Code.org puts AP classes on agenda
Non-profit wants more computer science in high school
Code.org is teaming up with College Board to push for more computer science courses in U.S. high schools and to increase the number of female and minority students taking those courses.
The new partnership will encourage high schools in 35 of the nation’s largest districts, including New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles, to offer Code.org ’s advanced placement computer science course this fall.
Code.org will provide curriculum, tools, training and funding to school districts that qualify, said Code.org CEO and co-founder Hadi Partovi.
College Board — the organization that administers the standardized tests that help determine college entrances as well as advanced placement courses — will help fund the work if the school district agrees to use the PSAT, a test for college readiness for eighth- and ninth-graders, to identify students who have potential in computer science, Partovi said.
One of the principal goals of the partnership is to reach more female and minority students, Partovi told USA TODAY in an interview.
“Our work is to broaden participation in all underrepresented groups,” he said.
Takers of College Board’s advanced placement computer science course are 82% white and Asian. Last year just 20% of the students were female.
Code.org and College Board are targeting that gap between the female and minority students who demonstrate potential for computer science and those who end up studying it, Partovi says.
Code.org says it wants to build on the track record of its Code Studio, which offers online tutorials in the basics of coding. One out of 10 elementary and middle school students in the USA have created accounts with Code Studio, said Partovi. Of those students, 43% are female, 22% are Hispanic and 15% are African American, he said.
Non-profit Code.org is backed by tech leaders, including Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Its mission is to get every U.S. school to add computer science to its curriculum, part of a growing effort to address the shortage of computer scientists in the USA and the systemic lack of diversity in the technology industry, Partovi said.
That gender and racial gap has its roots in unequal access to computer science education, the very education students need to put them “in the pipeline toward a good job at a place like Google or Facebook,” said Level Playing Field Institute founder Freada Kapor Klein.
A recent report from the Level Playing Field Institute examined access to computer science education for low-income and underrepresented students of color in California public high schools and found significant disparities.
Schools with the highest percentage of underrepresented students of color offer computer science courses at a rate nearly half that of schools with the lowest percentage of underrepresented students of color, the study found.
Just 2% of schools with the highest percentage of underrepresented students of color offer Advanced Placement Computer Science.
African-American and Latino students make up 59% of California public school students but were just 11% of AP Computer Science test takers in 2014, according to the study.
The statistics are even more sobering in the Bay Area, backyard of technology giants such as Google, Apple and Facebook. In San Francisco and Oakland, poor and minority high school students enroll in computer science classes at a rate of less than 2%.
“This is not a question of interest,” Klein says. “It is a problem of access.”
Access is crucial because jobs in computing related fields are growing at four times the national average, Partovi said. Computing jobs in the USA pay on average 85% more than the national median wage, he added. Still, fewer than 2.4% of college students graduate with computer science degrees.
“As a nation, we must do more to cultivate an interest in computer science among students of all backgrounds and ensure that they have the preparation to pursue the computing jobs that will help power future economic growth,” David Coleman, College Board’s president and CEO, said in a statement.