Lack of funding leads to lack of teachers leads to lack of CS classes: We may need to change our strategy

Pat Yongpradit of Code.org linked to this article on Facebook. Cambridge MA schools are turning away CS students because of a lack of teachers.

Eight folks gave urgent pitches for at least one more computer teacher at Cambridge Ridge and Latin School. Teacher Liz Atwood, who said she was “disappointed to hear that our request for another hire was denied,” declared that demand was so high for computer science classes that, based on registration requests for next year from current ninth- through-11th graders, without a new teacher, “we will be turning away six classes of students.”

Atwood, two parents and two current students stressed the importance of access to the classes, and several others appearing for other reasons echoed support after hearing their pleas. “Over 50 percent of students signing up for Level 2 [computer science] courses next year identify as African Americans,” Atwood said, speaking before eighth-graders had registered. “These are high-paying jobs. [State curriculum standards] are moving toward making computer science a graduation requirement. This seems like a step in the wrong direction” to reject a new hire, she said.

From “Shortages in computer education stand out in a swift process for $191.1M school budget” in Cambridge Day

I see this as evidence in support of my previous post that states are making a mistake by requiring CS without funding it.  I don’t think Cambridge schools are requiring CS, but they’re allowing students to sign up for it without the funding and teachers to support those classes.

There are multiple ways to fix this problem.

• Obviously, we could fund CS classes, but that might mean stealing funding from other important areas that are underfunded.
• We could increase supply of CS teachers.  If all teachers were taught CS (as part of all undergraduates being taught CS), we would dramatically increase the supply of teachers who could teach CS. Schools wouldn’t have to hire an extra, specialty teacher.  We would also have more teachers who would have the background to integrate computing into their classes.
• We could (as Emmanuel Schanzer of Bootstrap pointed out in response to Pat) integrate CS into an existing, funded class.

We may not be able to achieve CS for All with CS-specific classes. They’re just too expensive.