NYTimes: Tech’s Diversity Problem Is Apparent as Early as High School – interview with Barbara Ericson
February 7, 2014 at 1:47 am 2 comments
On the ongoing thread of media coverage over Barbara’s analysis of AP CS 2013 exam results, this is a standout. The NYTimes had a blog post interviewing Barb, and they did a nice job. They highlighted not just the outliers (like Wyoming with no test-takers) but the interesting trends (there used to be a good number of AP CS exam takers in Wyoming).
Even in California, where it would seem that more children would be exposed to adults working in computer science, just 22 percent of test takers were girls, 1.5 percent were black and 8 percent were Hispanic.
The A.P. data also shows how the situation in computer science has worsened over time. In Wyoming, for instance, no high school student of any race or gender took the test, while 35 students took the test there in 2001.
via Tech’s Diversity Problem Is Apparent as Early as High School – NYTimes.com.
Entry filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: APCS, computing education research, public policy.
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Computing Ed Research - Guzdial's Take 
1.
Will Regress | February 9, 2014 at 12:35 pm
Easy problem to solve, just lower expectations, hold back Whites and Asians, and thus create equality and social justice.
2.
Mark Guzdial | February 9, 2014 at 5:22 pm
Perhaps surprisingly, no one is suggesting that. We are suggesting that all high school students get access to a computer science teacher. Equal access is just.