Rebooting Computing Education in Maryland High Schools

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY STEM education initiatives are a visible priority in Maryland. Governor Martin O'Malley has declared that " preparing our children for the knowledge-based economy is among our highest priorities as we seek to improve STEM training throughout the state. " Even with this level of commitment and effort, the supply of Maryland workers with the necessary computing skills is well below demand. By 2018, there will be an estimated 40,000 new computing-related jobs available in Maryland each year, yet only approximately 2,000 bachelor's degrees in computing and information systems are awarded by Maryland institutions annually. Efforts are needed to broaden the pipeline of students from all backgrounds who are ready to study computing beyond high school. Maryland's public education system has been ranked number one in the nation for the past three years. Maryland has consistently earned high grades for providing opportunities for success on Education Week's annual education report card and ranks first for the percentage of graduating seniors who have taken AP exams in math and science. Despite these accolades and sustained commitment to STEM education, there has been little focus on or progress in computer science education specifically. Maryland does not require computer science as a graduation requirement and teacher certification is not required for teachers of CS classes. As a result, the vast majority of students leave high school without exposure to computational thinking skills, programming knowledge, or information about career opportunities in computer science and IT fields. Tremendous variability exists among school systems and among high schools within systems in terms of the opportunities available to students to study computer science. Maryland public school system enrollments are diverse, yet women, African Americans, and Latinos are still underrepresented in undergraduate computing programs in Maryland, reflecting national statistics. It is no surprise, then, that even the most successful high school graduates arrive at college uninterested in and unprepared to study computer science. With funding from NSF's Computing Education for the 21 st Century (CE21) Program, the CE21Maryland research team seeks to directly address this problem. The project is focused on two main activities: (1) gathering data about the status of CS education in Maryland high schools and (2) building relationships among high school teachers, community college and university faculty, and state education administrators to facilitate and increase state-level support for lasting improvements to computing education. 1 Some material in this report has been adapted from a …