Why community education is key to state’s future
This first-of-its-kind program equips high school students from underrepresented backgrounds with digital and software skills.
Two years ago, the Governor’s Workforce Council put forth their Workforce Strategic Plan — a coordinated, statewide strategy for Connecticut to build an equitable, inclusive and innovative workforce that meets current economic demands.
According to the plan, there were 6,000 open computing jobs in the state, with future demand for 13,000 positions. Connecticut’s colleges and universities, however, graduated just 564 computer science majors in 2020. We look to colleges to produce talent, but they’re not getting enough applicants who want to pursue computer science. There aren’t enough kids in the suburbs, even if they choose to go into computer science, to fill these gaps.
For the past decade, as noted by the National Center for Education Statistics, Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, computer science has consisted of predominantly white males. In our cities, our largest demographics (Black and brown students) rarely go into the field at all.
Why not? Prior to 2019, Connecticut public high schools hired just two computer science teachers across the state. Students in most public schools don’t have adequate access to specific skills development or guidance around job possibilities to even consider it as a path for their future. But the existing narrative around computer science is also a barrier, creating an assumption that the path is socioeconomically predetermined.
It’s as though the industry is dying of scurvy. The environment can’t grow lemons, so they try importing — but can’t do it fast enough. Yet there are lime trees everywhere that aren’t producing fruit because no one is tending to the soil they grow in.
Limes can provide vitamin C just as well as lemons can. Industry and government need to address this now, not next growing season. They must look ahead to the next 10 growing seasons and determine what components need to be added to the soil immediately, including funding and support.
The Synchrony Foundation’s partnership with DAE, the University of Connecticut’s Engineering Ambassadors, and Future5 in Stamford is a step towards improving soil conditions. The first-of-its-kind program equips high school students from underrepresented backgrounds with digital and software skills.
The first graduating class of the program in June included three young women who had never coded before they were given this opportunity. All three graduated high school at the same time and are now attending college having declared computer science as their major. Now there’s proof that the revitalized soil is producing limes.
Creating an environment in which to grow healthy plants is a pretty complex thing, and beyond the soil, it depends on many climate conditions such as the quality of water for irrigation, the amount of sunshine and ozone levels, the air quality, etc. This is true for the kids, also. It’s not just about the tech skills; their emotional, social, nutritional needs must also be met. Understanding and addressing all of this with a statewide program would not be effective because each community has a different climate with various impacts to students’ success.
DAE’s New Haven and Stamford models are very different. Day-to-day curriculum and interactions are the same, but our approach is unique because each city has a distinctive climate. Stamford is a corporate town where kids are exposed to more industry. New Haven is very multicultural with a robust social consciousness. Issues of humanity can’t be solved atscale, they must be solved at the point of engagement with community-based approaches. At a local level, all stakeholders need to be involved — parents, the school district, local government, community non-profits and advocacy groups.
How does one take the first step? It’s not by launching an initiative, or forming an action committee, or designing a strategy. Listening is the best way to begin, just as learning a climate’s conditions is essential long before planting any seeds.