Monthly Archives: May 2018

If socioeconomics determined the rates at which high school students take physics, chemistry and calculus, then the plots shown below of enrollments rates for those subjects vs. free and reduced-price lunch eligibility rate would show clear correlations.  The plots don’t … Continue reading →

Science textbooks unanimously adopted by the Collier County School Board are being challenged by the Florida Citizens Alliance (FLCA), a statewide organization led by retired IBM executive Keith Flaugh and Rick Stevens, Pastor of the Diplomat Wesleyan Church in Cape Coral, because … Continue reading →

In 2011, the Florida Legislature and Governor Scott implemented a statewide experiment by changing the conditions under which teachers are employed by school districts. The highest profile provision in the legislation, which was titled the “Student Success Act”, was the … Continue reading →

Florida’s university physics departments are responsible for providing students majoring in engineering, sciences, computing and health professions with the scientific background that educational leaders in those fields have decided their students need. In turn, university physics faculty have relied on … Continue reading →

The data are taken from the Florida Department of Education web site.  The department does not compile dual enrollment credits, so dual enrollment is not included here.

It was only recently that Orange County Public Schools Secondary Science Senior Administrator Rebecca Ray pointed out to me that chemistry enrollments are in decline.  I’d been so fixated on physics that I was surprised to learn that in Florida … Continue reading →

The physics enrollment data are taken from the course enrollment spreadsheets for Fall 2017 available on the FLDOE web site.  The free and reduced-price lunch eligibility rates are available on the same web page, but I have attached that spreadsheet … Continue reading →

Thirty-two Florida public high schools with 1,000 or more students are not teaching physics this school year, according to Fall 2017 enrollment data available from the Florida Department of Education web site. Fourteen of the schools are located in four Central … Continue reading →

After my post comparing Lynn Haven’s Mosley High School with North Bay Haven Career Academy was published, I received word that the Bay Haven Charter Academy administration had some concerns with it.  I offered to post a response and to … Continue reading →