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Education United States

Governors Asked To Sign Compact Committing To K-12 CS Expansion 67

Posted by msmash from the up-next dept.
theodp writes: At the 2022 Winter meeting of the National Governors Association (NGA), Arkansas Governor and NGA Chair ASA Hutchinson called on attendees to rally together to advance K-12 computer science education across the country. The pitch was part of Hutchinson's year-long CS evangelism initiative, which the NGA notes enjoys the support of Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. In video from the event, Hutchinson gives kudos to tech-bankrolled Code.org for pushing the national expansion of K-12 CS, and calls on 35 of his fellow Governors to join their 15 peers who are already members of the Code.org-led advocacy group Govs for CS.

In closing, Hutchinson informs the Governors they'll be asked to sign a compact committing to expanding access to CS education in their states (to be unveiled at NGA's Summer meeting), and plays a short video that challenges the audience with a question: "Will it be American students who learn to code," Hutchinson asks, "or will industry be required to go overseas to find the talent that we need here in the United States of America?"
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Governors Asked To Sign Compact Committing To K-12 CS Expansion More

Governors Asked To Sign Compact Committing To K-12 CS Expansion

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  • Devil's in the details (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Whateverthisis ( 7004192 ) on Monday January 31, 2022 @02:21PM (#62224273)
    Makes sense, but if and only if the curriculum teaches the right things. If it's just coding languages etc. no thanks. What it should be is critical thinking and problem solving; how to basically examine a potential problem, dissect it down into a workflow, form a plan to execute, analyze the plan for pitfalls, and then code.

    Which frankly, that kind of education isn't really CS specific. I wish schools taught a lot more of this. But then again, American schools are designed to train good factory workers who are dependent on corporate or government pensions, otherwise instead of teaching economics they'd teach useful skills like how to invest in a diversified portfolio, the benefits of compound interest, and how to balance a checkbook; you know, actual independence from government and corporate largesse.

    So I fear this will just turn coding into a 21st century factory job. One can hope though.

    • Re:Devil's in the details (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Monday January 31, 2022 @02:57PM (#62224387)

      You think this will even cover Coding Languages.

      Said Computer Science education, will probably just have kids learning how to use Office, and navigating windows.

      We had better computer science education back in the 1980's where we coded in Basic and Logo on an Apple ][ then we do now. Where it is just about using the standard product of the time.

      • Unfortunately you probably hit the nail on the head. It's all about the numbers and if schools can get their CS credits in by offering MS Office training (or other low-grade industry certifications) they will. The problem is that there are not enough qualified CS teachers for K12 schools, and unless this is somehow addressed, math teachers turned CS teachers will use whatever tool they need to get that CS credit in (not putting down match teachers, they teach math well, what they were trained for). And no,

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by e3m4n ( 947977 )
        they use Scratch to the 4-8th graders, which is a simplified scripting language using flow chart editors. Similar to the robotics labs. It teaches basic algorithms. Later on they teach Visual Basic, and Java. Wish they would teach python, but thats just me. Visual Basic used to require windows, which was problematic for schools since they issue chromebooks; but recently VS Studios is available on lots of platforms including chrome. For those with kids in grades 3-5 you can do some at home using something l

        • they use Scratch to the 4-8th graders ... Wish they would teach python

          At my kids' elementary school, they teach Scratch to 4th and 5th graders. 6th graders learn Python.

          Java is used for AP-CS in high school.

      • You think this will even cover Coding Languages.

        Said Computer Science education, will probably just have kids learning how to use Office, and navigating windows.

        Many young people today do not even understand what a file folder is.

        And they carry computers around and stare at them most of the day.

    • Re:Devil's in the details (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mystran ( 545374 ) on Monday January 31, 2022 @02:59PM (#62224395)
      From the point of view of a functioning society going forward, I feel like it might make sense to focus at least some of the mandatory CS education in schools (not just in US, but worldwide) on teaching people the basics of what they need to understand about internet security (hands on, so the point really get across). I'm not talking about security in the sense that a programmer would need to know about it, but rather in the sense of what every modern human needs to understand in order to protect themselves from basic scams, how support personel will never need your password for anything, how an email or SMS can be spoofed or sent by malware, things like that.

      Most people seem to learn to hate math in school and I personally feel like trying to teach them to also hate programming is probably not going to be that useful. When the most common password is apparently still '123456' teaching people some basics of how to avoid the dark alleys of the digital society would seem like something that should have a much better return of investiment to the society as a whole, than trying to teach everyone to write code.
      • If schools can't teach the benefits of compound interest, or basic financial literacy like how important it is to pay off your credit card every month, then I doubt basic cyber security practices will rise to the top of the curriculum. Schools just aren't designed to help people protect themselves; that's not what they're here to do. Otherwise they'd also teach women basic self defense courses; heck men should get that too.

    • Why even bother with CS? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      CS is all and good, until you realize that most companies offshore all their coding work, and coding work done this side of the pond is done by armies of H-1B contractors. It is common for companies to whine about how few people they can find, all the while demanding the floodgates for cheap foreign labor to be opened.

    • It should be an option as a class, not fully required.
      This is just a push from the Big Tech to flood the market with potential employees so they can keep the pay rates down.

      • Bingo. Look at the way they pretend there is a constant shortage and flood the market with imports today. This is the same reason they push so hard to get girls and minorities coding as well. They pretend they want 'diversity' but genital diversity when the only hindrance is that they aren't interested in the field? Nah, what they want is to double the labor pool.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by e3m4n ( 947977 )
      most kids are convinced all it takes to be rich is a decent camera, a decent microphone, a gaming PC, and a youtube channel. We have overpaid these youtube babies so much that its ruining realistic expectations for kids. They wont listen to us, what do we know, we are just the parents. So what that we have been doing this shit (Life) for over 40yrs. I wish they would slash these payouts by a good 80%. So tired of seeing kids watching some 23yr old whose only idea of cooking is taking it out of the fast food

    • Silly you! We need people to rush out the next app to track and monetize your bathroom habits so some kid with more money than sense can afford to put a shark tank in his G6 because all the internet is good for these days is pumping us plebes for money

  • Expand access in higher education (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WarJolt ( 990309 ) on Monday January 31, 2022 @02:22PM (#62224277)

    Learning to program is great, but CS majors are generally highly impacted and inundating Universities with a bunch of bright eyed high school students with dreams of becoming Software Engineers might have some negative consequences at admissions time. I want those who are really good at programming to enter CS, not those who simply have the best grades. Bring back subjects like shop class, teach students how to run CNC machines and learn some welding, so students can learn to be creative in a wide array of subjects rather than funneling students into a single field and then filtering them out at University admissions time.

    Software engineering is as much of an art form as a science. I can teach the math, but the aesthetics of a really well written program is something that many smart people often don't value and it contributes to technical debt due. A lot of students get filtered out at admissions time and they have the aptitude to write great code.

  • Will it be American students who learn to code," Hutchinson asks, "or will industry be required to go overseas to find the talent that we need here in the United States of America?

    I would like it to be a significant amount of both. We only have 5% of the world's population, so I consider it a success when we can get intelligent foreigners to come to US companies to work. But I also want good education for US citizens so those with the aptitude can have the opportunity to fulfill our company's needs for software developers.

    If our companies are never forced to go overseas for talent it likely means our companies aren't doing well enough in the global marketplace to have enough demand f

    • ...But I also want good education for US citizens so those with the aptitude can have the opportunity to fulfill our company's needs for software developers.

      My first concern is that this doe-eyed focus on CS will starve other fields of endeavour. Making good CS education available early on and encouraging those with interest and aptitude is one thing. Turning schools into primarily computer studies institutions is quite another, and would be very bad for society.

      If our companies are never forced to go overseas for talent it likely means our companies aren't doing well enough in the global marketplace to have enough demand for talent.

      My second concern is that these programs might succeed too well. Programming, at least the lower levels of it, might end up being one step above flipping burgers when it comes to earning potential and b

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dskoll ( 99328 )

        My second concern is that these programs might succeed too well. Programming, at least the lower levels of it, might end up being one step above flipping burgers when it comes to earning potential and bargaining power.

        That's the goal of the big tech companies. Why do you think they want this so much?

        • +1 Insightful

          Minimizing leverage and preventing salary growth is the reason they pretend a labor shortage and import hundreds of thousands of workers each year now.

        • My second concern is that these programs might succeed too well. Programming, at least the lower levels of it, might end up being one step above flipping burgers when it comes to earning potential and bargaining power.

          That's the goal of the big tech companies. Why do you think they want this so much?

          I know exactly why they want this - hence the paragraph which followed the one you quoted: "Corporatocrats have become really good at creating artificial scarcity to increase profits. Creating artificial plenitude is the logical next step. I don't like either of these things."

    • There are some fundamental problems with this reasoning. The most obvious is that you need the same number of developers to build a solution regardless of the scale at which it is deployed. You can easily run a software company with global reach with a hundred skilled full-time developers and no need for OT.

      From a population of 300 million people you should be able to hire nothing but people from the top 1% and have more than enough developers to fill the entire global marketplace. It will never work out th

  • If everyone in the future is a programmer. (Score:3)

    by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Monday January 31, 2022 @02:47PM (#62224363) Homepage
    Who is going to actually get stuff done? Our infrastructure has fallen into a state that needs replacing while everyone is clacking away at a keyboard because everything needs red tape, budget reviews, environmental committees, legal reviews, zoning permits, zoning taxes, third party expenses, third party monitoring expenses, travel budgets, plus more and more crap that needs to be pushed through a computer.

    Just to fix a pothole probably requires more computer keys to be pressed than would fit in that pothole. Remember when computers were thought of as the holy grail of efficiency? What a mess.
    • Salaried plumbers, right out of high school, no college (or debt) on average (nationally) are being paid $54k/year with benefits. In most places in the US, for an 19 year old straight out of trade school and no student loans, that's pretty good. With enough experience, a good plumber can go independent and charge $125 to up to $250/hr depending on where they live, and you can work as little or as much as you want; every plumber I call when I need something done is backed up 6-7 days unless it's an emergen
      • "With enough experience, a good plumber can go independent"

        With enough experience not only do they go independent but they can hire a half dozen plumbers without the requisite experience and charge $250/hr for THEIR work... work they can in most cases oversee on paper. Lets be honest... those experience requirements are about keeping artificial scarcity and protectionism. You might need someone with 20 years experience to work major infrastructure plumbing in some cases... for just about everything else us

    • Well if you are willing to tolerate, untraceable government actions, and dumping oil based tar into your drinking water supply, then feel free to not have such information recorded.
      Or we can use computers to track and log every request to make sure things are properly budgeted, and money is going to the right places, and everything is running above board. Also for future jobs, we can pinpoint in higher detail of roads that have a high pothole rate, in which when new roads are paved, more money can be put i

  • not programming (Score:3)

    by cjonslashdot ( 904508 ) on Monday January 31, 2022 @02:59PM (#62224389)
    As long as "computer science" is not equated with programming. To do so is like equating car mechanics with engine design.

    • You are technically correct (the best KIND of correct). BUT, in common parlance, the phrase "Computer Science" has become identical to "Software Engineering." The distinction is lost on everyone but the most egg-headed of academicians, these days.

      English has no authority governing it, and therefore, incorrect use becomes correct use if it is popular enough. It's wrong and sad, but there really isn't much we can do about it.

      • Most people drawing this distinction are also software engineers who think having learned the work of computer scientists and applying it is what counts. It is really just a way of looking down on people who've picked up and self-taught coding without the formal course work.
      • Yes, but programming is also not the same as software engineering.

  • More tech company grift (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Monday January 31, 2022 @03:10PM (#62224415) Homepage

    More BS grift from tech companies who want a large labour pool to keep wages low.

    How about making sure high school graduates have mastered basic arithmetic, reading comprehension, and writing first?

    • Can't have that. Haven't you heard? Asians and white males outperform other groups in advanced maths so advanced math opportunities are racist. The new solution is to add a bit of algebra to general math and make the more skilled students stay in the common course with no more advanced opportunities from 6th through at least 11th grade. Letting people with more talent realize their potential would result in an equitable outcome and therefore is racist.

      Suggesting that race is an aesthetic factor and we shou
    • Sure, as soon as school pay more money to get more teachers to teach those basics.  Unfortunately they are spending more dollars on sports than anything else.
  • In case you haven't noticed, many more families fallen below poverty levels. This means skipping meals or having to eat foods not that nutritious in order to pay ever increasing rents. Result is many children arrive at school hungry, so lots of luck getting them to commit to more stuff to learn.

  • I'm not convinced the tradeoff is worth it (Score:4, Insightful)

    by smoot123 ( 1027084 ) on Monday January 31, 2022 @03:38PM (#62224493)

    In isolation, sure, why not? I don't know if 5 year olds need to learn SQL. And they seem to soak up how to use technology easy enough so I'm not sure what a kinder class needs to cover.

    Problem is, it's not in isolation. Every hour spend on CS is an hour not spent on math, economics, history, government, languages, and any number of other competing subjects. Are we really sure CS is the most valuable of the choices? Color me skeptical. I'd rather people learned history and statistics so they're less easily mislead by demagogues.

    I'm fine making CS classes options. By all means let kids choose to learn programming and how to think like a programmer. I wouldn't do it super early. I wouldn't start it before kids are around 10 or 12. And let's remember there are any number of sources kids can turn to. If you've got a laptop and some motivation, you don't need this in the classroom.

  • Universities care less about K12 CS, requiring absolutely no prior knowledge or skills in CS. They require instead Calculus and Physics.
  • proposed by has been gov's with delusions of grandeur. The schools can't even teach the 3 R's because the educators are so busy sheltering from work. Reminds me of the old question does a teacher need to be able to program to teach programming.
  • Every kid will know how to code, but still won't know how to do taxes, comparison shop, or responsibly manage a credit card.

  • I teach Middle School - what we are teaching - (Score:5, Informative)

    by Hasaf ( 3744357 ) on Monday January 31, 2022 @05:13PM (#62224769)
    In computer 1, which is grade 6 & 7, I teach google apps and an introduction to photoshop, getting them as far as using layers. In Computer 2, which is grades 7 & 8, the focus is on spreadsheets using both Google Sheets and Excel. In computer 2 the photoshop component includes image corrections, patterns, shapes, and filters.

    Robotics is open to grades 6 - 8 and I am required to ensure that it is approachable to the 6th graders. We are using the EV-3 platform. Interestingly enough, we are using the same platform, and book (Damian Kee) that the local community college uses. In robotics 2 I use the VEX platform which uses scratch and I have them make some minor changes in C. I only have one or two in Robotics 2 (it runs at the same time as robotics 1).

    Yes, I would like to teach "what's in the box" and "how the internet works" but there is just no support for that.

  • *Sigh* (Score:3)

    by DivineKnight ( 3763507 ) on Monday January 31, 2022 @05:36PM (#62224845)

    What exactly do they mean by "Computer Science Education"? Are they talking about algorithms / data structures / etc.? Or are they talking about just learning programming languages? Or are they talking about OS administration (IT) basics? Or are they talking about learning Microsoft Office / Open Office / what have you?

    Before we go any further, I think we need to address what is a societal problem at this point -> the sheer number of CS (SE, etc.) majors who are graduating without any understanding of the underlying OS, resulting in the (what I think is a hilarious) situation of a company's IT department having to take time out of their day to teach the new developer those fundamentals...something which should never happen. Like how to install and configure {your choice of web server}, {IDE}, etc.

    I do not know how, exactly, we are ever going to fix that problem though...we need to get teachers up to a minimal level of IT competence to enable them to pass on those skills to younger minds...but who exactly is going to teach the teachers is anyone's guess. It's a very time consuming process, and from what I understand, teachers already have enough on their backs. And there are many who just flat out do not want to learn those skills; they, like many, graduated with the degree of their choice, and on that day swore a blood oath to {god} that they would never learn another damn thing, so help them {god}; and are really intent on keeping that oath.

     

  • When there is a shortage of teachers of all kinds and STEM especially where are these mythical CS teachers going to come from? Probably job prospects are better in this field elsewhere. Possibly. Plus those not employed in education will not be dealing with angry PTA sessions, Covid, etc.

    • Oh, that's easy. We will tell people that there is a shortage of CS / SE people...people with hopes of doing something relevant in the software industry and / or earning a huge paycheck...then hit them up for a low-paying job teaching teachers / kids CS / SE stuff (with the promise that the Department of Education will pay off those college loans) when they find out it's all a lie...it's a perfect plan...hahahahaha...ha...ouch, my soul hurts...

  • Should be optional (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Not everyone wants to be a programmer, algorithms designer, IT guy etc. And they should not be required to be. Why push it so hard?
    Even some basic programming level requires certain mindset, character...
    Just let people choose what they want, if programming classes will be completely optional no one will object, and there always will be someone who will find this field interesting, so there is actually no risk to have no programmers at all.
    If companies want to hire more IT developers they just should be less

  • What is CS in most of our schools if you can find it?

    Principles of Computer Science.

    Which means you write endless papers and do arts and crafts projects. You "learn" about the Internet but never actually do anything that uses a computer.

    In my opinion, if you want to roll out a real class get governors to commit to teaching Harvard CS50, Introduction to Computer Science, targeted for High School Students. Forget principles of computer science, forget Code.org, and get into a real class like Harvard CS50.

    htt [harvard.edu]

  • Proficiency at CS is the result... (Score:3)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Monday January 31, 2022 @08:15PM (#62225351)
    ...if good math, logic & reasoning learning, not the cause of it. CS education not my area of expertise but I regularly sift through education research papers showing that, so far, it's a one way street; "math, logic, & reasoning -> programming skills," rather than vice versa. I don't recall having heard much from education research institutions on this one. It seems to be a very poorly-informed & one-sided discourse in the media. Why not consult with a few learning sciences experts in this particular field & see what they have to say about it? Is it actually beneficial to children's cognitive development & learning or is it simply taking precious time away from more productive learning activities?

  • These idiots should not be in charge of curriculum.

  • Computer science is an interesting but complicated field. I have a lot of friends all around the US studying CS, and each of them says that there are too much theory and little practice. The uni I study in it was my dream, and I even used the help of https://edusson.com/scholarshi... [edusson.com] because I thought that scholarship essay writing service would help me to become a scholar student, and I was right. But now I do many extra things, apart from uni homework, because I understand that what I study won't be enoug

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