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State High School Science Requirements and Physics Enrollments

by Michael Neuschatz and Mark McFarling

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the publication of A Nation at Risk, a call-to-arms issued by the Carnegie Commission. The report warned of the devastating economic and social effects of the continued failure of our nation's schools to adequately prepare high school graduates in the sciences and mathematics.

When the report was issued, with a recommendation that three years of high school science be required of every graduate, only a handful of states met that stipulation, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Physics was typically the last course in the high school laboratory science sequence, and thus most sensitive to the fact that requirements were set so low. Not surprisingly, in the mid-1980s, only about a sixth of public high school students ever took physics.

As might be expected in a system composed of 50 State-level authorities and over 15,000 local districts, any response to a call to change was slow and uneven. But by 1987, a number of states had begun to raise their requirements, and, according to AIP's first nationwide survey of high school physics teachers, the proportion of public school students taking physics rose to 19%. Physics enrollments in private schools were generally substantially higher, but varied greatly according to the type of private school being considered.

State education requirements continued to rise over the next 15 years, to the point where, by 2001, only one state still required one year and 23 states remained with two years, while 22 states mandated that students had to take at least three years of science to graduate. The remaining states left it to local districts to set the requirement.

This still did not compel students to take physics, but it certainly was one of the factors that contributed to a steady rise in physics enrollments to the point where, by 2001, 28% of public school seniors—and 31% of all students—were taking or had already taken physics. The years of science study required, and the percentage of public high school graduates taking physics for the states with the largest representation (more than 40 schools) in our sample, are shown below. (Results cannot be reliably broken out for smaller states because of low sample size.)

Sources: 2001 AIP High School Physics Teacher Survey. Council of Chief State School Officers: Key State Education Policies on K-12 Education: 2000, Table 8. National Center for Education Statistics: Digest of Education Statistics: 2001, Table 153.