San Francisco Public Schools To Require Computer Science For Preschoolers

theodp writes: Never underestimate the ability of tech and its leaders to create a crisis. The S.F. Chronicle's Jill Tucker reports that the San Francisco School Board unanimously voted Tuesday to ensure every student in the district gets a computer science education, with coursework offered in every grade from preschool through high school, a first for a public school district. Tech companies, including Salesforce.com, as well as foundations and community groups, are expected to pitch in funding and other technical support to create the new coursework, equip schools and train staff to teach it. From Resolution No. 155-26A2 (PDF), In Support of Expanding Computer Science and Digital Learning to All Students at All Schools from Pre-K to 12th Grade: 1. "All students are capable of making sense of computer science in ways that are creative, interactive, and relevant." 2. "All students, from pre-K to 12, deserve access to rigorous and culturally meaningful computer science education and should be held to high expectations for interacting with the curriculum." 3. "Students' access to and achievement in computer science must not be predictable on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, language, religion, sexual orientation, cultural affiliation, or special needs." MissionLocal has a two-page SFUSD flyer on the project, which aims to illustrate the "importance of computer science" with the same Code.org jobs infographic that Microsoft used to help achieve its stated goal of creating a national K-12 CS crisis, and demonstrate "disparities in accessing CS education" for SFUSD's 57,000 students with a small-sample-size-be-damned bar chart of the racial demographics of the school district's 209 AP Computer Science participants (181 Asian, 0 African American, 6 Latino, 1 Native American, 14 White, 7 Other).

Comments

Good For Future Training

[CycleFreak]

It's obviously very important to come out of high school with the skills required to train your H1-B replacement.

Re:Good For Future Training

[Talderas]

These kids will be the new H-1B replacements. They're making the skill ubiquitous and thus increasing the amount of supply side talent which will help depress wages.

Re:Good For Future Training

[Penguinisto]

Please... the vast majority of these kids will only retain enough information to be moderately proficient users.

More likely though, the SanFran school system instituted this for the express purpose of flashing a buzzword to the parents, and pretend that they're 'doing something' to improve education.

the plumbing of the 21st century

[alen]

this is why i'm going to make sure my kids know to use computers and possibly program as tools and background knowledge but go to school for something really valuable like advanced math

Re:the plumbing of the 21st century

[alen]

yeah, 10 years ago i had an electrician tell me how he spent $68,000 renovating his living room right before he gave me a quote for $3000 for some new outlets in the kitchen

Computer science and the lowest common denominator

[TWX]

I'm saddened by the misapplication of "computer science" as a term. When I took computer classes, they were not called "computer science" until one was actually supposed to program the computer. Like, open an IDE, write code, and compile it. Classes on computer usage before that were called "technology", "desktop publishing", "computers", and other names that did not include "science".

I don't think that it's appropriate to use computers to teach basic skills to children, but regardless of that perspective, it is wholly inappropriate to call an introduction to computers "computer science".

Stupidity of Leadership

[Archangel Michael]

Obviously, learning to read, write and do basic math will be set aside for learning how to program.

Here is the problem, these people don't have a clue what is learned at what levels. And while I am all for teaching Computer science and such where it is profitable to do so, starting before kids can even write and do math is not "computer science" at all, it is just dick waving "hey look what I did for the kids!" political crap.

Here's an idea. Why not focus on reading, writing, math and building upon those at the appropriate times? And what about all those kids who don't want to be computer geeks, but rather artists, business people, biologists, doctors, lawyers etc? Are we going to build all those careers into our children's curriculum as well?

The fact is, factory learning is dead, we just don't know it yet. We have spent the last 250 years in factory schools, built using factory ideas to populate our factories with workers. Today, we need a change in how we educate people, so that they are ready for information jobs. This requires scrapping the "one size fits all" education model that is clearly dying (NCLB, Common Core etc), and replacing it with student paced education system where each student has a customized curriculum, based on ABILITY and WILLINGNESS to learn.

Re:Stupidity of Leadership

[tomhath]

I completely agree with you. A big part of the problem is that the best and brightest students in any particular subject area aren't allowed to advance faster than students with "special needs", because that means someone's little snowflake was left behind.

Re:Stupidity of Leadership

[Archangel Michael]

We have to get past "hurt feelings" when people are better than others. Unless you're the best ( which is temporary / fleeting), there is always someone better than you. Customized education allows each person to be exactly what they can and try to be. Nothing more, nothing less. It is the fairest of all approaches.

And given this approach, you might find we are selling a large number of our kids short.

Excellence knows no bounds. Mediocrity is bounded by failure.

Using computers != Computer Science

[clifwlkr]

I really wish that people would realize there is a big difference from using an app on a tablet or coding up a web page with some javascript to actual computer science. Computer science involves math, design, understanding memory usage, computer architecture, and much more. It is not just hacking out some code. You are not teaching pre-schoolers computer science. Nor are you teaching elementary school children that either.

That said, you should be teaching them basic algebra and logic skills that will be very applicable to many things in life. Absolutely teach them how to use a computer. All kinds of things can be done with that. Don't claim you are teaching them computer science.

I guess it really annoys me because it is like saying a TV repair man is an electrical engineer. Heck, that one is at least slightly closer than calling making a web page being a computer scientist....

Re:Computer science and the lowest common denomina

[Registered Coward v2]

I'm saddened by the misapplication of "computer science" as a term. When I took computer classes, they were not called "computer science" until one was actually supposed to program the computer. Like, open an IDE, write code, and compile it. I don't think that it's appropriate to use computers to teach basic skills to children, but regardless of that perspective, it is wholly inappropriate to call an introduction to computers "computer science".

I'd go a step further and say learning a computer language isn't studying computer science any more than learning a foreign language is studying linguistics. There is a difference between acquiring a specific skill and understanding the concepts and theory behind how the skill is employed.