The new Florida House Speaker wants every child in Florida to be able to read a book about going to the Moon by 2030, and that is a laudable goal. But Florida’s children should also have the best possible opportunity to be one of the engineers or scientists needed to make that trip happen.

During his inaugural address, new Florida House Speaker Chris Sprowls said set a goal of trying “to make sure that every child in Florida can read and understand a book about the Moon by the year 2030.”

But here is a goal that is just as important for Florida’s students: Every child in Florida should have the best possible opportunity to be an astronaut to fly to the Moon or Mars, or to be one of the engineers or scientists that will be needed to make that happen.

Our state has a long way to go to meet such a goal. Florida is among the bottom third of states for the rate at which its young people earn bachelors’ degrees in science and engineering (as of 2017, according to the National Science Foundation). Our state’s students begin falling behind in science and engineering before they get to college: The rates at which our state’s public high school students take calculus and physics – both recommended by the American Society for Engineering Education – are far below the national rates. In fact, in the fall of 2019 there were 45 Florida public high schools with 1,000 or more students that did not teach physics at all.

Black students are severely underrepresented among students who earn bachelors’ degrees in engineering and physics from State University System institutions (of SUS bachelors’ degree graduates in engineering and physics in 2018-19, only 6.5% and 3.9%, respectively, were Black). But that underrepresentation begins in high school. Of Florida students passing the Advanced Placement Calculus AB and Physics 1 exams in the spring of 2019, only 4.1% and 2.3%, respectively, were Black.

Of course, Florida is facing wrenching budget challenges and there is no way to completely insulate the K-12 schools from them. But there are promising developments that can be preserved even in difficult budget times. The higher starting teacher salaries that resulted from the Governor’s initiative last year might make it less difficult to recruit strong math and science students into the state’s teaching corps. Orange County has an initiative called the Calculus Project that has had success drawing students from disadvantaged backgrounds into the STEM pipeline by having them take Algebra 1 in middle school and giving them the supports they need to succeed. Even in difficult times, these developments should be preserved and programs like the Calculus Project disseminated.

Orange County Public Schools middle school students on a field trip to FSU’s National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in April, 2019.