Has Florida’s STEM pipeline recovered from COVID? The state’s Algebra 1 end of course exam results say it hasn’t.

Taking Algebra 1 in middle school is an important milepost in the STEM pipeline. A student who takes Algebra 1 by 8th grade has the opportunity to take a calculus class in high school, giving that student a head start on math-intensive college STEM majors like engineering, the physical sciences and computer science.

COVID dealt a blow to student learning. Florida’s standardized testing program, which released results on its Spring 2022 math and English language arts exams this week, provides a way to compare where the state’s public middle school Algebra 1 program is now with where it was in Spring 2019, which was the last spring testing administration before the pandemic arrived.

So start here: Fewer students in both 7th and 8th grades took Algebra 1 in Florida’s public schools during the year just completed (2021-22) than in 2018-2019. The number of 8th graders taking the Algebra 1 end of course exam was 6.3% lower this spring than in the spring of 2019. The decline in the number of 7th graders was even larger – 10.9%.

The exam passing rates for middle schoolers declined as well. In Spring 2019, 95% of 7th graders and 86% of 8th graders who took the exam passed it. This spring, only 92% of 7th graders and 81% of 8th graders who took the exam passed. In all, the number of 7th graders passing the Algebra 1 exam was 14% lower this spring than it was in Spring 2019. The number of 8th grade exam passers was 12% lower.

From all of this, we can conclude that Florida’s STEM pipeline hasn’t yet recovered from the pandemic.

Of course, the middle school Algebra 1 situation varies from school district to school district. So below I have listed for each district the number of 7th graders who passed the Algebra 1 exam as a percentage of all the 7th graders in the district for both Spring 2019 and Spring 2022. I have also done the same for 8th graders. Statewide, 10.1% of all 7th graders passed the Algebra 1 exam in Spring 2019, but only 8.8% in Spring 2022. Among all 8th graders, 28.7% passed the exam in Spring 2019 but only 23.9% in Spring 2022.