The national landscape for STEM teacher education

For 35 years, STEM education for secondary students in the US has been in a state of crisis. Less than 40% of US high school students take physics, when in most of Europe and Asia 4 years of physics are customary. Computer science is in such shortage that states do not even try to require it, and we scarcely know how many students take it.

The story of the last 35 years is not as bad as it seems. There has been steady progress in some areas, and in some states and at some times strong improvement that went unrecognized. The key to the future is more and better teachers. Through programs such as PhysTEC from the American Physical Society and UTeach, physicists are helping lead the way.