Dive Brief:
- At the Internet of Things World Forum last week, Mayor Rahm Emanuel discussed the city's five-year computer science plan that aims to get high schoolers coding.
- The plan, announced last December, calls for a foundational computer science course to be a prerequisite for graduation within three years and for at least 50% of the city's high schools to offer AP computer science in five years.
- Code.org says Chicago's computer science integration plan is the most comprehensive out of the 25 states that allow advanced computer science courses to count for math or science credits
Dive Insight:
In addition to focusing on high schoolers, the city has partnered with Code.org to bring computer science basics to 25 elementary school classrooms. Instilling coding basics in youngsters will perhaps become even more common now that apps like ScratchJr. — a free app that teaches basic coding skills to students as young as five — exist.
The reason coding is becoming such a hot skill is because computer science is a high-paying field with many openings. According to CNN Wire, only 2.4% of college graduates earn a degree in a computer science-related field. Even more specifically, there's a gap between white students with these skills and black and Hispanic students. Code.org reports that of the 3.5 million students who took the AP Computer Science exam in 2012, only 3,000 were black or Hispanic.