Should high school students have to learn the basics of how computers, networks, and programs work to get their diploma? The people behind Code.org think so.
The education nonprofit has previously issued nine policy recommendations for states to expand and sustain access to computer science classes for K–12 students, including funding and supporting certification of CS teachers and requiring all schools to not only offer the classes, but allow them to count towards graduation requirements. This summer, it added a tenth: requiring students to satisfy a CS requirement to graduate.
In a blog post, Code.org argued that these requirements are necessary to push students to actually take the classes, and pointed to success in Arkansas, South Carolina, and Rhode Island, all of which already have such rules. Hadi Partovi, Code.org’s CEO, spoke with IT Brew about why the nonprofit thinks it’s time to make computer skills mandatory.
Why do you feel that requiring a computer science credit to graduate is necessary?
The majority of high schools in the United States have a computer science class. But in any given year, only 5% of high school students actually enroll in these classes—the majority of students don’t actually take the subject. And in particular, young women are underrepresented in the field when they think of it as an optional class. Societal stereotypes impact who learns about this.
And when you look at the courses that are required for students to learn—in most states, students have to take four years of math, much of which is stuff that they will never use in their daily lives. And having just one year of computer science, or even one unit of computer science as a basic requirement, is far more relevant to people’s lives.
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Do you think that there’s any risk that requirements could create barriers to graduation? And if so, how can educational leaders go about mitigating that?
The first state to implement this policy and put it into practice was South Carolina. And when they put the policy into effect, what was not surprising is that enrollment in computer science went up. It was not surprising that diversity in computer science went up.
In fact, South Carolina has more young women learning computer science than Texas. A state with almost 10 times the population has fewer young women in computer science. But what was surprising, and none of us expected it, we were wondering, what’s going to happen to graduation rates in South Carolina when they require that you have to study computer science for graduation? This requirement went into effect during the pandemic…Schools and learning suffered. And in fact, graduation rates went up and not down. And I believe the reason for that is computer science is a subject that is engaging to kids.
In the states that have already implemented these kinds of requirements, what have been the biggest obstacles?
The biggest obstacle is the shortage of teachers. We have nationally and globally a shortage of teachers across all subjects, let alone computer science, and our education system is still reeling from the after effects of the pandemic.
The states that are moving ahead with this requirement, most of them are doing it on a three-to-five-year timeline to give their schools the time to basically catch up, and to provide the access, and to train the teachers. In most states, it’s not an instant change. It’s a gradual change, to get the education system time to adapt.