A new coalition, the Computer Science Education Coalition, whose mission is to focuses on securing federal funds to provide computer science education to all K-12 students, launches today.
President Obama used his weekly radio address today to announce a new Computer Science Education initiative that would allow states to take the lead in increasing access to CS in K-12 classrooms. The initiative, which will be included in the President’s FY 2017 Budget Request to Congress on February 9th, will designate $4 billion for states available over 3 years, and $100 million directly for districts, to increase access to K-12 computer science education “by training teachers, expanding access to high-quality instructional materials, and building effective regional partnerships.” He will also direct NSF to spend more than $120 million over the next five years to support and train CS teachers.
A new initiative for crafting a framework for K-12 computer science education was announced today. Lead by the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and Code.org, the plan is to answer a simple, yet highly complex, question: “What is the appropriate scope and sequence for CS instruction to guide high-quality computer science?”
Congress has a well-earned reputation for doing little-to-nothing, legislatively speaking. When the newly installed Republican Congress promised to move on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), a bill that had not been reauthorized since No Child Left Behind was pasted into law in 2001, and had expired eight years ago, most people thought it would go nowhere. Over the last year Congress has proved the naysayers wrong.
On Oct 20th 2015 the House STEM Education Caucus is sponsoring a briefing for Congressional staff titled, “Building a STEM Education Pipeline Aligned with Industry Needs: Perspectives from the Field.” The briefing is being moderated by the Council on Undergraduate Research and is partnering with CRA, ASME, and the ACM.
With their wildly successful 2013 drive under their belt, Code.org is ready to reach even more students with their 2014 Hour of Code (HOC) campaign. This year’s HOC, featuring Anna and Elsa from Disney’s Frozen, will be a one-hour activity where students, “will learn to write code to help Anna and Elsa create snowflakes and […]
If your Facebook and Twitter feeds are anything like mine, you’re no doubt already aware of the rather unfortunate August 27th column in the Washington Post penned by small-business owner Casey Ark headlined “I studied computer science, not English. I still can’t find a job.” In it, Ark laments that the degree he received at […]
The STEM Ed bill that would explicitly include CS in the definition of STEM will be on the House floor today on the “suspension” calendar, a status that allows the House to consider it in somewhat expedited fashion. This is reserved for non-controversial bills and limits debate on the bill to 40 minutes, doesn’t allow […]
Today the chairman of the House Science Committee introduced H.R. 5031, the “STEM Education Act of 2014’”, to promote STEM education at NSF. The computer science community is a direct beneficiary: the first item in the bill would require federal agencies to include computer science in their definition of STEM. You’ll recall Science Committee Chair […]
