The College Board Pushes To Make Computer Science a High School Graduation Requirement

theodp writes: Education Week reports that the College Board wants high schools to make it mandatory for students to take computer science before they graduate. The call came as the College Board touted the astonishing growth in its Advanced Placement (AP) computer science courses, which was attributed to the success of its new AP Computer Science Principles (AP CSP) class, a "lite" alternative to the Java-based AP CS A course. "The College Board is willing to invest serious resources in making this viable -- much more so than is in our economic interest to do so," said College Board President David Coleman. "To governors, legislators, to others -- if you will help us make this part of the life of schools, we will help fund it."

Just two days before Coleman's funds-for-compulsory-CS offer, Education Week cast a skeptical eye at the tech sector's role in creating a tremendous surge of enthusiasm for K-12 CS education. Last spring, The College Board struck a partnership with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative with a goal of making AP CSP available in every U.S. school district. Also contributing to the success of the College Board's high school AP CS programs over the years has been tech-bankrolled Code.org, as well as tech giants Microsoft and Google. The idea of a national computer programming language requirement for high school students was prominently floated in a Google-curated Q&A session with President Obama (video) following the 2013 State of the Union address.

Comments

CS isn't for everyone

[Mr D from 63]

There is a difference between Compute Science and computer skills. All students should have computer skills, but not all need computer science.

Re:CS isn't for everyone

[0100010001010011]

Math isn't for everyone. We have a math requirement.

English isn't for everyone. We have an English requirement.

Government, biology, physics, chemistry, foreign languages, etc aren't for everyone either. But it's a requirement of HS to give people exposure to them.

Re:CS isn't for everyone

[i.r.id10t]

I'd be happy with basic file management and office suite skills and an understanding of security and best practices regarding usernames/passwords, what to look for or do as an end user to keep yourself secure.

Re:CS isn't for everyone

[El Cubano]

Everything you say is true. However, anybody with a quality liberal arts education can see the value in those things. Besides, not long ago Greek, Latin, and Classics were considered requirements. Today they are not.

I would argue that anyone proposing making computer science a hard requirement should have to explain how computer science contributes to a broad-based liberal arts education. For reference, here is a quote from Dijkstra on the topic:

As a result, the topic became â" primarily in the USA â" prematurely known as âcomputer scienceâ(TM) â" which, actually, is like referring to surgery as âknife scienceâ(TM) â" and it was firmly implanted in peopleâ(TM)s minds that computing science is about machines and their peripheral equipment.

That is not to say that it wouldn't be handy to have courses on computing and computer programming. However, many high schools also have courses in automotive maintenance, wood shop, welding, and other trades. None of those are anywhere close to being considered hard requirements for high school graduation, despite the fact that nearly every person in the use drives an automobile on a daily basis, for example. The flavor computer science being advocated by the College Board is closer to automotive maintenance than it is to a core liberal arts subject.

Re:CS isn't for everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

All students should have computer skills, but not all need computer science.

Agreed. Cover fundamentals so that the kids aren't in awe of the never-to-be-questioned magic box, so that they understand that they're just dumb machines following a series of instructions. Introduce them to the basics of programming: basic logic, conditions, looping. Don't expect them to be computer geniuses, but do expect them to come out with a basic understanding of what computers are (and, more importantly, aren't), their capabilities and limitations.

If they're going to require knowledge of computer basics, they should also make a few other mandatory courses required for graduation:

• - basic accounting, so they can work out and maintain a budget
• - automotive basics, even if it's little more than how to change a tire and where to put what liquids (and for NJ students, how to pump your own gas)
• - shop/electrical/plumbing basics, so they can do basic home maintenance or at least have an idea of what's probably wrong if a problem exceeds their capabilities
• - basic kitchen competency, so they can cook more than just ramen when they leave home
• - how to change a toilet paper roll (it's infuriating how many people haven't figured that out on their own)

Re:CS isn't for everyone

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

All students should have computer skills, but not all need computer science.

True. It's like the difference among home economics (computer skills), shop class (programming), and geometry/precalculus (computer science).

Misguided as the College Board's proposal is, there's a little bit of wisdom in teaching some of these things to everyone, but maybe not in the context of computing.

The biggest win from CS is not the potential paycheck of being a programmer, but in things that other math/science courses should already teach students, but apparently don't: problem-solving by decomposition. That skill alone (and maybe the encompassing skill of algorithmic thinking) will get a typical person a lot further in life than knowing some soon-to-be-antiquated programming language (Pascal, anyone?).

I've been writing code for over 30 years, and I went through a phase when I believed that literally everyone should learn code. I later realized that part of that came from dealing with people who couldn't do anything unless it was broken into explicit steps, and the rest of it came from wanting to share my joy of programming with others. The unfortunate (or perhaps fortunate for us professionals) is that most people hate programming. Associating the valuable life skills of critical/algorithmic thinking with something that most people hate would be a disaster.

Absolutely everyone should take home economics, though. The basic life skills of planning a personal budget and keeping oneself fed and clothed are far more important than learning a programming language or even basic computer skills.

Re:CS isn't for everyone

[Mr D from 63]

Math isn't for everyone. We have a math requirement.

English isn't for everyone. We have an English requirement.

Government, biology, physics, chemistry, foreign languages, etc aren't for everyone either. But it's a requirement of HS to give people exposure to them.

Mechanics isn't for everyone, we don't have a mechanics requirement.
Robotics isn't for everyone, we don't have a robotics requirement.
Cosmetics isn't for everyone, we don't have a cosmetics requirement.
Journalism isn't for everyone, we don't have a journalism requirement

Foreign languages are not required. Exposure vs. required are two different things.

Re:CS isn't for everyone

[Solandri]

Even if you don't major in math, you will find it useful from time to time in life.
Even if you don't major in English, you will find it useful from time to time in life.
Even if you don't work in government, you will find knowledge of civics useful from time to time in life.
Even if you don't major in biology, you will find knowledge of it useful from time to time in life.
Physics and chemistry are electives in most high schools, not required.
Even if you don't major in a foreign language, you will find it useful from time to time in life.

If you don't major in Computer Science, you will never use it in your life. Same reason there's no engineering requirement, fine arts requirement, hairstyling requirement, acting requirement, archeology requirement, photography requirement, animal husbandry requirement, etc. Knowledge of these fields is highly specialized, and provides zero or next to zero benefit for those not working in those fields. You can offer these as electives to students interested in it, but making it a requirement is silly.

The country needs a home financial management HS requirement far more than it needs a CS requirement. Heck, even an auto shop requirement would be more useful to most students during their lifetime.

Re:CS isn't for everyone

[RightwingNutjob]

Math isn't for everyone, which is why the math requirement stops at rudimentary algebra and geometry. No state in the union requires differential or integral calculus or complex analysis for graduation.

English isn't for everyone, which is why the English requirements stop at a few classic authors and the rudiments of a five paragraph essay. I went to a pretty good school and took AP English Lit and English Comp and the longest essay I ever had to write in high school was ten pages, 12 point font, 1 inch margins, double-spaced.

Government isn't for everyone either, which is why we stop at basic civics and don't make kids delve into the arcana of Constitutional case law in their federal court district as distinct from the 9th circuit as opposed to nationwide.

Biology isn't for everyone which is why we only make people take a single class instead of writing a doctoral dissertation to graduate. Ditto for chemistry, physics, and just about everything else.

Good schools are distinguished from bad schools by their optional higher-level offerings and by the percentage of students who avail themselves of it. Nowhere but in one-percenter private school land are those numbers anywhere near 100%.

Computer programming as taught at the AP CS level is roughly equivalent to a 100-level CS course at any reputable university. Most math classes at the 100 level are differential calculus, calculus-based physics....you get the idea. It's past the point of general education and in the regime of specialized training.

Re:CS isn't for everyone

[sjames]

Actually, a lot of people could do a lot better giving and acting on step by step instructions. Perhaps a little experience with computer programming might help. Binary decision trees and searches would be good experience as well.

the overlords

[TimMD909]

The overlords will never learn that they'll never be able to produce legions of cheap engineers, programmers, or whatever else.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

A required course could never teach much

[ErichTheRed]

The problem with making it a requirement is that you really can't get into any sort of detail without losing half the class. I've been systems-engineering my way through life for 20+ years, and I'd only consider myself slightly above a code monkey skills-wise. It's clear that some sort of exposure to logical thinking, troubleshooting, etc. helps. But, even with templating I would find it very difficult to open up Visual Studio and crank out a full-stack web application that I'd dare show off to anyone. I can automate stuff, glue things together with PowerShell, etc...but actual development requires real skill, or 100 hour weeks running in circles until you get it right.

Also, my example is one of someone who is very interested in computers and systems engineering. Imagine trying to teach whatever they can call "computer science" to a disinterested bunch of high school students. Same goes for requiring a foreign language...you can't get too far down into details or most of the students won't be able to pass the class.

I don't know what to think about what makes a good education before. Most of the jobs people are doing now are going to be gone, and SW development is almost sure to be done automatically through abstraction or entirely in India very soon. Maybe all those liberal arts majors we used to laugh at are going to have the last laugh after all...

For those of you wondering

[rsilvergun]

in America "The College Board" is the company that makes the standardized testing for college here (the SAT). My guess is they'd like to add CS to their test having determined that doing so would be profitable. They're another one of those "non-Profits" who makes hefty profits for it's owners. Like Goodwill if you've heard of them.

Re:For those of you wondering

[TheSync]

More importantly, The College Board runs the Advanced Placement (AP) programs, which by the way includes AP Computer Science. Hmmm....

Computer Science is math

[rsilvergun]

that's really all there is to it. There is zero reason for "Computer Science" to be a graduation requirement. The math they cover is already more than sufficient. Anything more is a just a specialty branch of mathematics or just teaching people a trade. And there is zero reasons for computer focused trade schools. Between outsourcing and H1-Bs it's a dead end career. Sending someone off to computer themed trade schools is worse than cruel. It's a completely waste of everyone's time and money that only serves to devalue the wages of the few who've managed to eek out a meager living doing what's left of IT work in the States.

What exactly are they going to be taught?

[wyattstorch516]

Reminds me of the Cisco Networking Academy. The idea was to prepare kids to step into all of the Network Engineering jobs that were going to be created in the coming years.

Funny thing happened, between virtualization, containers, and cloud computing demand for this skill plummeted. Now you have a bunch of kids who spent years learning Cisco's technology only to find no jobs waiting for them.

I suppose they could teach classical Computer Science (algorithms, data structures, etc.), but given the typical drop out rate in college after one semester of Computer Science I doubt it will stick for many students. The ones that do well would likely have done so without the requirement.

Probability and Statistics

[enrique556]

What democratic countries really need to teach their kids is a bit of statistics and probability. Armed with a basic understanding of both, people will make better choices at the polling booth, be less prone to gambling, and less susceptible to marketing fluff. Humans do not have an instinctive understanding of these topics, especially where orders of magnitude are involved, making it very easy to deceive and mislead them.

CS != Programming

[DRichardHipp]

Perhaps by "CS" they mean something other than programming. Topics might include:

1. The history of computing
2. Binary arithmetic, and why numbers like 1024 come up so often in connection with computers.
3. Representing text as numbers using ASCII or Unicode
4. What is an IP address?
5. What is a TCP port?
6. What is the difference between "the internet" and "the world-wide web"?
7. What is HTTP? Homework involves viewing HTTP traffic, or perhaps even fetching a webpage using nothing more than telnet.
8. What is HTML? Homework is to create an HTML file using a basic (no syntax highlighting) text editor.
9. DNS: What is it and why is it important?
10. Computability. Some problems are unsolvable by computers. Other problems are provably hard (NP-complete).
11. Cryptography. What is a one-time pad? A substitution cypher? What is the difference between symmetric and public-key crypto?
12. What is a "filesystem"?
13. What is a "process" and a "thread"?
14. How to operate a computer using a command-line shell, and without a GUI.
15. What is "network neutrality"?

There is a lot more of the above. This is stuff ./-ers take for granted, but most people have no clue about any of it. And yet it is important for citizens in a modern society to know. Hence, it needs to be taught in school.

Math skills are necessary to life.

[bussdriver]

Math skills are necessary to life. Education is NOT only about employment!

A functioning democracy REQUIRES a basic education for the people to be able to rule themselves and do some critical thinking. The REAL reason you need free public education is because it is a fundamental requirement for a healthy democracy. You may not have a functional democracy anymore, but you can not keep one without it.

Critical thinking, ethics, and civics are infinitely more important to bring back for the sake of democracy, society and possibly even humanity itself. We did not get to where we are today by evolution - there is nothing separating us from primitive societies 10,000 years ago except the momentum of society progressing forward.

If you want some basic CS conceptual coverage, integrate some of that into a better MATH education. People who are good at math have an easier time picking up CS (especially the real classic CS which IS math! CS started out from the math dept in most places.)

What's really needed in HS

[Solandri]

Is a simple one-semester "basic life skills" course. It should cover:

• Time management / prioritizing.
• Home finance management and basic accounting. So people know how to file taxes (or know they're supposed to file taxes), know when to get insurance and when not to, won't go nuts with their first credit card, won't take out unrealistic student loans, won't get ripped off with exorbitant hidden interest rates.
• Recognizing common scams, logical fallacies, and counter-intuitive statistical quirks like Simpson's Paradox.
• Negotiation, compromise, personal communications / interpersonal relationships - otherwise they graduate HS thinking the popularity hierarchy is the norm.
• College, scholarships, internships, and job interviews. I immigrated as a child and my parents knew none of this so I had to figure it all out on my own (before the Internet).
• Basic mechanics and electronics. So people can handle simple household repairs, and know why your car needs regular oil changes. Should cover basics of energy and power (subset of physics) so people don't believe silly things like making batteries out of lemons (the energy comes from the refined metals you stick into the lemon, not the lemon).
• Basic cooking. So people don't waste money on fast food all their lives.
• Basics of statistics. Mainly some of the fundamentals of probability including the gambler's fallacy, correlation is not causation. prisoners dilemma (including when it doesn't apply), and tragedy of the commons.
• Basic first aid/survival and self defense. For when the zombie apocalypse comes.

We NEVER taught critical thinking.

[bussdriver]

I only had critical thinking exposure in my education in the USA a few times. Some minor bits here and there may qualify but I can't recall any of them. Only twice, and 1 of the two was me actually taking a whole 4 credit philosophy course named "critical thinking." So I know how BS all the stuff is... We SAY critical thinking but we never do any of it.

We have weaponized and commercialized psychology being deployed on multiple fronts which heavily use modern technology to rob us of our ability to THINK. So you may have the training but if you let your emotions and impulsiveness take over, you've essentially put your brain to sleep. What NEEDS to be part of a REAL education in critical thinking is emotion and impulse control skill training... otherwise it's just an academic exercise.