US Dept of Ed says CS is part of STEM
March 21, 2010 at 7:57 pm 3 comments
A note follows from Susan Rodger to ACM SIGCSE members, from her position on the ACM Education Policy Committee. This is great news! Cameron Wilson showed us this at the ACM Education Council meeting last weekend — the quoted statement showed up in the Federal Register, so it’s citable:
As a member of the ACM Education Policy Committee I wanted to make SIGCSE members aware of two important items.
1) First, the Department of Education has recognized computer science as a
science part of STEM. This is important for applying for funds related to
STEM.“Consistent with the Race to the Top Fund program, the Department interprets
the core academic subject of science under section 9101(11) to include
STEM education (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) which
encompasses a wide-range of disciplines, including computer science.”2) The Department of Education has two funds to apply for:
a) Invest in Innovation Fund (I3)
You can apply for these funds. A letter of intent is due April 1.b) Race to the Top
Only states can apply for these funds, but you can contact your
state department of education and point out to them that computer
science is an eligible discipline and ask how computer science
education fits into your state’s plan.For more details, please see this memorandum from ACM:
http://www.cs.duke.edu/csed/acmpolicy/RTTT_i3_Funding_Memo_v2.pdf
Susan===========================================================================
Susan Rodger, Professor of the Practice
Dept. of Computer Science, Box 90129
LSRC Room D237
Duke University, Durham, NC 27708-0129
Entry filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: image of computing, public policy.
Computing Ed Research - Guzdial's Take 
1.
Alan Kay | March 21, 2010 at 8:23 pm
This brought up a question that I’ve had for a while but haven’t been able to check out.
I wonder if a high school student can get through high school without actually taking a “real science” course. In other words is there now such a variety of options “which count as science” but don’t actually teach science?
For example, “computer science” as it is now thought of and taught is not remotely a “real science” course.
Cheers,
Alan
2.
What are we? Chopped liver? CS left out of National Academy STEM standards « Computing Education Blog | July 13, 2010 at 7:10 pm
[…] are sought. I think we should ask them how they screwed up so badly as to leave out an entire discipline of science and technology. A panel of the U.S. National Academies today released its initial description of what U.S. […]
3.
Computer Science needs Education Schools. Desperately. « Computing Education Blog | October 13, 2010 at 11:03 am
[…] government is finally making clear that Computer Science has always been part of STEM — the Department of Education is saying it, DARPA is saying it, and the White House is saying it. The current administration is […]