Monthly Archives: June 2016

If we fold the number of middle school students who take the Algebra 1 EOC in each district with the percentage who pass, we get the ranking of districts below.  For each district, the blue segment represents the number of … Continue reading →

Given the importance of middle school Algebra 1 for giving students access to bachelor-level STEM careers, it’s worth asking these questions:  Is your school district giving the Algebra 1 opportunity to every middle school student who could benefit from it? … Continue reading →

<Monroe/> Compute$ is a privately-funded effort to improve readiness for computing careers in Monroe County K-12 schools.  It was featured in a public radio report recently.  One of the primary donors, John Padget, is the Vice Chair of the Florida … Continue reading →

Rural Liberty County – located in Florida’s Big Bend fifty miles southwest of Tallahassee – took a big chance this year by enrolling two-thirds of their 100 8th graders in Algebra 1.  The county’s education leaders were likely motivated by … Continue reading →

Taking Algebra 1 in middle school is a giant step for a student toward a bachelor’s-level STEM career such as engineering or computer science.  Students who take Algebra 1 in 8th grade and who follow a normal math sequence in … Continue reading →

Jeb Bush returned to the education policy arena this week with an opinion piece in the National Review in which he called for the nation to “massively disrupt our education system” with expanded school choice, online courses in hard-to-staff subjects like AP … Continue reading →

To have the clearest path to a bachelor degree-level STEM career, a student must take Algebra 1 by 8th grade. So it’s a bit alarming that the percentage of middle school students taking Algebra 1 in Florida’s public schools in … Continue reading →

During a national committee meeting I was chairing a few years ago, I was advocating for an initiative to get more physicists engaged with middle school students and teachers in person through classroom visits and other events.  A committee colleague … Continue reading →

The National Society of Black Physicists will host a twitter chat about SCALE-UP this Saturday during its biweekly #iteachphysics chat session starting at 10 am.  I will be moderating this week. For participants in the chat, I’ve assembled this list … Continue reading →

North Carolina State University Physics Professor Robert Beichner, the creator of the SCALE-UP instructional model, will be giving a seminar talk at FSU this Wednesday morning at 9:30 am.  The talk, which will be given in the seminar room on … Continue reading →