Standardized Tests Blamed, Asian Students Ignored In Google-Gallup K-12 CS Study

theodp writes: According to a study released Thursday by Google and Gallup, standardized tests may be holding back the next generation of computer programmers. The Google-Gallup Searching for Computer Science: Access and Barriers in U.S. K-12 Education report (PDF) found that the main reason given by a "comprehensive but not representative" sample of 9,693 K-12 principals and 1,865 school district superintendents in the U.S. for their schools not offering computer science "is the limited time they have to devote to classes that are not tied to testing requirements." Which makes one wonder if Google now views Bill Gates as part of the problem and/or part of the solution of K-12 CS education. The Google-Gallup report also explores race/ethnicity differences to access and learning opportunities among White, Black and Hispanic students — but not Asian students — a curious omission considering that Google's own Diversity Disclosure shows that 35% of its U.S. tech workforce is Asian, making it by far the most overrepresented race/ethnicity group at Google when compared to the U.S. K-12 public school population. Which raises the question: Why would the Google-Gallup study ignore the access and learning opportunities of the race/ethnicity subgroup that has enjoyed the greatest success at Google? Not unsurprisingly, the Google-Gallup report winds up by concluding that what U.S. K-12 education really needs is more CS cowbell.

Comments

Apple, Google, and MS

[turkeydance]

will fund their agendas, not the school district's.

Because Asians are successful.

[Anonymous Coward]

It ruins the narrative if you include them.

Re:Because Asians are successful.

[AmiMoJo]

How would the narrative, by which presumably you mean the suggestion that there should be more opportunities for Black and Hispanic children to study CS at K-12 level, be "ruined" by not looking at Asians? Regardless of how many Asian kids have access to it, that doesn't change the fact that Black and Hispanic children are disadvantaged. Please explain exactly what you mean.

Note that the goal is not to drag successful groups down, it's to bring the disadvantaged ones up. So there would be little point doing that study, i.e. looking for a problem where none exists.

I don't think K-12 CS is a good idea anyway

[russotto]

US primary and secondary schools are good largely at smothering any love of learning or a subject that children have. Like to read? Here's a bunch of dull books you are required to read and give a report on. Like math? Here's a billion problems to work on, and don't dare sneak a peak ahead in the book to find the easy way (or write a program on your computer to solve them). Interested in history? Here it is in the driest form possible, please regurgitate on command.

Re:I don't think K-12 CS is a good idea anyway

[ShanghaiBill]

Like to read? Here's a bunch of dull books you are required to read and give a report on.

At least in California, it doesn't work that way. The kids are required to earn a certain number of reading "AR points" each week, but they can read pretty much any books they like. 95% of the books in the public library are in the system. My son likes to read science books. My daughter likes to read trashy novels with shirtless guys on the cover. The schools are fine with either.

Like math? Here's a billion problems to work on, and don't dare sneak a peak ahead in the book to find the easy way (or write a program on your computer to solve them).

No, it doesn't work like that at all, at least in California. Much of the math is taught on-line and self-paced. Solving problems with the computer is actually encouraged, and the programming classes are often integrated with the math curriculum.

Let me guess: You actually don't have kids, you have no idea what the public schools are teaching, or how they teach it, and everything you know about "Common Core", you learned from Donald Trump. Right?

Re:I don't think K-12 CS is a good idea anyway

[Etherwalk]

No, it doesn't work like that at all, at least in California. Much of the math is taught on-line and self-paced. Solving problems with the computer is actually encouraged, and the programming classes are often integrated with the math curriculum.

Let me guess: You actually don't have kids, you have no idea what the public schools are teaching, or how they teach it, and everything you know about "Common Core", you learned from Donald Trump. Right?

What you describe is so radically different than what we grew up with and than what I've heard described by non-California parents that it is difficult to believe it is the norm rather than you happening to live in a neighborhood with a very good school. It sounds like your public schools have basically gone Montessori.

Re:I don't think K-12 CS is a good idea anyway

[CQDX]

Like to read? Here's a bunch of dull books you are required to read and give a report on.

At least in California, it doesn't work that way. The kids are required to earn a certain number of reading "AR points" each week, but they can read pretty much any books they like. 95% of the books in the public library are in the system. My son likes to read science books. My daughter likes to read trashy novels with shirtless guys on the cover. The schools are fine with either.

Like math? Here's a billion problems to work on, and don't dare sneak a peak ahead in the book to find the easy way (or write a program on your computer to solve them).

No, it doesn't work like that at all, at least in California. Much of the math is taught on-line and self-paced. Solving problems with the computer is actually encouraged, and the programming classes are often integrated with the math curriculum.

Let me guess: You actually don't have kids, you have no idea what the public schools are teaching, or how they teach it, and everything you know about "Common Core", you learned from Donald Trump. Right?

I'm in California and IMHO the way they are teaching math in elementary school sucks. Working on a computer is a distraction and it actually makes it harder to learn when solving the problem takes a few steps. My son can solve things like mixed fraction operations much faster on paper than trying to do it on a computer as his teach was trying to have the class do. Also the schools aren't spending enough time on subjects and giving enough problems to master a topic. They keep jumping around; I think they call it spiraling. Both my boys were falling behind until I enrolled them in a private after school program that gives a respectable amout of math homework and they don't advance until they demonstrate competency. This program essentially teaches math the way I was taught decades ago.

Re:I don't think K-12 CS is a good idea anyway

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Your frustration is due to some fundamental misunderstanding about the role of the schools. You seem to think the aim of the school system is to inculcate some deep love for knowledge, induce great free thinking, foster creativity, yada yada yada...

No sir/madam. The purpose of school system is to produce lots of people who would do boring, uninspiring, mindless things day in day out. Creative free thinking people cause trouble, question set ways of doing things and generally make things rough by rocking the boat. Yes, there is some need for creative thinking problem solving people. But a few that maintain their creativity despite the school system are enough.

This is what free market is thinking and this is how it has structured incentives and people and schools are shaped by the invisible hand.

Re:I don't think K-12 CS is a good idea anyway

[Ol Olsoc]

My son likes to read science books. My daughter likes to read trashy novels with shirtless guys on the cover. The schools are fine with either.

In postmodern America, reading trashy novels with bare chested men on teh cover is the exact equivalent of readng science books.

Literary porn is still porn.

Re:I don't think K-12 CS is a good idea anyway

[ShanghaiBill]

I'm in California and IMHO the way they are teaching math in elementary school sucks. Working on a computer is a distraction

This is the crux of the problem with education reform. No matter what you do, someone will complain. First, Russotto was complaining that kids can't work ahead. I pointed out that that is wrong, and in many public schools the kids can work ahead at their own pace. Then you complain that that is a bad thing, and the kids should go back to drills with pencil and paper.

For the record, I very much disagree with you. Recent changes in California public schools have been very much for the better. Why should my kid be penalized because your kid is dumb? Your kid should get some remedial help, but that is no reason to hold others back.

Re:I don't think K-12 CS is a good idea anyway

[Ol Olsoc]

I'm in California and IMHO the way they are teaching math in elementary school sucks. Working on a computer is a distraction and it actually makes it harder to learn when solving the problem takes a few steps. My son can solve things like mixed fraction operations much faster on paper than trying to do it on a computer as his teach was trying to have the class do.

I don't know if this is universal, but I was blessed to be in the very last class to learn how to use slide rules in my school. Before that, I thought I just stunk at math. But after seeing the slide rule, and after a few operations with it, it was like a big bank of switches closed in my brain. I recall muttering when it hit.

After that, my math related grades went way up - even without using the slide rule. Something about the mechanical relationships on the rule, or something just made it click for me. Also the bit of mental gymnastics, since you needed to work with powers or notation.P Dunno if it would work for everyone, but sure changed my life. Seems so archaic, but just something about them.

I still keep and use a slide rule in the garage. Only problem is I can't figure out where the batteries are for it...

Re:I don't think K-12 CS is a good idea anyway

[ShanghaiBill]

Literary porn is still porn.

Sure, but it is also literature, while photographic porn is anatomy. If a girl can improve her reading comprehension and strengthen her vocabulary by reading trashy novels, that that is a good thing.

Re:I don't think K-12 CS is a good idea anyway

[alvinrod]

so what's a better way?

Give 'em a shovel and have them dig a ditch or do some other kind of shit labor. I did enough of it when I was young that I wanted to spend as much time learning as possible so that I wouldn't have to do that kind of work ever again.

I think the school system needs a shakeup and I'd like to see a system that abolishes the idea of grade-level entirely. Treat it like college where every subject area has its own progression and allow the kids to find what they enjoy and excel at instead of being stuck with the collective lowest common denominator for everything. If a kid is good at math or reading they can move ahead in those classes faster, whereas if they aren't, they don't get held back in everything else or moved on to the next level when they aren't ready.

I think if you provide a system that keeps students challenged and doesn't leave them either hopelessly lost or disinterested because the content is too trivial that it would go a long way towards improving education.

Re:I don't think K-12 CS is a good idea anyway

[serviscope_minor]

Well, I've had no experience with education in CA. I have bumped into a little in NM though. I was staying with a friend in NM and her son was having problems with math(s). I'm an engineer, I know a decent amount of maths, and I've even taught undergrad engineers mathematics at a well respected university. So I figured I'd offer.

And I did.

Holy Jesus H. Christ on a bike.

I can only conclude that there isn't a working mathemetician within about 6000 miles of the entire school system. It's this bizarre perverse mirror image of what maths actually is. It is beyond awful.

I mean sure they had their nice very fat full colour textbooks, complete with places to go online for more problems or some bizarro animations or something, lots of guff on "relevance" (as if), and nice little full colour and prettily drawn cheat sheets listing all the handy formula etc which could also be printed out in dead tree form.

On and there were lots of problems graded carefully in terms of difficulty and etc etc.

The trouble is, what was missing from the whole circus show was... the maths.

The poor kid was awfully, terribly confused. Because nothing made any sense. It was all presented as a collection of "facts" and "rules" that you then have to "apply" to problem after problem.

The whole concept of thinking or reasoning or working out is utterly absent (first principles? what's that?). The idea seemed to be to identify the fact to apply (by magic? guessing?) then apply it to reach the answer.

Proof? What's a proof? The entire concept of proving things was uttely absent from the whole thing. Oh and jesus, the utter obsession with notation pedantry is just depressing and distracts from the whole point.

I remember one particularly curious "problem" which was a hideously bastardised cersion of triangle centroids. Except instead of proving it (it's an interesting theorem), they had to verify it in coordinate geometry using the "length rule". Googling the "length rule" reveals a bunch of education pages, not Wikipedia or Mathworld. School maths is always a bad sign. Turns out it's just a complicatified version of Pythagoras Theorem.

Turns out further that they've only ever been presented with that theorem as a fact to memorise and "apply". He had *no* idea it wasn't a fundemental thing to remember and that one could prove it with a couple of pictures.

The entire course seemed to be like this. It was beyond awful. Sure some kids get it, perhaps because the underlying patterns in maths are so strong and so elegant that it's almost impossible to suppress them. Others are exceptionally good at mindless rote memorisation that they get by. For everyone else it's some kind of purgatory.

Now as for tech with self pacing and online lectures and whatnot is all pointless if the underlying material is fundementally broken. What's needed as far as I can tell in the cases I've seen is the whole thing to be burned to the ground and rebuilt from scratch. Programming classes integrated, or at least substantially nearby is a good idea if they're done in a remotely reasonable way. I self taught myself about 3D rotations and projection to do graphics for instance when I was a kid, and didn't even realise I was "learning maths".

Re:I don't think K-12 CS is a good idea anyway

[serviscope_minor]

Ooh looks like we have a literature snob.

Literature is another thing that's taught awfully badly in schools. I only started to understand criticism of it in my early-mid thirties, partly because of the abuse foisted on the topic by my schooling.

Studying nothing but classics is actually a terrible idea IMO. There are all sorts of rules of literature that can be broken by sufficiently skilled authors, for example. If you study nothing but the very best, it's almost impossible to figure out what the rules are, why they're there and in fact how the very skilled authors have broken them in an acceptable way. Oh and because they're classics they're suposed to be good and so you're not really meant to say much bad about them.

Terrible terrible idea. Now, some kids are smart enough and good enough with language that they figure it out. For everyone else it's about as bizarre and nonsensical as the maths teaching.

It's actually far, far more instructive to read and think about and critique less good books. By seeing the mistakes those authors make, and how they abuse rules of composition in ways that don't work is far, far more instructive.

Oh and while you're at it, why don't you list your hobbies too so the entire internet can pick out what you do in your leisure time as pointless.

Re:I don't think K-12 CS is a good idea anyway

[Dog-Cow]

Given your apparent lack of reading comprehension, I will conclude that you are not intelligent enough to contribute meaningfully to the conversation.

The GP never advocated hard labor. Setting up a straw man is horrible debating style, and what's worse, I don't believe for a moment that you think it's a straw man. You are that stupid.

Re:I don't think K-12 CS is a good idea anyway

[Solandri]

The poor kid was awfully, terribly confused. Because nothing made any sense. It was all presented as a collection of "facts" and "rules" that you then have to "apply" to problem after problem.

The whole concept of thinking or reasoning or working out is utterly absent (first principles? what's that?). The idea seemed to be to identify the fact to apply (by magic? guessing?) then apply it to reach the answer.

Yeah, that's the big difference I'm noticing from when I went to school and when I'm tutoring my nephews and nieces. When I was in K-12, they taught basic concepts and how you could build and apply them to solve problems and develop more complex concepts.

The kids I'm tutoring now are taught methods. If you have this type of problem, the method you use to solve it is to plug in this number here, that number there, and out pops the answer. No attempt is made to explain why the method works, or why this number has to go here, or why that number has to go there. Our educational system is putting a generation of kids on a career path where they'll only be qualified to push buttons in a specific pattern to solve problems, without understanding what the buttons do nor why that particular pattern of pushing buttons solves the problem. Never mind how to design such a machine with buttons.

From what I gather, the teachers don't have much choice in it too. It's the teaching method sanctioned by the school district, so they're required to teach it that way. It makes me think the people coming up with these teaching methods don't really understand the topic in the first place, and are imposing their naive approach to tackling something they don't understand onto all the kids. It seriously makes me consider home-schooling my kids or finding a decent private school.

Re:I don't think K-12 CS is a good idea anyway

[Solandri]

It's actually far, far more instructive to read and think about and critique less good books. By seeing the mistakes those authors make, and how they abuse rules of composition in ways that don't work is far, far more instructive.

Exactly. For a visual analogy, if you see a movie with good visual effects, you come out thinking that looked really good, without really understanding why it looked good. If you see a movie with bad visual effects, you come out and talk with all your friends about how this effect looked so fake because of A, and that effect was bad because of B. Once you understand a bunch of stuff which doesn't work, what's left over is mostly stuff which does work.

One of the greatest benefits of digital photography has been the instantaneous feedback. You see something interesting and take a picture. The picture doesn't look like you imagined it would, so you tweak some settings on your camera and take another picture. You repeat this process noting which changes seemed to improve the picture the most. And eventually (hopefully) you arrive at the picture as you imagined it would look. You have to crawl through all that stuff which doesn't work in order to learn what does work. Being presented only with the final successful picture does very little to teach you how the photographer arrived at that picture.

Asian the most represented?

[the_humeister]

It's still 60% white. White doesn't count anymore?

Honestly, I don't understand what people want with these stats. Decrease the number of Asians and Europeans working at these places?

Re:Asian the most represented?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because in the name of "equality", your gender and skin color matter more than your technical ability.

Re:Asian the most represented?

[Spy Handler]

It didn't say "most represented". It said "most overrepresented".

If whites are 70% of the population and Asians 15%, but among computer programmers whites make up 60% and Asians are 30%, then Asians are overrepresented in that field. Comprende?

Re:Asian the most represented?

[tompaulco]

You don't get to claim discrimination when you're winning.

You're not winning when you represent 77.7% of the population, but only 60% representation at Google. Not that I am complaining. I say screw quotas and hire the best person for the job.

Re:Asian the most represented?

[Taco Cowboy]

Because in the name of "equality", your gender and skin color matter more than your technical ability

In other words, the Asians, even those who came from India, are born with skin colors of the Caucasians?

Re:Asian the most represented?

[jedidiah]

Across the board, academic success is linked to the parents. Even in "poor" households, the parents are the driving force. You simply cannot fully outsource education. The parents have to care, or the kids likely will not.

All of the whining about social justice won't change prevailing cultural values within the populations you are trying to "liberate". Special programs and throwing money the problem won't either.

What is that?

[phantomfive]

I read the summary twice and still am not entirely sure what it's saying. To the submitter, theodp, Please, please, get this book and read it. It can only do you good.

Re:Is Google hiring programmers w only a HS diplom

[trout007]

If you think about it Google could save a bunch of money giving their own standardized test to HS students the give them a few years of their own training in exchange for staying on for a certain number of years. The students will have no debt and you can pay them much less as a result.

Re:Is Google hiring programmers w only a HS diplom

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Google could even buy children from families and keep them in some kind of cells while training and feeding them? That would probably save them even more money if the kids don't even know there is a world outside of Google.

Re:what is with this regular propaganda on slashdo

[Intrepid imaginaut]

kids need to learn computer programming. it's a basic part of the world we live in now

Computers are a basic part of the world we live in, computer programming isn't, in the same way that people need to know how to drive a car but they don't need to know how to engineer one.

all serious countries in the world are ramping up computer science education.

Not really, no.

it's like it's 1800s and people are trying to get more engineering education... but some luddite crackpot assholes are screaming against that trend

People weren't trying to get more engineering education in the 1800s, the upper classes were receiving a classical education and the rest were learning trades, if they were fortunate.

why?

for what retarded agenda is this propaganda drumbeat against CS education on slashdot anyway?

i can't even understand the upside for resisting computer programming and computer science education

computers are evil? we're going to preserve jobs for old fat mediocre programmers by keeping kids dumb? some sort of conspiratard freak out?

is it just "companies are evil, and companies want more CS education, therefore, resist CS education... hurrr durrr"

what is the agenda exactly with this moronic propaganda on slashdot?

and slashdot, can you please just squelch this retarded puerile crap in the future please? it does not serve your audience, your site is being taken over by some wackjob fringe

is it just one useless douchebag troll with enough commitment to flood the submission queue with his mental diarrhea?

Programmers are expensive. They're expensive because programming is difficult and not many people take to it. Therefore the objection most have to corporate entities blatantly and openly trying to influence the national education system to ease the supply side of the equation could well be characterised as "stop wasting our kids time for greedy corporate pigs".

Simples, no?

Re:Is K-12 CS really necessary?

[zkiwi34]

You may be surprised to find that CS is pretty much alone in majors and minors at university that carry absolutely no pre-requisite or recommended program of study involving CS. Music, Arts, Natural Sciences, Languages, Engineering, they all require evidence of prior learning associated with the discipline. Not so CS. CS and Engineering schools care less if you have done CS, they want Calculus and Physics, not AP or IB CS and it is rare that they consider Junior College work with too much seriousness either.

That's what needs to be changed. If it isn't then the current wave of interest will wither as it has before.

Testing and college prep get in the way

[readin]

As a parent with a spouse from a testing-intensive formal-education intensive culture I find myself running into the same problem at home. I want the kids to have time to explore things like programming and creative play. The spouse's attitude is that if it won't be tested and/or the college won't look at it then why bother?

Good programs for teaching math

[Etherwalk]

A good program will work for teaching math on the computer. There's a lot of bad educational software out there, but I remember learning algebra on a PCJr as a kid long before we ever got to it in school.

Of course Asian students were ignored.

[bistromath007]

Admitting that any identity political issue is more complicated than cishet white men ruining everything is heresy.

Asians weren't ignored...

[Shadow of Eternity]

they're just considered "white" now. Like how hispanics and jews are "white" whenever it's convenient.

Re:Newsflash.

[tompaulco]

Right. Like the BASIC programming language that I learned in senior high school is relevant in the job marketplace today. Whatever these students allegedly learn about "computer science" in K-12 will be obsolete before the ink on their "job-ready diploma" from Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, et. al. diploma is dry.

Teaching you BASIC taught you how to learn programming languages. High School is not there to teach you a trade, even College is not there to teach you a trade. A College diploma is a license to learn. But if they taught you one programming language it will be all the easier to pick up the next one.

Re:Is Google hiring programmers w only a HS diplom

[tompaulco]

Last I checked you had better have at least a BS from one of the top universities to get an interview and you're not getting into one of those unless you have good grades across the board and high test scores in one of the standardized entrance exams. Furthermore, they are only looking for self-starters, the kind of geeks that are self-taught would find any high school CS course extremely boring.

I am a self starter and I didn't find my High School CS class boring. I ate up the classroom assignments like candy. I loved solving any problem with a computer, no matter how simple. After I got done with the project I was supposed to complete 6 or 8 weeks later, I would come up with my own challenges and code them.
My poor CS instructor managed to do a great job with our class, most of which were people who were never going to get it, no matter how much they were babied along, and then there were a few of us that already knew more going in than she was ever going to be able teach us. But she basically gave us self starters free reign to come up with our own projects (or go to lunch early), and spent all of her time with the hopeless ones. We even helped her out trying to teach some of the ones who were having trouble.

Re:what is with this regular propaganda on slashdo

[PopeRatzo]

an education in anything can lead to a career that evaporates.

No. If you can write well, you'll always be able to get a job. Also HVAC. People will always want to live places that are too cold or too warm and will need heating and cooling.

I'm sure there are others.

what the fuck is your fucking point? why does that make any fucking difference on this topic?

I know it's late, but our little point on the discussion started in regard to why some people on Slashdot slag CS education, and I posited that maybe they know something you don't.

Re: Newsflash.

[Jason Levine]

A college professor of mine once told the class that everything he taught us would be obsolete by the time we graduated. This didn't make the classes useless, though, because the core concepts he taught could be applied for the rest of our careers.

Nobody's saying that kids learning BASIC will go out and get jobs programming BASIC, but BASIC could lead to PASCAL which could lead to C which could lead to pretty much any other language and any of a hundred different jobs.

The stereotyping of Asians

[Taco Cowboy]

Let us be fair here --- if stereotyping the blacks and/or the Hispanics has become a serious social offense, why is stereotyping the Asians still permissible?

Re: The stereotyping of Asians

[mypassis1234]

I recently saw a comedian explain it - it's funnier if you 'punch up'. Even 'punching down' is usually a self-deprecating joke about the comedian ("look what an asshole I am").

White people have had an advantage for hundreds of years (or longer?), and it shows in the percentage of politicians ruling, and probably more importantly the percentage of super rich. It started with slavery, but continued with Jim Crow, and exists today as, at minimum, bias. With that history and current imbalance, it stands to reason that any comparisons showing white people favorably will be met with disdain.

I think of it like this. If we're all neighbors, then we're actually teammates to a degree. If we're the player doing poorly, we should focus on doing better, working harder. If we're the player doing well, we should focus on helping the teammates not doing well. Encouragement seems to work in all situations, and actual help and advice in some situations (like if it's requested).

The Indians place a high value on Education

[Taco Cowboy]

Of the different ethnicity from Asia the Indians place a very high value on Education - on par with the Japanese, the Koreans, the Vietnamese, and the Chinese

The Pinoys (from the Philippines) and those from Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, and the Pacific Islanders (like Micronesia / Melanesia) education to them is not that important

As for the Pakistanis, the Bangladeshis, the Afghans, the Indonesians and the Malays, their utmost priority is Islam, their religion

The Iranians are the odd lot - although they are of the same religion with the former lot, the Iranians place a lot of emphasis on knowledge outside of Islam

Re:The Indians place a high value on Education

[jedidiah]

> As for the Pakistanis, the Bangladeshis, the Afghans, the Indonesians and the Malays, their utmost priority is Islam, their religion

That's odd. I've known a number of Desis and Pakastanis in IT.

I even known a couple of genuine hadjis. It didn't seem to interfere with the job.

Apparently in Pakistan engineers and doctors have high prestige and IT gets lumped in with engineers.

Don't you open that can of worm

[Taco Cowboy]

Back in 1992 the "White Men Can't Jump" movie ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt01... ) was made and all was cool

Will it be as cool to make "Black Men Can't Code" and/or "Women Can't Program" movies in today;s climate?

Re:what is with this regular propaganda on slashdo

[GuB-42]

Programming may not be a necessary skill but I think it is great at teaching you logical thinking. A bit like maths. Proportionality is perhaps the highest level of maths that most people actually need. Yet kids still learn things like equations and trigonometry.