In the past decade a new wave of apprehension about public education—especially science education—has come to the fore. A spate of recent studies has heightened the sense of unease by suggesting a lack of improvement in science proficiency among succeeding cohorts of US students and a slippage in international standings in comparative tests of science knowledge. Such widespread alarm over the academic health of our nation is a relatively new development. Until two generations ago the United States was widely regarded as a pioneer in instituting and extending free and universal public education. Education was extolled as a national resource, and a literate populace was regarded by many as critical to the maintenance of political democracy, to the attainment of a society committed to equal opportunity and the reward of merit, to the pursuit of a robust and internationally competitive economy and to the preservation of a strong national defense.

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Education
1.
See, for example, the Department of Education's most recent National Assessment of Education Progress, The Science Report Card, Educational Testing Service, Princeton, N.J. (1988);
and the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement's second International Science Study, Science Achievement in Seventeen Countries: A Preliminary Report, Pergamon, Oxford (1988).
2.
E. B. Fiske, The New York Times Educational Supplement, 4 January 1987, p. 20.
3.
Center for Education Statistics, High School and Beyond, US Department of Education, Washington, D.C. (1987).
4.
See, for example, B. G. Aldridge, Essential Changes in Secondary School Science: Scope, Sequence and Coordination, National Science Teachers Association, Washington, D.C. (1989).
5.
S. Ellis, P. Mulvey, Enrollments and Degrees. 1986–87, AIP, New York (1987).
6.
L. Osterndorf, Summary of Offerings and Enrollments in Public Secondary Schools, 1972–73, National Center for Education Statistics, Department of Education, Washington, D.C. (1974).
7.
K. E. Brown, E. S. Obourn, Offerings and Enrollments in Science and Mathematics in Public High Schools, 1958, Division of Education and Statistics, US Office of Education, Washington, D.C. (1959).
8.
Physics Education, Employment and Financial Support: A Statistical Handbook, AIP, New York (1964).
9.
R. Czujko, D. Bernstein, Who Takes Science?, AIP, New York (1989), in press.
10.
M. Neuschatz, M. Covalt, Physics in the High Schools, AIP, New York (1988).
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© 1989 American Institute of Physics.
1989
American Institute of Physics
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