The pipeline to math-intensive STEM careers for Florida’s Black students is a rough ride.

The farther along the pipeline to math-intensive STEM careers Florida’s Black students get, the tougher it is.

In 2021-22, 21.3% of the students in Florida’s K-12 schools were Black.

But during the same school year only 13.5% of the 8th grade students in public schools taking Algebra 1 were Black, and only 11.0% of the 7th graders taking Algebra 1 were Black. Taking Algebra 1 in middle school is important for students who aspire to become engineers, computer scientists or physicists.

The underrepresentation of Black students becomes even more severe at the high school level, where taking Advanced Placement Calculus AB is a key milestone. During the 2021-22 school year in Florida, only 7.8% of public high school students taking Advanced Placement Calculus AB, which gives students a head start on math-intensive college STEM majors, are Black.

The next milestone is college graduation with a bachelor’s degree. Given the AP Calculus AB results, the college graduation situation is not a surprise. Only 5.7% of the bachelors’ degrees in engineering awarded by Florida’s State University System (SUS) in 2020-21 went to Black students. The number in computing was higher – 9.3%. In mathematics and statistics, Black students were awarded only 6.0% of the bachelors’ degrees. Finally, in physics (my field) the situation was particularly dismal. Black students received only 3.1% of the bachelors’ degrees awarded by the SUS in physics.

To be sure, Florida’s situation in this is not an outlier. In fact, the nation has the same issues. But there is likely no national solution. Improvements must be made at the level of schools and school districts, and at universities.

Consider Orange County and its Calculus Project, which actually starts not in high school (when some students take calculus) but in middle school, where the project works to broaden the range of backgrounds of the students who take Algebra 1 so that they are on track to take calculus in high school. The Calculus Project now focuses on preparing middle school students in 7th grade so that they can be successful in Algebra 1 in 8th grade. The result? In Orange County, 17.3% of the 8th graders taking Algebra 1 were Black in 2021-22. Overall, Black students accounted for 24.2% of Orange County Public Schools students that year. Progress in Orange County is slow and difficult, but at least the district is making the effort.

It’s an effort the rest of the state – including the universities – should be making.

The statistics in this post came from the Florida Department of Education and IPEDS.

From left: the percentage of Florida’s K-12 public school population in 2021-22 who were Black; the percentages of Florida public school 7th and 8th graders taking Algebra 1 in 2021-22 who were Black; the percentage of Florida public high school students taking AP Calculus AB in 2021-22 who were Black; and, the percentages of students awarded bachelors’ degrees in engineering, computing, mathematics/statistics and physics by Florida’s State University System in 2020-21 who were Black.