De Blasio: Computer Science to All Students

Mayor Bill de Blasio recently announced that within 10 years all of the city’s public schools will be required to offer computer science to all students. The major challenge of this announcement is training enough teachers and training them well enough to provide a good introduction to the subject. While computer science will not be a requirement for graduation, the goal is to offer it as an elective in order to give students of all ages, from elementary school through high school, and from all backgrounds, even poorer neighborhoods, the exposure to computer science. Chicago and San Francisco have both made similar committments recently, with their initiatives being backed by companies like Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Salesforce. As technology jobs are steadily growing, many are acknowledging that students need to better prepared for these types of jobs. The opportunity for all students to be exposed to computer science may also help in addressing the equity and diversity issues within the field. The city estimates they will have to train around 5,000 teachers to meet their pledge of providing computer science at every level of schooling. The difficulty lies in the fact that if a person is well trained in computer science, they can be making more money in the industry than in teaching it in the school systems. Still, the hope is to qualify teachers and get students more excited about the subject. To learn more about the initiative, visit here.