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US Dept. of Ed: English, History, and Civics Teachers Good Enough For CS Class
theodp writes: In A New Chapter for Computer Science Education, the U.S. Department of Education explained earlier this month that the federal STEM Education Act of 2015 'provides an unprecedented opportunity to fully leverage federal resources' to address large gaps in students' participation in Advanced Placement (AP) computer science classes based on gender and race. "In three states," lamented the DOE, "not a single female student took the AP computer science exam" (that only 8 boys took the AP CS exam in those same 3 states was apparently not a concern). And the DOE has good news for those hoping to tap Title I and II funds for CS, but don't have any computer science teachers. "A background in math or science isn't necessarily a requirement to teach CS," explains the Dept. of Ed, "as disciplines like English, history and civics can also provide a solid foundation for teaching CS concepts."
Computer degrees need to get away from being tied into the math/science departments. The majority of computer "science" degree holders would be better served by having a focus on business focused math classes and a few "science" classes dealing.
Was just looking through an intro class book for a computer degree and they still spend a large portion dealing with hex and binary math. How many people have really used hex and binary math, in a professional position, to the extent that you need to have spend hours learning and memorizing it?
I ever so often have to use binary math and convert that into decimal because of some need to filtering security permission. That is rare and even if I through I remembered everything I would bring up a calculator because I would not be sure I remembered everything.