Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Claims It Has Enabled Its Partners To 'Double the Number of Black and Latinx Students and Girls Taking AP Computer Science' (chanzuckerberg.com)

theodp writes: In a Monday blog post, the outgoing Head of Education for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's Chan Zuckerberg Initiative made the claim that "we've made investments that enabled our partners to double the number of Black and Latinx students and girls taking AP Computer Science." The claim is an apparent reference to the highly-promoted and wildly-successful new AP Computer Science Principles course (dubbed "Coding Lite" by the NY Times), which the NSF and College Board began development on in 2009. Zuckerberg's CZI LLC was created in late 2015.

Comments

Who knew?

[cre1mer]

Latinx is a real word.

The term is a political neologism that has gained traction among advocacy groups combining racial and gender identity politics.

Re:Who knew?

[Oswald McWeany]

That's because it ends in "-chen" a diminutive. Gender in German on a compound word is always based on the last part of the compound rule. A diminutive of anything is a "das".

If you referred to a boy as a Jungchen it would ALSO be neuter. Das Jungchen.

Just to follow up if anyone is curious: Mädchen is formed by joining Magd (Maid, a feminine noun) with "chen" (a generic diminutive ending that is neuter).

And you can join Junge (boy masculine) with chen (neuter) to form the word Jungchen which is neuter in exactly the same way that Mädchen is.

So... no sexism here.

Re:Who knew?

[mjwx]

Is it offensive or just shorthand to avoid having to say/write "Lanina/Lantino" every single time?

What is the word for someone who sees offence everywhere? Not themselves offended as such, just assuming everyone else is motivated by offence.

The solution already exists in Spanish. Use the masculine pronoun for a mixed gender or gender non specific, Latinos would be correct in Spanish. In English you could also use Latin or Latin people as gender non-specific.

AP CS Principles != AP CS A

[reiscw]

I'm an AP Computer Science A teacher (the reason there is an "A" at the end is that there used to be an "AB" course as well that included data structures). That course is equivalent to CS1 at most universities, and that's what you get credit for if you take it (at most places). Java is the language and there's a good treatment of OOP, as well as recursion, sorting/searching algorithms, lists, arrays, and the fundamental stuff. The course that they are describing here is not AP CS A, it's a relatively new course, AP CS Principles. This is a course that's equivalent to a course that many universities create (including two in my metropolitan area) for liberal arts majors (meaning it's a gen ed course). Programming is part of the course, but 25% or less, and the course is intentionally language-agnostic. It's not a bad class (it exposes students to data science as well as programming, which I think is great), but it's not like CS A, which is a "for real" programming class equivalent to a course for freshmen in a CS major. Increasing the diversity in AP CS A is an accomplishment (in my opinion), but increasing AP CS Principles diversity is not very impressive unless you show that the students coming out of it choose a CS-related major (including data science, which is starting to be offered as an undergraduate major).

What concerns me a little bit right now is that many superintendents think they have a solid CS program if they offer AP CS Principles. I don't think you have a solid program until you have AP CS A or an equivalent course in a language like C++ or Python. Describing APCSP as "Coding Lite" may be too generous a description.