a physics class in high school. A few students without high school physics succeed in my class, anyway. But most students without high school physics end up near the bottom of the grade distribution. Many of these students end up losing their dreams of becoming engineers and scientists. Several studies of the effect of high school course-taking on STEM majors published in leading journals during the last few decades (here and here) show that my experience is typical at colleges and universities around the nation.

If President Cartwright is serious about increasing the number of students earning bachelors’ degrees in engineering and computer science at UCF, he must take on the challenge of increasing the number of high school students who take strong courses in chemistry, physics, precalculus and calculus. First of all, that means increasing the number of math and science teachers being prepared at UCF for Florida’s middle and high school classrooms. Cartwright will need help with this from the state’s education policy makers, who must make K-12 teaching a more attractive career. Second, Cartwright should start a program to inform the parents of middle and high school students throughout Florida about the importance of taking chemistry, physics, precalculus and calculus in high school, at least for students who are considering STEM careers. In fact, he should consider giving applicants for admission to UCF extra points for taking these courses.

President Cartwright’s vision is for a university that extends opportunities for lucrative STEM careers to students from a broad range of backgrounds and at the same time fuels the state’s economy. But his present vision betrays a lack of understanding of what it takes to educate students in math-intensive STEM fields. Cartwright should expand the scope of his vision to include improving the K-12 segment of the STEM pipeline so that opportunities for Florida’s students are indeed broadened.

Let’s talk with the parents of high school students about what it takes to succeed in college STEM majors.

I spoke last week to a live audience of about 700 high school students at John I. Leonard High School in West Palm Beach and (I’m told) many more via a livestream at schools around Palm Beach County about the courses they should take in high school to prepare for success as college majors in STEM fields (Brief summary: chemistry, physics, precalculus, calculus). But even as I was speaking, I couldn’t help thinking that this would all be more effective if it were delivered directly to the parents of the students instead of just to the students themselves.

There is strong evidence from the Wisconsin Study of Families and Work on the effectiveness of communicating with parents about the importance of their students’ taking courses on chemistry, physics and upper-level math in high school. The outreach to parents performed in that study not only improved course-taking in those high school subjects but also increased the percentage of students who ultimately ended up in STEM jobs after college.

I’ve had my own remarkable experience with parent outreach. In fall of 2015, counselors at Mosley High School in Lynn Haven asked me to speak directly to parents during an evening event at the school about high school course selection, and we continued those sessions for a few years. When I started, Mosley (which had about 1,700 students) had 151 students enrolled in chemistry, 32 in calculus and six (yes, 6) in physics. Three years later, chemistry and calculus enrollment had doubled, and physics enrollment had increased to (ahem) 173.

I didn’t make that happen by speaking golden words to parents. The most important point about this remarkable transformation is that it was driven by the school’s decision makers, the counselors and administrators, and that I was just an instrument to be used to further their ends. And just to be clear about being an instrument, I had a blast. It felt good to be part of that kind of transformation.

Parent outreach about preparing for STEM careers works. It works dramatically well. And yet, school and district leaders are generally unwilling to give it a try. After all these years, I am still puzzled about the reasons for their reluctance.

Parents not only want their kids to get into good colleges, but they also want their kids to succeed when they arrive at those colleges. Listening to advice from those of us who have seen thousands of students succeed (and not succeed) seems like the most natural thing in the world for those parents. School and district leaders should give parents that opportunity.

Me, addressing students at Palm Beach County’s John I. Leonard High School and, via livestream, other schools in the district, on March 14, 2024.