CS Education Act introduced into Congress
September 23, 2011 at 8:58 am 8 comments
Exciting to hear that CS education is getting this kind of attention. I’d love to actually see what’s in the bill. Anybody know how to find the text?
To reverse these troubling trends and prepare Americans for jobs in this high-wage, high-growth field, the Computer Science Education Act will:
- Ensure computer science offerings are an integral part of the curriculum;
- Develop state computer science standards, curriculum, and assessments;
- Improve access to underserved populations;
- Create professional development and teacher certification initiatives, including computer science teacher preparation programs in higher education;
- Form a commission on computer science education to bring states together to address the computer science teacher certification crisis; and,
- Establish an independent, rigorous evaluation of state efforts with reporting back to Congress and the administration.
via Robert P. Casey Jr. | United States Senator for Pennsylvania: Newsroom – Press Releases.
Entry filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: computing education, K-12, public policy.
Computing Ed Research - Guzdial's Take 
1.
Alfred Thompson | September 23, 2011 at 9:38 am
It doesn’t look like it has been assigned a bill number yet. One can search the Library of Congress database at http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.php and I looked up by sponsor and didn’t find this bill this morning.
2.
Baker Franke | September 23, 2011 at 10:28 am
It was introduced by Jared Polis (D Colorado) in the House last year.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-5929
I guess they got Robert Casey to introduce it in the Senate.
3.
Mark Guzdial | September 23, 2011 at 11:00 am
Found the new one: http://polis.house.gov/UploadedFiles/Bill_Text_-_Computer_Science_Education_Act.pdf
4.
gasstationwithoutpumps | September 23, 2011 at 3:22 pm
http://tinyurl.com/3ndqwyp
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-5929
Full text at
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-5929
5.
Gilbert Bernstein | September 23, 2011 at 7:12 pm
Does this give anyone else a really icky feeling? My knee-jerk response is to expect this kind of top-down approach to create more problems than it solves.
6.
Alfred Thompson | September 23, 2011 at 10:33 pm
My reading of the bill is that it offers incentives (grants) and doesn’t force anything to happen. I’m more comfortable with that than forcing things to happen.
7.
Gilbert Bernstein | September 24, 2011 at 2:49 am
Ahh, thanks Alfred. That makes more sense. I guess the idea is that it establishes guidelines and funding for a grant program. Then the states still need to apply for grants which are contingent on meeting basic standards.
8. CS Education Act introduced into Congress « Thinking Outlet | September 24, 2011 at 8:35 am
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