The University of Texas shows how Florida’s public universities can address their state’s high school physics crisis

With deep budget cuts seemingly imminent for Florida’s public K-12 schools, the state’s already-poor performance in high school physics may be about to become much worse – a situation that would have a serious impact on the undergraduate programs in engineering and the physical and computing sciences at the state’s universities. Texas, the nation’s best state for high school physics, may provide a model for Florida’s universities to follow in making sure engineering and science majors arrive on campus ready to succeed in their demanding disciplines.

In the fall of 2019 – before the pandemic – one out of every eight Florida public high schools with more than 1,000 students didn’t teach physics. With the budget cuts that will be arriving after the election, it is possible that as many as half of the state’s public high schools will stop teaching physics, and those cuts will disproportionately affect students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

When more engineering majors arrive at Florida’s public universities without high school physics, the rate at which these students earn engineering degrees will decline – and once again, students from disadvantaged backgrounds will be hit the hardest. Furthermore, the sharp decline in high school physics availability will gut undergraduate programs in physics at the state’s universities.

Browbeating schools and school districts will not do any good – with their slashed budgets they will be focusing on what the Florida Department of Education says are the highest educational priorities, and physics and its cousin calculus are nowhere on that list of priorities. The Chief Financial Officer of Sarasota County’s school system has already said publicly that teacher vacancies will not be filled if they occur in subjects (like physics and calculus) that are not in Florida’s statewide testing program.

If the universities want high school students to take physics, the universities will have to provide an attractive opportunity for those students to do so. High school students and their parents like earning college credit. Advanced Placement offers an opportunity to do so, but students and parents are often turned off by the possibility that a student can work for a whole school year on a subject and then be denied earning college credit because of performance on an exam on a single day in May. For this reason, a dual enrollment option can be much more attractive than Advanced Placement.

Dual enrollment has been a popular option in English and lower level math courses, like College Algebra. But nearly all of the dual enrollments have been with institutions in the State College System, and not with the universities. In the Spring of 2020, there were 21,880 dual enrollments in college English courses, and 15,666 in math. Only 1,377 of the math enrollments were in the Calculus 1, 2 and 3 and differential equations courses that are required in engineering and physical science majors. There were only 684 dual enrollments in physics classes.

Florida’s State University System institutions have shown little interest in dual enrollment, leaving that field of play instead to the State College System. But perhaps Florida’s public universities should take a careful look at the University of Texas OnRamps program, an online dual enrollment program established in 2011 that offers thirteen courses in physics, chemistry, computer science, math, biology, geoscience, history, rhetoric and arts technologies. Not only does OnRamps provide students with access to dual enrollment courses, it also provides intensive professional development to teachers who serve as in-person teaching assistants at their own high schools. During the present (2020-21) school year, more than 38,000 Texas high school students at 392 high schools are enrolled in OnRamps dual enrollment courses. About half of the 38,000 students would be the first in their families to earn a bachelor’s degree, if they succeed in doing so.

According to Michael Marder, the University of Texas – Austin physics professor (and the founder of the UTeach teacher preparation program) who is presently the instructor of record for the OnRamps Physics 1 course, there are about 6,000 students taking one of the two OnRamps physics courses this fall, with 150 high school teachers involved. Students who pass the OnRamps physics courses earn general education science credit and are well prepared for the college physics classes required for STEM majors. How much of an impact would a 6,000-student physics dual enrollment program have on Florida’s situation? In the fall of 2019, there were only 40,756 physics enrollments in Florida’s public high schools. An enrollment bump in Florida of the size provided by the Texas OnRamps program would be very significant.

Ironically, Texas is the nation’s leader in high school physics enrollment rate. About 80% of graduates of Texas public high schools took a physics class while in high school. In contrast, Florida’s physics-taking rate is close to 20% – about one-quarter of the Texas rate.

But the most significant thing to note is this: The University of Texas – Austin, base camp for the OnRamps physics courses, is one of the nation’s most prestigious public universities. The university’s physics department is regularly ranked among the nation’s best. If leaders at Florida’s public universities think that offering a large-scale online dual enrollment program is beneath them, they are wrong. Learning a lesson from Texas and getting into the dual enrollment business in a serious way would likely make their own institutions stronger in the long run.

% of high school students taking calculus, chemistry and physics US (2015-16) vs. Florida publics (Fall 2019)