Computer Science added to US Dept of Ed Civil Rights Data Collection

From Ruthe Farmer in White House OSTP.  It’s great that we’re going to get more data about CS Education in the United States.  Should it be at the federal level, when decisions about K-12 in the US are at the state level?  I’d like to get data collected at a level that impacts decision-making. How do we get states to track CS education?  Will the federal government’s effort be a prompt to get the states to track who takes CS classes, where they’re offered, and where they’re not?

Computer science has been added to the proposed 2017-18 Dept of Ed Civil Rights Data Collection.  The proposed new collection instruments are open for public comment through 2/28/17.

You can view the documents here:
https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=ED-2016-ICCD-0147-0003
(you will find the proposed data collection instruments on pages 29-31 of the doc titled A-2_CRDC_Data_Groups_12_23_16)

You can add comments here:
https://www.regulations.gov/docket?D=ED-2016-ICCD-0147

Comments from the public are critical to inclusion of this new data request, as the overall push is to lessen the reporting load for schools.  However, we felt it was necessary to add computer science as a separately tracked subject to obtain a better picture of total enrollment nationally.

Please share this opportunity to comment with your networks.

Regards,

Ruthe A. Farmer  |  Senior Policy Advisor for Tech Inclusion
Office of Science & Technology Policy
Executive Office of the President