An Open Dialogue Concerning the State

of Education Policy in Computer Science

Robert Schnabel (moderator) Duncan Buell Joanna Goode
School of Informatics Dept. of Computer Science Dept. of Teacher Education
Indiana University & Engineering University of Oregon
Bloomington, IN 47401 University of South Carolina Eugene, OR 97403
schnabel@indiana.edu Columbia, SC 29208 goodej@uoregon.edu
buell@engr.sc.edu

J. Strother Moore Chris Stephenson

Department of Computer Sciences 1303 Hammock Street
The University of Texas at Austin Eugene, OR 97401
Austin, TX 78712 cstephenson@csta.acm.org
moore@cs.utexas.edu

SUMMARY education have also yet to recognize a nationally based

The ACM Education Policy Committee is a newly formed
committee of ACM charged with focusing on public policy issues
in science and math education relevant to computing and
computer science. The purpose of the Committee is to develop
policy positions and educate policy makers – with the goal of
improving the opportunities for quality education in computing
and computer science. The Education Policy Committee is a
committee of the ACM Executive Committee and is empowered
to speak on behalf of ACM on education policy.
curriculum for K-12 computer science education and have failed
to establish teacher certification requirements that would ensure
that teachers are adequately prepared to teach computer science
courses. Despite CSTA’s efforts to reach out to policy makers at
state and national levels with documents such as the ACM Model
Curriculum for K-12 Computer Science and The New Educational
Imperative report [1, 2], educational decision makers are still
woefully unprepared to establish and enforce adequate and
effective policies relating to computer science education.

From its charter, the Education Policy Committee will:
• review issues impacting science and math education systems
focusing on those issues that are relevant to computing
and computer science
• review current polices to determine whether they adequately
serve the computing field, and make recommendations on
how they could be improved
• review and comment on proposals before national
governments that impact these issues
• provide expert testimony and perspective to policymakers on
the key issues
• integrate positions as part of ACM’s overall agenda
With the legislative focus on STEM at the federal level, the
absence of computer science from the acronym is echoed in the
omission of the computing discipline from proposals funded.
Thus, one focus of this Committee is to determine how to put the
C in STEM at the federal level. State departments of
This panel seeks to both inform the SIGCSE community of the
goals and workings of the ACM Education Policy Committee and
to build a stronger advocacy presence for computer science
education. We also seek to solicit feedback from this community
on ways to more effectively impact education policy at the federal
and state level as it relates to computer science education and how
we can bring computer science to the policy table.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
K.3.2 [Computers and Education]: Computer and Information
Science Education
General Terms
Design, Standardization, Legal Aspects
Keywords
Education policy, Teacher certification, STEM, K-12 curriculum
Robert Schnabel
I am the Chair of the Education Policy Committee and my role is
to introduce the panelists and moderate the discussion.

Copyright is held by the author/owner(s).

SIGCSEí08, March 12ñ15, 2008, Portland, Oregon, USA.
ACM 978-1-59593-947-0/08/0003.

114
Duncan Buell
“Computer science” in the schools in South Carolina is in trouble,
and we suspect that the situation in South Carolina is probably not
much different from that in other states as well. AP computer
science is taught by mathematics teachers. Other “programming”
classes are taught by business teachers. Yet a third set of
“information technology” courses are taught, and there appear to
be three distinct “computer literacy” courses. The state’s
“computer science, including keyboarding” requirement (quoted
here as it appears in the state law), is widely interpreted to be
“computer literacy”, and so any course that uses a software
package, such as Agriculture Production and Management, can
count as satisfying the computer science requirement.
We maintain that it is absolutely necessary is to get “computing”
or “computer science” identifiable as a definable and concrete
“thing” in the schools, not just something that is connected to
science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and business, but
otherwise without its own identity. Until it has its own identity, it
probably will have few champions, and without champions, the
message is likely to be misinformed and diluted. Rather than
focus on mathematics and its computational support, or business
and its computational support, we need to focus the attention of
students, parents, and teachers on computing first and then on its
many application areas.
Joanna Goode
The state of K-12 computer science education in urban schools is
dismal. The difficulties in teaching computer science are
exacerbated in urban communities - inner-city schools typically
have less qualified computer science teachers, fewer curricular
resources, and inadequate institutional support in offering courses
for students. As a result, many low-income students and students
of color are not given the opportunity to learn about computer
science.
In Los Angeles Unified School District, an alliance of educational
researchers, university computer scientists, and district curriculum
officials created a set of outreach efforts aimed at increasing the
quality of computer science education. The pragmatic approach
adopted by this alliance involves extensive teacher professional
development opportunities, outreach programs for students,
district adoption of curricular materials, and informational
meetings for school administrators to learn more about computer
science education. Yet, the practical approach is also political.
For example, in order to gain the institutional support of the
district and schools, AP Computer Science was adopted as the
organizing curriculum, despite the problematic programming-
focus of the College Board's curricular topics. Still, the collection
of these efforts led to a dramatically significant increase of
females, students of color, and total students studying computer
science in Los Angeles. The lessons learned of this intervention
can deepen educators' and computer scientists' understandings of
critical issues in K-12 computer science education.
J Strother Moore
We all agree that CS is a STEM discipline: S stands for Science,
in CS and in STEM. But we are in the minority! Many policy
makers, educators, and parents simply do not think of CS as a
science. Many confuse CS and IT and think that computing
education is advanced by putting computers in class rooms. In
115
my state, Texas, CS is largely considered a vocational track. Both
Science and Math in K-12 follow fairly rigid curricular chains.
So we have two problems: to try to get policymakers to include
CS explicitly in STEM legislation and to find a natural home in
the K-12 systems of schools across the country. A key part to
both of these struggles is to educate people as to the science in
computer science: algorithms, representation, abstraction,
decomposition, symbolism, universality, complexity,
undecidability, etc. I do not see this just as an advertising
campaign, but as a gradual cultural shift effected largely by our
personal portrayal of our subject to the students we teach.
Chris Stephenson
Despite the growing recognition of the link between national
long-term economic viability and a healthy computer science
pipeline, there is a persistent knowledge and leadership gap at the
state level that is having a profound impact on education. In
departments of education across the country, decisions are being
made and policies enacted that directly impact computer science
education both at the K-12 and post-secondary levels.
Unfortunately, these decisions are often being made by people
with no understanding of computer science as an academic
discipline or career path. The trend of increasing the number of
core courses that students must take in order to graduate, for
example, has significantly reduced students' ability to study non-
core subjects such as computer science. As a result, the pipeline
of students continues to narrow and enrollment in college
computer science programs continues to drop. Efforts to address
such issue are complicated by the fact that the decision makers
have no idea that there actually is a difference between teaching
keyboarding, or using simulations in social science class, and
teaching and learning computer science.
ACM's EPC provides a timely and desperately needed
opportunity to bring together educators from all levels to address
the knowledge and leadership gaps that are negatively impacting
our discipline. CSTA brings to this committee a wealth of
knowledge about the classroom and political realities that impact
the pipeline at its source. We also bring a commitment to helping
address the knowledge and leadership gaps, particularly at the
state level. Through the development and dissemination of
materials to policy and decision makers, and a new commitment
to providing the tools and training that teachers need to advocate
on behalf of their students and our discipline, we intend to help
the EPC not only put the C in STEM, but to firmly establish
computer science as a 21st century skill.
REFERENCES
[1] Stephenson, C., Gal-Ezer, J., Haberman, B., and Verno, A.
The New Educational Imperative: Improving High School
Computer Science Education. Computer Science Teachers
Association (CSTA), New York, NY, February, 2005.
http://csta.acm.org/Publications/White_Paper07_06.pdf
[2] Tucker, Allen (editor), Deek, F., Jones, J., McCowan, D.,
Stephenson, C., and Verno, A. A Model Curriculum for K-12
Computer Science: Final Report of the ACM K-12 Task
Force Curriculum Committee. Association for Computing
Machinery (ACM), New York, NY, October, 2003.
http://csta.acm.org/Curriculum/sub/K-
12ModelCurr2ndEd.pdf