The state of physics in US high schools

More than 1.3 million students were enrolled in high-school physics courses in 2008-09, and some 37% of graduating seniors in 2009 had taken at least one physics course. That proportion has risen steadily since 1987, when it was 20%. A recent survey by the American Institute of Physics (AIP) finds that while enrollment is up, access to physics courses is unchanged: Since 1987 the proportion of students who attend a high school that offers physics has hovered in the 91-94% range; physics is more widely available in public than in private schools.

The curriculum continues to diversify, with both conceptual and advanced physics growing in popularity. In 1986-87, the roughly half million students enrolled in a standard, algebra-based physics course accounted for 80% of students taking physics in high school. Twenty-two years later, the same number took the standard class but constituted fewer than half of all students taking physics. Enrollment in advanced placement physics, for example, grew from 4% of students to 13%.

For the first time, AIP looked state-by-state at enrollment in and availability of high-school physics courses.

More details can be found in two AIP reports based on a survey of high-school physics teachers, High School Physics Availability and High School Physics Courses and Enrollments. Other recent reports by AIP’s statistics group include one on textbooks used in high-school physics classes and one on the representation of Hispanic Americans at the bachelor’s degree level in physics and geoscience. The reports can be viewed at http://www.aip.org/statistics .