With Few US Students Taking CS Classes, Code.org 'Scales Back' Funding For CS Education (acm.org)

"In 2012, most CS teacher professional development was paid for by the National Science Foundation or Google." And in the years that followed, 80,000 primary and secondary school teachers received opportunities to learn how to teach computer science without paying any fees -- thanks to tech-bankrolled Code.org.

But is anyone taking the classes? Slashdot reader theodp quotes a Communications of the ACM post by University of Michigan professor Mark Guzdial: In 2013, Code.org began, and they changed the face of CS education in the United States . It started out as just a video (linked here, seen over 14 million times), and grew into an organization that created and provided curriculum, offered teacher professional development, and worked with states and districts around public policy initiatives. A recent report from Code.org showed that 44 states have enacted public policies to promote computing education in the five years from 2013 to 2018, and much of that happened through Code.org's influence....

Now, Code.org has announced that they are starting to scale back their funding, which begins a multi-year transition to shift the burden of paying for teacher professional development to the local regions.... The only question is whether it's too soon. Will local regions step up and demonstrate that they value computer science by paying for it...? I'd guess that many states have between 40% and 70% of their high schools now offering computer science. However, even though many schools offer computer science, there are still few students taking computer science.
Indiana reported that only 0.4% of Indiana high school students had enrolled in their most popular course. Meanwhile in one region in Texas, 54 of 159 high schools offer computer science, yet only 2.3% of their students have ever taken a computer science class. But of course, there's another issue.

"If Code.org (or NSF or Google) are paying for all the development of CS teachers, then the districts don't get to say, 'In our community we care about this and we care less about that.' The U.S. education system is organized around the local regions calling the shots, setting the priorities, and deciding what they want teachers to teach."

Comments

Who in their right mind would enter CS

[rsilvergun]

in America? Every job site I've seen is at best 80/20 H1-Bs, sometimes 90/10. You can't even get a project management job anymore. Companies did away with all the entry level positions so they could claim there was a shortage of "senior programmers" so there's no career track.

Momma's don't let your babies grow up to be CS Majors, let'em be Doctor's and such.

Re:Who in their right mind would enter CS

[fermion]

CS as code.org is teaching it is really more like advanced computer literacy. Understanding how compute work, how they interact, the internet, how to use them. It is more functional less design. While learned to write code, design algorithm, the modern classes are more like auto mechanic. You will understand the infrastructure, you will be able to fix things, but no one is going to expect you to learn a new language and put together projects in six months, which is what I and most people who are trained in this profession can do.

This is not good or bad. Frankly the number of jobs for well trained computer science pros are limited. However, every body is going to have to be more computer literate than we have now. I can' tell you how much time I waste in my job because the young people, 20 or 30, cannot hook up a printer, or filter a spreadsheet, or know how to make a simple web page. These are skills we had 20 years ago, and to think that kids are leaving high school believe they are educated without them is like kids leaving high school 30 years ago and not knowing how to type. Sure, you can pay someone, but really why wouldn't you want the skill?

The effectiveness of code.org is understanding that most people who you are going to get to teach are functionally computer illiterate, then, based on this assumption, providing a curriculum that can leverage the limited knowledge to evaluate students that are less illiterate.

However we are living in a country that is still in denial about the how valuable computer literacy is. That is why so many of US jobs are filled by people not from this country. In my job, the tech support jobs are filled by people from south america. It is not surprising as when I am in south amercia I meet domestic help and retail sales person who are more literate than the average US high school graduate.

I see high schools wasting their money on auto mechanics and gardening. Sure, these are popular classes because they are easier, and it is easier to get teachers for these classes, but what skills are we teaching the kids. How to turn a screw, did a hole? I see educated parents sending their kids to auto mechanics training at $10,000 instead of coding boot camp. What is the sense of this?

Why should they?

[Jogar the Barbarian]

Kids don't need CS training to use Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Tinder, etc.

Re:Teach parenting instead

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been a mentor in a high school coding class. I'll have to disagree, I mean parenting is very important but so is human interaction. The amount of help needed, the interest level and the maturity level vary a lot. Those kids have questions and its best if you are right there to help.

At the same time, we have to be honest, programming is not for everyone. Just like accounting isn't for everyone. Its good to know something about coding and something about accounting but we don't all need to be experts.

It seemed to me that programming became less fun

[shoor]

The big question is, how many of those kids should be learning programming.

When I started out in the late 70s, you were busy coding solutions to problems, and writing real code. Later it became more about memorizing big function/class libraries, which got old pretty fast.

I asked a younger guy who is in the business about it recently, and he said nowadays what you learn are 'frameworks', whatever that is.

Even back in the 70s, when I was taking classes, the beginning classes were big for Comp Sci majors, but as I progressed, they got smaller and smaller as more and more people realized it wasn't for them.

And I wonder how good all those 80,000 primary and secondary school teachers actually are at teaching programming.

Anybody in their right degree.

[Ostracus]

Promoting of CS as a career choice will lead to both resentment by those already established*, as well as too many pursuing too few, lowering wages, and standards. Formal education leads to a well rounded student, and employee.

*Look at the humor surrounding certification.

Teach Steam instead

[Ostracus]

Maybe. It is interesting how programming games are a popular genre on Steam. No classes required there, and it gives one an idea in a fun way.

Re:Anybody in their right mind

[currently_awake]

Any job that can be done by someone from home can be done by someone in India or China, for 1/10 your wage. Avoid any job that doesn't require a physical presence.

Anybody in their right country.

[Ostracus]

If the only needed thing was a warm body then yes. However in telecommuting one's doing more than that. They're bringing their environment as well. And that's not so mobile (hence the ability to tell India from America).

Teaching CS: The Least of our concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly, from observing the way a large minority of citizens are behaving (and believing) in the United States, learning to program computers is a relatively minuscule concern.

Rather, teaching this mass of ignorant anti-rational people how to think clearly, from facts, is critically important.

Re:Teach parenting instead

[elrous0]

Yep, good programmers don't need to be recruited or sold on programming. They'll do it with or without a class at their school, because it's who they are. Begging randos to become coders will only get you a bunch of shit coders.

This isn't failure

[Anonymous Coward]

It's course correction. The 'EVERYONE MUST CODE!' initiatives were ludicrous to begin with. It was said a great deal at the time: not everyone wants to learn to code or has a natural interest in it, and no amount of bullying from tech companies is going to change that. It's as it should be, and this is what it looks like when only those with a real interest take a subject. Make it a math elective and let those who want to pursue it pursue it.

It's worth noting as well that more and more of our technology resembles appliance, and using that metaphor, very few people want to learn to fix other appliances like washing machines or care how they work (do you?). Silicon Valley got pretty full of itself there for awhile, so much of what has been proposed by them has been a riduculous, overly-hyped canard. What we are seeing now was pretty much inevitable, and it means things have re-stabilized from the ebb and flow and nothing more.

Re:Anybody in their right mind

[fluffernutter]

In my experience, the people working overseas for cheap can't do much more than follow direction. If you need someone who needs to represent your team on a project (and do what is good for your team) or if you need someone to make sure everyone is working on the right thing and being efficient; you need someone from here. The work can be done remotely but everyone overseas that can do it either charges just as much as we do or they have already moved here.

Re:Anybody in their right mind

[djinn6]

I think all those starving artists would disagree. Being paid for your work is good, even if your passion is elsewhere.

Good enough is _always_ good enough

[rsilvergun]

Sure, the top 5% of programmers still get decent work.

But no, they don't charge just as much. You're forgetting about training. US colleges are crazy expensive. You're also forgetting that US workers put in 50-60 hour work weeks while the guys overseas are doing 80. And we used to do 30-40 until we were forced to work harder to compete. Sure, they burn out, but there's literally a billion of them.

I don't really care that my oil filter's only good for 6000 miles when it's $20 bucks. That's because It's cheap, disposable, and good enough..

This is like War Games. The only winning move it not to play.

Re:Good enough is _always_ good enough

[magzteel]

You're also forgetting that US workers put in 50-60 hour work weeks while the guys overseas are doing 80. And we used to do 30-40 until we were forced to work harder to compete. Sure, they burn out, but there's literally a billion of them.

My experience is the US workers do 50-60 hour work weeks while the overseas guys work less hours and at a slower pace. I currently have a team in Poland, they actually have laws limiting work hours:

https://www.careersinpoland.co...

CS knowledge should be the point

[jhoger]

I think all students should learn to code, just like all students should learn to do algebra, or find the intersection of two linear equations, or write an essay.

But the end goal is not to make everyone programmers. The end goal is to make people well rounded, aware of how things work, because in most jobs, you benefit from understanding how computers work. And if you can code at all, you understand how they work in a fundamental way.