SERI scores are out. Not surprisingly, the gap between different states is huge...

I posted yesterday about my takeaways regarding the gender of the three Google global science fair winners, but didn't note the surprising fact that the three winners were all from the US. Sure, there are a lot of reasons other than sheer brilliance or rigor of the entries for this being the case (*very* small sample size, language barriers, cultural differences in style, resources for dazzling the judges, etc.), but it's worth noting that this news comes following the release of the national SERI—Science and Engineering Readiness Index-- results, which measure how high school students are performing in physics and calculus.

Source: SERI data compiled by Statistical Research Center at AIP

The news isn’t spectacular. There’s huge variability amongst states. As the press release noted “Massachusetts easily bested all other states with a score of 4.82, while Mississippi came in at 1.11. Twenty-one states in total, including California, earned below or far below average scores, while only 10 states earned scores above the national average.” (Essentially, the relatively higher performance of a few states drags up the average to the point that most states don’t even meet it. The distribution curve is positively skewed.)

In a time where many are wringing their hands about our country’s future global competitiveness, it’s clear we’ve got a lot of work to do. SERI sets a pretty high bar given where we are as a nation; it’s focused on the so-called “hard” and physical sciences rather than biological or health-related ones, and is compiled based on Advanced Placement scores, NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) reports, enrollment data, and teacher certification/qualification requirements. Yet, the picture painted with SERI isn’t as bad as the one we’d see if we did an international comparison against tests like the PISA (where the US ranks 30^th on “Maths” and 23^rd in the sciences), or the TIMSS (11^th).

The bright point on all of this is that we've got some statewide comparisons that account for more than just test scores. Hopefully we can use these results to push the national conversation towards a higher bar for everyone.