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Education Programming

Should High Schools Require a CS Course Before Students Graduate? (medium.com) 151

Posted by EditorDavid from the inherited-classes dept.
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: The tech-backed and directed nonprofit Code.org is back with a new call for America's Governors, announcing its "10th policy recommendation for all states." Their recommendation? "To require all students to take computer science to earn a high school diploma."

Arguing that "artificial intelligence has increased the urgency to ensure our students are adequately prepared for a rapidly changing world," Code.org explains its vision: that states have "a policy that requires all students to earn a credit named 'computer science' or has a related name that includes 'computer science'". Heretofore, Code.org has said, "Our vision is that every student in every school has the opportunity to learn computer science, just like biology, chemistry, or algebra."

Code.org's call for a high school CS graduation requirement in response to recent AI breakthroughs comes two months after the non-profit launched TeachAI, a Code.org-led and seed-funded effort supported by a coalition of tech and educational organizations, including Microsoft, OpenAI, Amazon, Meta, and (newly AI-powered) Khan Academy. "TeachAI," the initiative's website explains, "is committing to provide thought leadership to guide governments and educational leaders in aligning education with the needs of an increasingly AI-driven world and connecting the discussion of teaching with AI to teaching about AI and computer science."
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Should High Schools Require a CS Course Before Students Graduate? More

Should High Schools Require a CS Course Before Students Graduate?

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  • I don't know (Score:5, Informative)

    by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Saturday July 15, 2023 @02:43PM (#63688723)

    But let's see what people said the last time this exact same question was asked [slashdot.org].

  • I recommend... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by drkshadow ( 6277460 ) on Saturday July 15, 2023 @02:44PM (#63688727)

    I would truly recommend Discrete Logic. The logic that goes into it, formal proofs, and understanding of cause-and-effect, has been invaluable. This really helps you reason through things that people say, and understand when their points don't support their conclusion -- with rigorous, formal reasons. It's valuable in many more scenarios than just copmutation. Hey, it can go for a math elective, too!

    Oh wait. They mean "computer programming"? Not computer science? Well, I suppose most schools do offer metals and woods, another trade-like class couldn't hurt. Is Wood shop required? It's important to know how your furniture is made, isn't it?

    Sigh. The Science of Computation. Computer Science. It's not what people think it is. It isn't magic... and actually, I lost a lot of interest in it when it lost its magic.

    Linear Algebra was amazing as well. I hated calc, though -- the division-by-almost-zero bothers me.

    • Computer Science is how to edit an Excel sheet (or however Excel is called in Office359 these days), duh.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by narcc ( 412956 )

      "Discrete Logic" eh? Why is it that it's always people who have very obviously never taken a course in formal logic seem to think it's essential?

  • Define CS (Score:3)

    by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Saturday July 15, 2023 @02:45PM (#63688729) Homepage

    If you do anything serious, some students will fail. So:why bother, leave it as an elective.

    Of course, the same can be said of math, English, and other su jects. NCLB = every child passes, somehow...

    • If you do anything serious, some students will fail. So:why bother, leave it as an elective.

      Of course, the same can be said of math, English, and other su jects. NCLB = every child passes, somehow...

      So taxpayers should tolerate school performance like this in Baltimore going back to at least 2018?

      https://dailycaller.com/2023/0... [dailycaller.com] https://www.newsmax.com/us/hig... [newsmax.com] https://www.thebaltimorebanner... [thebaltimorebanner.com] https://www.baltimoresun.com/e... [baltimoresun.com]

    • Computer Literacy and Household Math required (Score:4, Insightful)

      by drnb ( 2434720 ) on Saturday July 15, 2023 @04:30PM (#63688919)

      If you do anything serious, some students will fail. So:why bother, leave it as an elective.

      It should be a computer literacy class. Word processing, spreadsheets, internet search, instructions on not believing most of what you read on the internet, avoiding malware, avoiding spyware (including the advertising variant), etc.

      Notice the absence of "learn to code". That should be a "shop" class, an elective.

      Of course, the same can be said of math, English, and other su jects. NCLB = every child passes, somehow...

      Define "math". There were once two sets of math classes in high school. Household/vocational math and college prep math. Household should be required for all, vocational required if not on college prep path. Household would including banking, credit cards, loans, and other home economics related stuff.

      • Re:Computer Literacy and Household Math required (Score:5, Informative)

        by Hasaf ( 3744357 ) on Saturday July 15, 2023 @07:15PM (#63689227)

        It should be a computer literacy class. Word processing, spreadsheets, internet search, instructions on not believing most of what you read on the internet, avoiding malware, avoiding spyware (including the advertising variant), etc.

        I am a middle school computer and robotics teacher. The things you list here are covered. Using critical skills about the information on the internet is approached in several classes.

  • CS or just Programming? (Score:3)

    by narcc ( 412956 ) on Saturday July 15, 2023 @02:46PM (#63688731) Journal

    I've noticed that a lot of "Computer Science" programs these days have turned into little more than expensive programming boot camps. I got more actual CS in my intro course than kids these days get in four years.

    Not that I'm opposed to a required programming course. It's a very useful skill with broad applicability. That makes sense to me.

    • Not that I'm opposed to a required programming course. It's a very useful skill with broad applicability. That makes sense to me.

      Perhaps we first ask every student that was previously forced to pay for and fund a mandatory programming course how many times they've revisited that skill in life instead. See what actually makes sense.

      When the enterprise GUI has been reduced to what a toddler can manipulate, I'd say you could be overestimating the interest of "coding" and the enslaved learn-to-code-once audience, as well as the "broad applicability". By an order of magnitude or seven.

    • Not that I'm opposed to a required programming course. It's a very useful skill with broad applicability. That makes sense to me.

      Makes sense in a shop class sense. Wood/metal/electrical shop could develop practical skills for fixing stuff around the house. Or recognize an interest in something that could become vocational. Similar with auto shop. Same for a computer programming shop class. Like all the others, an intro class for kids to see if they like it, more advanced for those that find something they like. All elective, perhaps the intros highly recommended.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ebonum ( 830686 )

      Brick laying is to architecture as programming is to CS.

      If you can't talk about algorithms, how compilers work, P vs NP, Turing machines, at least know who Donald Knuth is, etc. you aren't taking CS, you are taking the bricklaying class.

    • For teaching programming to people.

      The AIs are already able to write common programs for you.

      I've noticed that you still need to be able to specify in precise natural language to the AI what you want the program to do.

      And you still need to know some computer science concepts to be able to speak that precisely to the AI. e.g. you need to know why you might want a hash function and that it is called a hash function.

      So teaching computer science algorithm concepts, and logical and precise thinking, is still use

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by narcc ( 412956 )

        The AIs are already able to write common programs for you.

        That's simply not true. AI is far, far, less capable than you seem to believe.

        I've noticed that you still need to be able to specify in precise natural language to the AI what you want the program to do.

        Precision isn't the issue. Far from it. The whole thing puts me in mind of psychic cold-reading. The credulous dismiss, excuse, and ignore the many, many, failures and focus on anything that could possibly be construed as a success. Here, any failure can be excused as the user's fault for writing a prompt, making it easy to delude yourself into thinking there is more happening than is actually happening.

        at least for getting a job 5 years from now.

        That's always the way

  • Just like foreign language classes (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dysmal ( 3361085 ) on Saturday July 15, 2023 @02:52PM (#63688753)

    Mandating that all students take a class like this will cheapen it and treat it like mandatory foreign language classes. Keep it as an elective so that the quality of class participation doesn't get tainted by students enrolled because they have to as opposed students that are enrolled because they want to.

    • Mandating a certain amount of foreign language is a good way to pick out the students who are interested in learning a foreign language. But you don't need to do the same for programming because the skills you need for programming and the skills you need for math largely overlap.

      This is just about companies not wanting to train their workers and wanting to flood the market with cheap programmers to drive wages down. It's got nothing to do with a long-term skills and capabilities let alone learning of th
      • No one coming out of a high school class is going to get a programming job. There are people coming out with college degrees that are pretty marginal and even the average graduate still has a lot to learn on the job before they're really justifying the salary.

        Your logic is beyond idiotic. That's how functional market economies work. Otherwise we should ban biology classes in high school and even ought to prohibit more people from going to medical school or into nursing programs so the doctors and nurses

    • Mandating that all students take a class like this will cheapen it and treat it like mandatory foreign language classes.

      Not really. We have seen this all before, both in foreign language class and in shop classes (wood, metal, electrical, auto). There is an intro class for kids to see if they have any interest. If so they take the more advanced classes.

      FWIW, language classes were generally only required for the college prep path. Perhaps a modernized version could organize things so the "intro" class is only the first quarter/semester class of the first year series?

      Keep it as an elective so that the quality of class participation doesn't get tainted by students enrolled because they have to as opposed students that are enrolled because they want to.

      That already has a known solution, we do it with English

      • FWIW, language classes were generally only required for the college prep path. Perhaps a modernized version could organize things so the "intro" class is only the first quarter/semester class of the first year series?

        My State, Tennessee, requires [tn.gov] two full-year credits in foreign language to graduate. There is a policy allowing this to be "waived by the local school district for students, under certain circumstances, to expand and enhance the elective focus". In practice this waiver process does not happen

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hadlock ( 143607 )

      They "fixed" this by offering most (all? at my high school) courses in regular or "honors"

  • ... the headline can be easily answered with a "no"!

    More to the point, a real "CS" class would only make most people feel dumb. A watered-down class would be pointless.

    We'd be a lot better off getting young people involved in the arts.

  • Arguing that "artificial intelligence has increased the urgency to ensure our students are adequately prepared for a rapidly changing world," Code.org explains its vision: that states have "a policy that requires all students to earn a credit named 'computer science' or has a related name that includes 'computer science'".

    A (single) high school CS course and AI most likely have no overlap, unless that course is simply a high-level survey course meant as an introduction to all things computer science-y and even then couldn't really have any serious overlap. Neither computer science or AI are things that can be shoe-horned into a semester, especially w/o any prerequisites. Coding, computer science and AI aren't the same thing.

    Code.org's call for a high school CS graduation requirement in response to recent AI breakthroughs comes two months after the non-profit launched TeachAI, ...

    So, it's a recommendation based self interest ...

  • Better also add (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ebonum ( 830686 ) on Saturday July 15, 2023 @03:04PM (#63688777)

    An accounting course
    A cooking course
    A car mechanic course
    A plumbing course
    A financial planner course
    A nursing course ...

    • FFS, what do you want to create, some kind of competent society well-equipped with common sense to properly arm themselves against the very thing Government requires of all citizens, which is incessant spending in order to drive GDP, while ignoring their health to feed the Medical Industrial Complex that in turn feeds political donations?

      (Oh, I'm sorry, did I accidentally clarify the reason as to why we have NONE of that shit anymore? Oops.)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by waspleg ( 316038 )

      The list of things having long been sacrificed on the altar of "work force readiness" straight out of high school - because god fucking forbid a corporation pay for literally anything - is a VERY long one. But that "workforce" doesn't include much in the way of decent vocational blue collar jobs, even in struggling inner city public schools.

    • A critical thinking course

    • In grade 9 at my school, every student had to take a tech class in which we did a little bit of woodworking, machine shop, drafting, and some other tech stuff.

      Something like this should be mandatory for all students. We shouldn't need students to have a full CS course, but a single course at the beginning of highschool as an intro to all the electives so that everyone can try out thing and maybe get a feeling for what they are like.

    • What you meant to say is a course in how to specify good search terms to youtube.

      You can then become an instant pseudo-expert, just knowledgeable enough to probably be dangerous to yourself and others, on any practical topic!

    • As my boss used to ask when told things that "needed" to be added to an academic program, "What should we take out to make room?"

  • Requiring us all to take english made us all journalists and novelists.
    Requiring us all to take math made us all engineers and rocket scientists
    Requiring us all to take phys ed made us all star athletes.
    Requiring us all to take CS/Programming/whatever classes will turn us all into Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Mark Zuckerberg.

    'nuff said.

  • No (Score:3)

    by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Saturday July 15, 2023 @03:09PM (#63688785) Homepage

    By all means, offer it as an elective, but let's not try to force feed students CS curriculum if they simply aren't interested.

    If you want to talk about what classes they NEED to take/pass before graduation, beyond the fundementals anyway, let's talk about home ec; budgeting, taxes, personal health care.

    Of course I doubt anyone in education wants students to understand how loans work as that would effectively shutdown college's free federal money program, but I digress.

  • This again? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Saturday July 15, 2023 @03:09PM (#63688787)
    Without decent math and formal logic, which are definitely not being taught, CS is just voodoo. You'd be teaching them to memorize jargon and use apps while not actually giving them any real knowledge of how electronics work.
    • It's never going to go away unless programmer wages get to be about where Uber drivers are, i.e. substantially below minimum wage for the majority of workers with a few outliers they can point to and pretend that they are the norm.

      This is going to go away because there's somebody whose job it is to drive down programmer pay and this is part of it

    • Without decent math and formal logic, which are definitely not being taught, CS is just voodoo. You'd be teaching them to memorize jargon and use apps while not actually giving them any real knowledge of how electronics work.

      I'm pretty sure I sat in shop class and dismantled a small engine to rebuild while memorizing jargon (like "three-eights socket"), and yet I came out of that not really knowing how a rocket engine works.

      An Introduction to Computer Science, is probably meant to scratch the surface anyway. It's not meant to outline the structures surrounding supercomputing OS builds. The very concept of having to program an electronic machine in order to make it work, seems pretty fundamental. You can teach that basic conc

      • Maybe they can at least try to explain what's going on underneath it all, instead of just teaching "commercially viable" tools. Better to offer the world and face indifference than offer indifference and lose the world.

        • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

          by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

          I had BASIC programming with graphics on Apple IIs in elementary school, and LOGO in Junior High where we learned about procedural programming and drew fractals. I have not become a great programmer between then and now, but it taught me a lot of basic concepts that have served me since. I also got a class in Lotus 1-2-3 (for DOS) the first time I went to college. I regularly bust out spreadsheets now, and also had a job doing Crystal Reports for a casino for a while. I haven't kept up with it, but at least

          • Motivation today has a lot to do with it. That and taxes.

            Almost every 21-year old has a drivers license, and likely relies on a car for transportation. Yet the overwhelming majority of them don't have a damn clue on how to maintain a car properly. And don't want to learn. If something as critical as personal transport is an afterthought, I really don't see the value in blowing a farts worth of CS in a kids face in hopes it provides inspiration. The overwhelming majority will do nothing with this infor

          • Even more fundamental than coding, they should really teach linear algebra in high school. It's so easy compared to something like integrals that they do teach. I'm still a little annoyed I didn't get introduced to it until sophomore year of college (not CS, I was physical sciences).

        • Maybe they can at least try to explain what's going on underneath it all, instead of just teaching "commercially viable" tools.

          You mean corporations donating large sums of money to politics in order to push for massive CS reform also have some kind of profit-bearing vested interest in teaching their commercially viable tools? Pretty sure we know how that happens almost every time in the land of free-market capitalism. I first saw an Apple computer in a classroom. Like the marketing intended.

          Better to offer the world and face indifference than offer indifference and lose the world.

          True, but if the average digital lemming still cared about choice, default settings on devices wouldn't be worth billions.

          • To be fair, Apple was awesome. At least to the eyes, though it didn't offer much insight. PCs were such rough beasts, you couldn't help but learn stuff from them.

  • Absolutely NOT (Score:3)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Saturday July 15, 2023 @03:11PM (#63688795)

    Not everyone needs CS, and a lot of people don't have the aptitude for it, so why torture them unnecessarily?

    What should be mandatory, regardless of whether it's torture for some - or even most students - is a demonstrated understanding of statistics and probability, an understanding of the scientific method, and some training in thinking critically.

    Those things are absolutely required by everyone who has any capacity to learn them, because those are the tools with which you understand the world and choose how to react to it. People who don't understand them make stupid choices, like joining the anti-vaxxers.

  • You want to know the fastest way to corrupt the definition of "non-profit" in the public eye? Start talking about how you're going to help society through mandatory education for all.

    I think we can stop pretending Greed can still use that term with some air of assumed innocence or good faith. People are dumb, but not that dumb.

  • Critical Thinking Skills (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MikeDataLink ( 536925 ) on Saturday July 15, 2023 @03:32PM (#63688821) Homepage Journal

    If we're going to add a new requirement it should be for critical thinking skills.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GFS666 ( 6452674 )

      If we're going to add a new requirement it should be for critical thinking skills.

      You nailed it. And reading. Let's have competency with just normal reading skills before we every introduce them to a computer class.

    • And organize religion are never going to allow that to happen. Right now they're trying to figure out how they can have highly skilled employees who lack critical thinking skills so that they can be told what to do and we'll just do it without question.

      The usual tactic is to break up society into a series of stratified groups that fight among themselves. My personal favorite is the Japanese Burakumin. It's literally an underclass made up of certain professions where they have to keep books of people yo

      • Your post does not exhibit critical thinking, but rather, anti-religious bias. Real critical thinking does not dismiss religion or religious viewpoints merely because they are religious. Instead, critical thinking looks at religion even-handedly, criticizing it where its principles are contradictory, and agreeing with it where it benefits mankind. Further, your post lumps all religion into a single trope, when the truth is that religious beliefs come in all kinds of varieties, some of which deserve much mor

    • If we're going to add a new requirement it should be for critical thinking skills.

      First off, even higher education in America, has been reduced to include mandatory political indoctrination. So not sure why we would assume the US Government would want that for its citizens. Society has been ironically devaluing criticizing or questioning any narrative, and Government loves that shit. Makes it a hell of a lot easier to manipulate the masses.

      But before we even take a step in that direction, ask yourself; Fifty years ago who do you think was taking on the responsibility of teaching our ch

    • Agreed, but way too many teachers conflate "critical thinking" with promoting their own political or religious or anti-religious ideology. Critical thinking is rare, even among teachers or professors. Instead, they parrot the teachings of their own favorite gurus or pundits. If you are a student, and your critical thinking produces a result that differs from the mindset of the teacher or professor, you are certainly not going to be scoring any points.

  • Where I went to college, there was a watered-down set of "CS" classes for business and english majors. I seem to remember them being collectively referred to as Facebook 101.

    This may look exactly like that given how when I was in high school, "Computer Applications" was seriously offered as a real class in high schools and community colleges in Pennsylvania.

    Pre Facebook, so Microsoft Word 101.

  • It used to be that math books had BASIC examples for many a topic. So, after a few math courses here and there, if you decided to take a Programming/coding course (elective at the time), you were already a little bit familiar with the tools, because of the previous exposure.

    If we want to make the Programming/coding course mandatory, we have to do the same but now with phyton, i.e. have all math books have examples in python so that when the students take the programming/coding course in the last year, they

  • Computer literacy should be required, not computer science ...

    Computer science is a "shop class" where kids figure out if they have any interest in computer programming. Similar to a woodshed class where they find out if they have any interprets in woodworking or carpentry. Like all shop classes, recommended but not required.

  • This is neither business administration nor law where it's sufficient to cram crap into brains and have them pretend they know shit while actually understanding fuck all. CS only "works" when the student actually wants to understand what's going on so they can start building on top of it.

    Rote learning isn't getting you anywhere. Sure, it gets you a passing grade, and the industry will very quickly discover that this is utterly worthless for their needs, so you're back at square one, just with a lot of money

  • Require entrepreneurial class
  • In 2007 I spoke with a chemistry professor (4 year state school with some non-doctoral graduate academic and clinical programs) who lamented that over 40% of the scarce seats in first semester chemistry, required by high-demand pre-nursing and physical therapy majors, and by all sciences majors, were wasted by drop or fail, mostly from clear lack of proficiency in algebra. The department instituted a qualifying exam and no-credit retread classes for those who scored too low but wished to persist. Don't wa

  • Probably a useless skillset in 20 years (Score:3)

    by christoban ( 3028573 ) on Saturday July 15, 2023 @05:13PM (#63689005)

    I wish I could agree with this, but as fast as AI code generation is advancing, I think this profession is not long for the world, or we'll need far fewer of us.

    In the future I think AIs will just take a product spec and regenerate the entire app in a few seconds. Need a modification? Modify the spec and regen in a few minutes!

    We probably have 10 years before most of us can't get jobs anymore, or have to work for next to nothing.

    • Agreed.

      So the skills needed are how to coherently and consistently specify a needed new information processing application.

      How to specify without contradictions.

      How to estimate the computation complexity and information availability requirements for some desired information processing task, or at least how to understand when the AI starts explaining those and asking for your trade-off preferences.

      How to learn the vocabulary of a new domain quickly, in order to be able to specify applications in that domain

    • Humans have an immense capacity to invent things to do. I wouldn't count on employment going away. If AI is doing all the heavy lifting creating an app, there will be more jobs on instructing AI.

      It's similar to what happened to accountants when spreadsheets came out. You used to need an army of accountants to simply do rote arithmetic. That's no longer needed, but there's more accountants today than there were prior to the spreadsheet. But now, accountants are expected to do things they weren't expected to

  • Not on computer science, which is a branch of mathematics with a high degree of sophistication well beyond the reach of most high-schoolers.

    A course on basic familiarity with computers and programming? By all means. Just don't call it a CS course.

  • I absolutely love the design of the Harvard CS50 course and it works well for high school:

    https://www.edx.org/course/int... [edx.org]

    I am not overly thrilled with the principles of AP Computer Science course which is similar to taking a principles of AP Cooking but never cooking food.

    I asked AI this question: "If you had a choice of recommending Harvard's CS50 Intro to Computer Science and AP Principles of Computer science, which would you recommend, why, and which would be most useful to students in their future edu

  • So what do Code.org think is less important/useful than CS? The curriculum is already full & already challenging for pupils. What do they propose to remove from the curriculum to make way for CS & what is their rationale?

  • NO! (Score:2)

    by antdude ( 79039 )

    How to use computers, internet including safety, other tech stuff, etc., yes.

  • No (Score:2)

    by gweihir ( 88907 )

    This idiocy has to die. CS is a specialist skill. We do not ask everybody to learn how to weld either, do we?

  • No

  • We had lessons within Mathematics class utilizing Basic and Logo back in the 1980s on an Apple IIc.

    Has the curriculum regressed from 35 years ago?

  • systems over goals
    accounting/personal finance(ie the long term cost of a student loan)
    basic home repair
    bullshit detection/persuasion/Psychology
    cooking/diet/fitness
    Public speaking
    Business writing
    Design (the basics)
    Second language
    Technology (hobby level)

  • being able to write code in some form of language is increasingly mandatory for work.

    There was a time when literacy was optional. You didnt need to know how to read or write, and you could get by just fine. But today, you can hardly do the most basic labor without being able to read and write.

    The same is true for basic arithmetic.

    We are approaching that for coding. Every day, fewer and fewer jobs can get by without some coding skills. Eventually, it will be as required as basic literacy.

    This may be far away

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by BBF_BBF ( 812493 )

      being able to write code in some form of language is increasingly mandatory for work.

      Most jobs don't and never will. For example, the service industry is a major employer and will never require "programming" skills. I can't see someone's who job entails ending customer interactions with: "Would you like fries with that?" ever needing such skills.

      However, in the technical and scientific jobs that's true.

    • to write a python program for you.

      It is enlightening what it can do.

      People will generally not need to learn programming languages anymore.

      Learn how to think with conceptual clarity and precision, yes. But not memorizing software libraries and syntaxes.

  • High school these days has Calc and sometimes Calc II which requires learning polynomials, derivatives, factorials, and a bunch of other math concepts that are not applicable for most professions.

    I propose we teach just basic programming concepts.

    Simple n+1 loops
    while
    do while
    foreach
    for

    Explain arrays / dictionaries / hash maps.

    Explain types.

    Show how they work in 2-3 different languages then move on.

    I had QBasic and Java in my high school but it was an elective.

  • I think the point is to get some "non-sponsored by a huge company to further their own goals" information out to non technical people. Although people use and new generations have grown up with technology, the actual underpinning structure and the potential misuse of information gathered through that technology is not well known.

    I'm a huge proponent of revealing "how the sausage is made" at a high level for everything we use today, not just where our highly processed food comes from, but politics, economi

  • I'd wager the majority of US students struggle with math, which at least has real-world applications. I really, really don't see students grasping CS unless it's very basic
  • Such as the benefits of compound interest, how to manage a check book, how to avoid predatory lending, how to save for a house, how to properly invest, how to acquire funds like grants instead of student loans, how to manage your education cheaply (IE city college courses for lower division general ed; on my town it's literally the same teachers from a nearby university but the cost 10% per unit).

    Not everyone needs to code. But everyone should know how to manage a checking and savings account.

  • high school computer science is probably how to use ms word. In the old days it was typing so you could write papers in college. Actually, typing is still important. They should offer that.

  • I do think it would be good to require implementing the quadratic equation in Python as a lab during algebra, including if-statements handling the degenerate cases. Even if it's just typing in a pre-written program and running it.

  • There are tons of people who can not program... the same as there are plenty of people who can't put 2 + 2 together (or who should never have been given a driver's license).

    Require for graduation the *exact* same test that emigrees take to become citizens. You don't pass? No diploma, no right to vote, no privilidge to drive.

  • What's the practical point of teaching people enough to pass a course, but not enough to have a real handle on programming? How many years does it take the average developer to get decent at their craft? How many of us started writing code in primary / secondary school, only to feel "ready" by the time we left post secondary? Taking one course to get one credit, is just introducing needlessness into peoples lives.

    Programming is not a pass time that you should approve with a shrug, it's an honest discip

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