This fall we are resuming our Nationwide Survey of High School Physics. The last time we completed this survey was the 2012-13 academic year—before the implementation of AP Physics 1 and AP Physics 2.
The first step in the survey is drawing our sample of schools. We draw a nationally-representative sample of public and private schools in the United States. While the study looks at high school physics, the schools included in the study are not all traditional high schools. Some include all grades from kindergarten through 12th grade; others include grades 7 through 12.
We use two data sets from data from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics to draw the schools for our study. The Common Core of Data (CCD) includes data for all public schools, and the Private School Survey (PSS) covers all private schools. There are almost 125,000 schools included in these...