Some principals are getting interested in CS, but think pressure for CS is mostly coming from Tech companies
May 28, 2018 at 7:00 am 3 comments
How do high school principals in small, medium and large districts view the Computer Science for All movement?
High school leaders in smaller districts are most enthusiastic about the trend, a new survey by the Education Week Research Center found. Overall, 30% of all principals say CS is not “on their radar,” and 32% say CS is an “occasional supplement or enrichment opportunity.” I found the two graphs above interesting. The majority of principals aren’t particularly excited by CS, and most principals think that it’s the Tech firms that are pushing CS onto schools, not parents.
Source: Principals Warm Up to Computer Science, Despite Obstacles
Entry filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: #CS4All, computing for all, computing for everyone, public policy.
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Computing Ed Research - Guzdial's Take 
1.
alanone1 | May 28, 2018 at 7:18 am
Principals seem to be having more and more blindness with motivations that might have something to do with “actual education”.
2.
Alfred Thompson | May 28, 2018 at 3:26 pm
The private school where I teach invested big in CS education over 20 years ago. It was driven by parents. Yes, many of them did (and many of our parents still do today) but it was parental demand and a desire to meet their expectations. We moved to increase the CS graduation requirement a couple of years ago to further add a positive differentiator compared to public schools. My observation, without solid data, suggests that private schools are generally more responsive to parental desires than public comprehensive schools.
Magnet, charter, and career technical schools also seem to be more interested in growing CS programs. Again, needing to attract students seems to be a motivation.
3.
Mike Zamansky | May 28, 2018 at 4:09 pm
To Alfred’s point, magnets, charters, and CTE schools don’t face the same testing pressures as regular public schools. Magnets have higher performing kids, Charters have all sorts of ways to avoid testing accountability (See Gary Rubinstein’s latest blog post on Success Academy for instance) and CTE schools might have different graduation requirements.
If you’re the principal of a struggling school and under extreme pressure to have your kids pass standardized high stakes tests or face closure, you put your energy into the test subjects. This is what makes Bootstrap an attractive option.