The biggest year yet for computer science education

For this back-to-school season, Code.org is announcing a big milestone: a total of 43,700 teachers have gone through Code.org’s professional learning programs to begin teaching computer science to over one million students. While most of these are elementary school teachers, nearly 2,000 are high school teachers who are now teaching a full-year computer science course in schools that previously offered no access to the subject.

Even though computing is the largest category of all new wages in the US, and students rate computer science among the classes they like the most, still most schools—especially schools with large black and Hispanic student populations—don’t teach this subject. We’re at the forefront of a teacher-led movement that’s fixing this problem and bringing access and opportunity to students nationwide.

The new AP Computer Science Principles

500 teachers attended our TeacherCon conferences this summer to begin teaching our new AP Computer Science Principles course this fall. This is an Advanced Placement (AP?) course designed in partnership with the College Board and the National Science Foundation with a goal of broadening participation and diversity in computer science.

We expect over 12,000 students enrolled in our CS Principles course during the 2016-17 school year. Because these classes are being offered within urban school districts in places like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, or Oakland, over 50% of the students are traditionally underrepresented minorities—resulting in record diversity for this subject. Teachers offering this course to urban students are changing the face of computer science.

Our CS Principles curriculum has been designed to support students and teachers new to the discipline. The course teaches basic coding that students can use to make simple apps. But beyond coding, it also teaches other foundational topics like how the internet works, data analysis, and cyber security, connecting computer science principles to familiar, real-world examples.

CS Principles features many modern, easy-to-use learning tools (like App Lab, which lets students bring their ideas to life as quickly as possible with code) as well as tutorial videos featuring many top inventors of today’s technology.

Here are a few of our favorite pieces of feedback regarding CS Principles so far:

“I started as one of the teachers who knew the least about CS. I never taught it or learned it myself. But the support I got from all over, and the ease of the curriculum, made me more engaged. Now I am equipped to start teaching it.” - Casey Bethel, High School Teacher

“We need more of this. Education needs more of this. ‘This is crazy fun, Mr Feller. I’m pretty much going to tell all of my friends to take this class.’ That’s from one of my AP CS Principles students.” - Mr. Feller, High School Teacher

A global, teacher-led movement

Computer science is experiencing record growth in schools. The entire education community has rallied behind this new subject. In addition to the 43,000 teachers prepared by Code.org and its professional learning partners, dozens of other organizations have helped prepare thousands more new CS classrooms in schools or in after-school programs. And this change is not limited to the U.S.A.; it’s international.

Thanks to all of these organizations, thanks to our generous donors—such as Microsoft, Facebook, Infosys Foundation, Omidyar Network, and Google—and above all thanks to the passion of the hundreds of thousands of educators who have supported this movement, the 2016-17 school year will be the biggest year for computer science, ever.

Hadi Partovi, Code.org