The percentage of high school students taking computer science classes has increased from 35 percent to 51 percent in the previous three years, according to a new survey from Code.org.
In many areas there is still a disparity in the availability of those courses. School districts that educate a large proportion of low-income students are less likely than others to provide students with a solid foundation in computer science.
Katie Hendrickson, president of the Code.org advocacy coalition and head of state government affairs, said, “We’re thrilled to see that just over half” of schools provide computer science education. The non-profit promotes computer science education. It’s also possible to look at it the other way around and say, ‘Wait a minute.'” The majority of schools still don’t have it available,” he says.
If a school doesn’t provide core computer science to children of color, they are more likely to attend that school. For example, compared to 79% of White students and 89% of Asian students, 73% of Black students and 76% of Latino students nationwide attend a school that offers a foundation in computer science.
Most states in the study had a similar number of Black and Native American high school students taking computer science coursework as compared to general public high school populations. For example, in the 35 states that contributed statistics to Code.org, around 15% of public high school students are Black, and 16% of students in basic computer science classes are Black. Roughly 1% of students in the analyzed states’ public high schools are Native American or Alaskan, and about 1% of those students are taking computer science subjects.
A disparity exists between the amount of Latino students in high school and the percentage of Latino students taking core computer science courses. More than a quarter of high school students in the study are Latino, but only 19 percent of those students are taking core computer science coursework. This is true even if they attend an institution that offers core computer science classes, according to a new analysis from the Pew Research Center.
Students from low-income families account up 52% of students in K-12 schools, but only 38% of high school students in 34 states with data on low-income students taking foundational computer science.
Only 6% of high school students in the 33 states that gave statistics on their population to Code.org are English-language learners, despite the fact that ESL students make up 10% of the K-12 population. According to the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, 14 percent of all K-12 students are eligible for special education services, yet just 9 percent of those students are taking core computer science courses in 31 states that can offer that data to Code.org.
That gap is narrowing, but states and schools must keep pushing for expanded access to computer science education.
It is our belief that every student should be able to pursue their interests in whatever field they choose, Hendrickson added. That is, after all, the American dream.” With computer science, we need to offer those students a chance.
The best-paying positions in computer science can now be done from anywhere in the country because to the expansion of remote working options by tech businesses, she continued.
In spite of this, there is still a wide disparity between states in the percentage of schools that offer basic computer science instruction. More than 90% of high schools in three states—Arkansas, Maryland, and South Carolina—offer it. Only a third of high schools in Kansas and Louisiana offer the classes.
At least seven of Code.org’s nine policy proposals have been implemented in the three most populous states. There are a number of policies in place, such as requiring all high schools to offer computer science and creating stringent criteria for computer science education.
Hendrickson asserted that the data on internet access in those states shows that “policy really matters.” When it comes to computer science, “state leadership and state investments are really what matter.”
Many critics of computer science instruction in K-12 schools claim that other topics should be given more attention. Coding, for example, may become less valuable in the business if machines take over the labor.
Hendrickson, on the other hand, has a different perspective. K-12 computer science education focuses on teaching students how to think rationally and sequentially rather than teaching them how to code, she said. For us, it’s important that we don’t lock our students onto a single programming language that may not be relevant in a few years.
When it comes to teaching critical thinking and other abilities, schools should focus on “thinking like a computer,” she said.
