Slashdot Mirror
Arkansas Declares a High School CS Education State of Emergency
theodp writes: Aiming to deliver on Governor Asa Hutchinson's inspired-by-Code.org-and-others Plan For Job Creation Through Technology Education, the Arkansas House voted 99-0 last week to require high schools to offer [but not require] a course in computer science, either in a traditional or online setting, starting this fall. Hutchinson learned last December that the state has only 6 qualified instructors to teach CS to high school students, so it's envisioned that the courses will be offered online through Virtual Arkansas ("where AR kids are Our kids").
Interestingly, House Bill 1183 includes a pretty dire-sounding Emergency Clause: "It is found and determined by the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas that computer science and technology skills are of vital importance to meet the growing needs of the workforce; that public school students need opportunities to develop computer science and technology skills in order to be competitive in the future; and that this act is immediately necessary to ensure that the Department of Education has the time necessary to develop and modify academic standards for computer science courses before beginning of the 2015-2016 school year. Therefore, an emergency is declared to exist, and this act being immediately necessary for the preservation of the public peace, health, and safety shall become effective on: (1) The date of its approval by the Governor."
Interestingly, House Bill 1183 includes a pretty dire-sounding Emergency Clause: "It is found and determined by the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas that computer science and technology skills are of vital importance to meet the growing needs of the workforce; that public school students need opportunities to develop computer science and technology skills in order to be competitive in the future; and that this act is immediately necessary to ensure that the Department of Education has the time necessary to develop and modify academic standards for computer science courses before beginning of the 2015-2016 school year. Therefore, an emergency is declared to exist, and this act being immediately necessary for the preservation of the public peace, health, and safety shall become effective on: (1) The date of its approval by the Governor."
CS grads, assemble! We must all assemble and hurry to the blighted lands of Arkansas, where we shall seek to restore some stability through our arcane understandings of algorithmic complexity and the like.
Good thing parachute drops and hand to hand knife fighting were required courses in my CS program! Boy did I think that wasn't going to be applicable in real life. Keep that in mind college CS students the next time you are learning something that seems impractical.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The emergency language is probably just there for a legal reason--it's going to either free up certain funds for it, allow a body to act that otherwise wouldn't be able to, allow applications for certain funds, allow some other kind of budgeting change, or change the timeline determining when the legislation can become effective.
Is Arkansas unusual in having 6 CS teachers? Do non-magnet high schools regular teach the Comp Sci AP these days?
Judging from the title alone, at first I thought they were being far too over-dramatic in calling any kind of CS education situation an "emergency."
But after seeing that they only have 6 qualified CS teachers, I have to change my tune. Something is very, very wrong if a state of 3 million people only has 6 CS teachers.
For all the fledgling nerds-to-be in AR, I hope they can find a good, long-term solution to the problem.
Americans love declaring "wars" on situations and things, or regional/national "emergencies" don't they?
Why all the drama?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
When I was in high school, we learned QBasic on IBM PS/2s. What's the current equivalent today? Nobody's completed the .net help file, so who has the book to teach it?
Teaching doesn't pay. Scores are leaving the profession, and fewer and fewer graduates are going into it.
Education has now spent a decade as one of the five lowest-paying masters degrees in the country.
(Music Education and Social Work, perennially topping the list.)
For a degree that can easily cost a quarter-million dollars or more to obtain, starting salaries are scarcely competitive with the night manager at McDonalds.
If they want real talent, the state is going to need to change their compensation system in a meaningful way.
--- Little Atomo - The Amazing Thinking Robot from Atomocom! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIP9KisHi4k
When I was a school (many many years ago) computers were metal boxes with black and white (or green) screens and a flashing cursor. That's it. We were taught logic, binary and all that stuff. In school. We learned structured programming, some minor graphics but mostly it was how to do calculations, and make decisions etc. That set me up to pick up multiple programming languages over the years, and I moved from 8 bit through to 64 bit computers with ease. A decade or so after I had finished, schools were focussing on teaching computer skills which pretty much focussed on how to do 'things' in Windows or on a Mac and no-one knew jack about how the computer worked, especially the teachers. The result has been a generation of people who really know nothing about computers or computer science. If we taught other sciences like this we would still be thinking of elements like 'air' and 'fire' etc. Students need to know what is going on rather than skipping all that and focussing on making powerpoints.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
No, there is no benefit especially in high school. High school is about control, not actually educating people. Teach rigid solutions to simple problems, and collect a paycheck. Mandated quarterly and monthly testing ensures that free thinking does not happen in public schools. Only the tests matter. If teachers attempt to teach their students, their students will do poorly on the tests. The tests are designed so that all steps must be followed to get a correct answer, even if those steps can be simplified. The tests are how teachers keep their jobs, and get raises. The only thing the administrators need to understand to do their job is make sure that the test scores are good.
There is no carrot and stick, there are only whips. Count how many administrators are required to operate outside of the school. That is the number of whippings each teacher faces whenever they attempt to act on their professional skills and "teach" a child in a school.
Sure, there are exceptions but you didn't ask about the exception. The normal is what I describe, just talk to a teacher who has been in the public school system for more than 5 years.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The Waltons outsource everything to China anyway. So why does Arkansas need programmers.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
luser$ grep -i "evolution" bible.txt
luser$
Told ya Jethro, ain't no such thing, cyphrin machine done proved it.
right after they finish up the creationism curriculum.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Teaching is one of the easiest jobs someone can get - you get 3 months off a year,
Between 2 and 2 1/2 (depending on the state). Unpaid.
you work at most 6 hours a day,
8-10, when you include lesson planning and grading papers (yes, this is "work")
you can't be fired,
Tenure only comes after several years of sucking up to the administration (five in the district I worked in), during which you can be fired, either at will or by nonrenewal of your (annual) contract.
and you get a tax payer funded pension at something like 80% of your final years salary.
This part is correct, at least.
Teachers pay absolutely nothing for healthcare.
Varies by district. In mine, I had to pick up 100% of the costs, and all the plans were crazy expensive because of all the old retirees who were also part of the group (and the expectations for how plush the insurance was supposed to be for them). Now in the private sector I'm paying a hell of a lot less out of pocket.
Picking up a worthless masters in education
I'll give you that. That's a problem with teacher training, though, not the school system. It's not exactly as if schools could just start taking unqualified people and plop them in front of 30 people without raising hell (unless it's Teach for America and the school is in the ghetto, of course).
(earned by sitting in a classroom in the summer for 5 days and taking a saturday test)
No idea where you got that from. It's easy as far as master's degrees go, but it still involves a thesis.
gives you a guarenteed raise.
Is this a problem? Teaching is one field in which extra knowledge is inherently directly applicable to your day-to-day work. In any case, what of all the analogous opportunities in the private sector?
And finally - teachers DON"T WORK. 15 min of lecture and then assign homework which isn't graded.
Watching the kids and keeping them at work is much harder than actually presenting the material. (Planning out the lesson also involves a fair bit of work.) Have you ever tried watching 30 kids at once, never mind teaching them anything?
Jesus Christ - teachers even dress like slobs now!
This is mostly the case with those whom the kids walk all over. Either that or they're old, have been there forever, and can do whatever the hell they want because no one's going to give them shit for it. Again, same as in the private sector.
Teachers are completely overpaid!
And how would you recommend we come up with a more equitable way to determine teachers' salaries? Regardless of your own ideas about fairness, how do you reason that lowering teachers' salaries will improve American education? Do your ideas about salary reductions only apply to teachers, or do they apply also to your own field?
Finally, if teaching is such easy money, why didn't you pursue it?