Obama launches $4bn computer science initiative

Last week President Barack Obama announced a new $4bn plan to ensure that all American children have access to computer science from 2017. “The three-year initiative, called "Computer Science for All," would provide states with money to train teachers, equip classrooms and develop new classroom materials,” according to CNET. President Obama cites the facts that computer science is not only a necessary skill in today’s workforce, it’s also a skill that parents are calling for in their schools…” And yet right now, only a quarter of kindergarten through 12th grade schools offer computer science, 22 states don't even allow it to count toward a diploma,” Obama said, according to the report.

“In the coming years, we should build on that progress, by … offering every student the hands-on computer science and math classes that make them job-ready on day one.”

—President Obama, 2016 State of the Union Address

Today, President Obama is unveiling his plan to give all students across the country the chance to learn computer science (CS) in school. We’ve made real progress in education -- over the past seven years, 49 States and Washington, D.C. have raised expectations by adopting higher standards to prepare all students for success in college and careers.

It is now time to take the next step forward. Our economy is rapidly shifting, and educators and business leaders are increasingly recognizing that CS is a “new basic” skill necessary for economic opportunity and social mobility. By some estimates, just one quarter of all the K-12 schools in the United States offer CS with programming and coding, and only 28 states allow CS courses to count towards high-school graduation, even as other advanced economies are making CS available for all of their students.

Fortunately, there is a growing movement being led by parents, teachers, states, districts, and the private sector to expand CS education. The President’s Computer Science for All Initiative builds on these efforts by:

Providing $4 billion in funding for states, and $100 million directly for districts in his forthcoming Budget to increase access to K-12 CS by training teachers, expanding access to high-quality instructional materials, and building effective regional partnerships. The funding will allow more states and districts to offer hands-on CS courses across all of their public high schools, get students involved early by creating high-quality CS learning opportunities in elementary and middle schools, expand overall access to rigorous science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) coursework, and ensure all students have the chance to participate, including girls and underrepresented minorities.

Starting the effort this year, with more than $135 million in investments by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) to support and train CS teachers, who are the most critical ingredient to offering CS education in schools. The agencies will make these investments over five years using existing funds.

Calling on even more Governors, Mayors, education leaders, CEOs, philanthropists, creative media and technology professionals, and others to get involved. Today, Delaware, Hawaii and more than 30 school districts are committing to expand CS opportunities; Cartoon Network, Google and Salesforce.org are announcing more than $60 million in new philanthropic investments, and Microsoft is announcing a fifty-state campaign to expand CS; and Code.org is announcing plans to offer CS training to an additional 25,000 teachers this year. Read more about the more than 50 organizations responding to the President’s call to action HERE.

THE NEED FOR CS FOR ALL

Building on the progress made by states in raising standards to help students graduate from high school ready for college and career, President Obama signed the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in December 2015. This law cements this progress by requiring that all students in America be taught to high academic standards that will prepare them to succeed in careers and in college.

Furthermore, more than nine out of ten parents surveyed last year say they want CS taught at their child’s school. They understand that today’s elementary, middle and high school students are tomorrow’s engineers, entrepreneurs, and leaders who must be equipped with strong computational thinking skills and the ability to solve complex problems.

The Challenge

Access to CS education is limited and wide disparities exist even for those who do have access to these courses. For example, in the fewer than 15 percent of all high schools that offered any Advanced Placement (AP) CS courses in 2015, only 22 percent of those who took the exam were girls, and only 13 percent were African-American or Latino students. Media portrayals and widely-held stereotypes exacerbate this dynamic, with far more men than women depicted in technology roles in film and television roles. As highlighted in the first-ever White House Demo Day, these disparities in who gets included, and who feels included, are one reason why women compose less than one-third of the technical employees, and African-Americans less than three percent, at some of America’s largest and most innovative technology companies.

The Opportunity

Providing access to CS is a critical step for ensuring that our nation remains competitive in the global economy and strengthens its cybersecurity. Last year, there were over 600,000 tech jobs open across the United States, and by 2018, 51 percent of all STEM jobs are projected to be in CS-related fields. The Federal government alone needs an additional 10,000 IT and cybersecurity professionals, and the private sector needs many more. CS is not only important for the tech sector, but also for a growing number of industries, including transportation, healthcare, education, and financial services, that are using software to transform their products and services. In fact, more than two-thirds of all tech jobs are outside the tech sector.

CS is also an active and applied field of STEM learning that allows students to engage in hands-on, real-world interaction with key math, science, and engineering principles. It gives students opportunities to be producers, not just consumers, in the digital economy, and to be active citizens in our technology-driven world. CS can also help foster computational thinking skills that are relevant to many disciplines and careers, such as breaking a large problem into smaller ones, recognizing how new problems relate to ones that have already been solved, setting aside details of a problem that are less important, and identifying and refining the steps needed to reach a solution. CS also complements the President’s Nation of Makers initiative, which focuses on the growing democratization of the hardware and software tools needed to design and make just about anything.

THE PRESIDENT’S PLAN TO EXPAND CS FOR ALL

Over the past seven years, President Obama has led an ambitious effort to expand science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) opportunities for American students. From starting the tradition of the White House Science Fair to launching the “Educate to Innovate” initiative, the President’s efforts are helping more than 50,000 new STEM teachers get trained, have catalyzed more than $1 billion of private-sector investment for STEM education, and have expanded opportunities for students who are traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields.

In 2014, President Obama became the first President to write a line of code, and issued a broad call to action to expand CS across the nation’s classrooms. In just the past three years, 17 states have allowed CS to count towards graduation requirements, and growing list of states like Arkansas and Washington are creating high-quality CS learning opportunities in elementary and middle school, and providing greater access to CS courses in high school. Under the President’s TechHire and ConnectED initiatives, more than 500 employers have partnered with 35 cities, states, and rural areas to expand access to tech jobs, and the connectivity divide in schools has been cut by about half since 2013. Major school systems such as New York City, Chicago and San Francisco have announced plans to offer CS to every student throughout elementary, middle and high school, with strong support from business leaders, philanthropists, and non-profits. In addition, the President signed the bipartisan ESSA law in December 2015, which expands the opportunities that states and districts have to offer CS and other rigorous STEM coursework.

Historic Investment to Empower States and Districts

The President’s Computer Science for All plan builds on the momentum at the state and local level. The President’s upcoming budget will include $4 billion in funding at the Department of Education, available over three years, for states to increase access to CS in P-12 classrooms. Under the program, states would submit comprehensive five-year “Computer Science for All” plans, and every state with a well-designed strategy would receive funds. In addition to state-level grants, the budget will also dedicate $100 million in competitive grants specifically for leading districts to execute ambitious CS expansion efforts for all students, including traditionally underrepresented students, and serve as models for national replication.

The funds would give states and districts the resources to train both existing and new teachers to teach CS, build effective regional collaborations, and expand access to high-quality learning materials and online learning options. States and districts could use these funds to provide access to CS courses to every high school student within five years, create a progression of CS learning experiences in elementary and middle schools, and ensure additional support and resources for students traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields.

Participating states and districts would also be encouraged to create plans for expanding overall access to rigorous STEM classes, utilizing CS as a catalyst for increased interest in STEM more broadly, and reducing course equity gaps for all students, including underrepresented groups such as minorities, girls, and youth from low-income families. For high school students, this could include expanded access to AP, International Baccalaureate, dual-enrollment, and other rigorous coursework that lead to college and career readiness, and to earn college credit while in high school. For students in the early grades through middle school, these plans could support implementation of high-quality curriculum, instruction, and learning opportunities that promote computational thinking and that lay the groundwork for CS and STEM coursework in high school.

States and districts would also be encouraged to build robust regional collaborations, such as with industry, non-profits, and out-of-school providers, as well as securing potential financial and in-kind support from private partners.

Action by Federal Agencies Starting This Year

The Administration is also announcing Federal actions to expand CS in K-12 education starting this year. These include actions by the Department of Education (ED), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the Department of Defense (DoD) and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), within the Department of Commerce.