Friday, March 26, 2010

Good Thing We've Got That anti-21st Century Skills Backlash Going Full Steam

Mark Guzdial:

The problem is the base assumption. I don’t think most CS faculty realize how little high school CS is really out there, even among CS faculty who are CPATH PI’s.

Pick a random high school in the United States. With enormous probability, it will have zero computer science. In Georgia, where we have more high schools teaching CS than any state in the Southeast (to the best of our knowledge), the probability is 75% that a random high school with NOT have computer science. There are over 125,000 high schools in the United States, and only 2,000 AP CS teachers. Those high schools that have a CS teacher typically have a math, science, or (especially in Georgia) business teacher who has had workshop training to teach computer science — or not. There are very few (less than one per state, more like one for every 10 states) classes on how to teach computer science. If you’re not happy with how computer science is now taught in high school, how will you feel about every science teacher (with little or no training) also teaching computer science?

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