Despite $30M Tech Push, Half of US States Had Fewer Than 300 AP CS Test Takers

theodp writes: As President Obama was 'taught to code' last December, Politico reported that the $30 million tech-financed campaign to promote computer science education was a smash success. And indeed it has been, at least from a PR standpoint. But Code.org and its backers have long spun AP Computer Science test metrics as a true barometer of CS education success, and from that standpoint, things don't look quite so rosy. The College Board raved about "massive gains in AP Computer Science participation (25% growth) AND scores" in a June tweetstorm and at its July conference, where AP CS was declared the '2015 AP Subject of the Year.' But a look at the recently-released detail on 2015 AP CS scores shows wide differences in adoption and success along gender and ethnicity lines (Asian boys and girls, in particular, set themselves apart from other groups with 70%+ pass rates). And, for all the praise the NSF lavished on Code.org for 'its amazing marketing prowess', half of the states still had fewer than 300 AP CS test takers in 2015, and ten states actually saw year-over-year declines in the number of test takers (if my math is correct — scraped data, VBA code here).

Comments

Re:theodp

[NotDrWho]

The fact that there are still differences between genders and ethnicity means that we need to target those groups more

I agree. And that's why I'm launching an initiative to get more men into elementary education. While things are improving in fields like CS, the gender ratio of men in elementary education has remained stagnant at only 13% for decades. The fact that men are far over-represented in dangerous manual labor jobs, like mining and commercial fishing, shows the deleterious effect of having missed out on the professional opportunities afforded them by a career in this field (with a $53,590 average annual salary). And I think it's about time we did something about it!

And I'm absolutely sure that I can count on the support in this effort of all my liberal friends, who have lead the charge to improve the gender ration in CS and other fields. After all, as they've told me so many times, they're all about equality and fairness.

SO WHO'S WITH ME?