Dive Brief:
- The White House has released a fact sheet with a number of new commitments aimed at bringing computer science education to K-12 classrooms.
- Among initiatives highlighted in the fact sheet: $20 million in funding given for teacher training in computer science, the development of a new AP Computer Science course focused on the creative side of computing, and efforts to increase minority participation in the subject.
- According to the fact sheet, the emphasis on computer science courses is critical, stating that by 2020, over 50% of STEM jobs will likely be in computer science-related fields and 1.4 million computer science-related jobs are expected to be available over the next 10 years.
Dive Insight:
The Fact Sheet comes a little over a month after Computer Science Education Week, when President Obama and numerous celebrities and big tech names released videos expressing support for the subject and the second-annual Hour of Code campaign.
In an October post, Washington Post columnist Valerie Strauss wrote that coding is something like "cursive 2.0" — a practice that will soon become compulsory in schools across the nation. There are currently 25 states that allow high school students to count computer science classes as math or science credits, and the motivation for coding classes only increases when considering the openings for plush jobs that require the skills, which many workers lack.