Assemblymember Chau hosted roundtable focused on K-12 student access to computer science education
Assemblymember Chau hosted roundtable focused on K-12 student access to computer science education
On Friday, January 23rd, Assemblymember Ed Chau (D-Monterey Park) held a roundtable discussion at La Rosa Elementary School in Temple City to discuss the integration of computer science curriculum in K-12 classrooms throughout California.
“Computer science and the computational thinking involved with it has become the critical literacy of the 21st century, both enabling innovation and stifling possibilities for those who are not fluent in its discourse,” said Assemblymember Chau. “As we move towards a technology intensive world, it is essential for all students to excel in and have a deeper understanding of the fundamentals of computer science and its connection to innovation and the development of technology.”
This past December, millions of students worldwide participated in The Hour of Code campaign led by Code.org as part of Computer Science Education Week. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that by 2020 there will be 4.6 million jobs in computing or information technology, which is more than all other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields combined. When we look at the number of students who recently took the Advanced Placement Computer Science exam in California there is cause for concern. In 2013, only 4,964 students took the exam of which 74 were African-American, 392 were Hispanic, and 1,074 were females.
“For the sake of our future work force, innovation and equality of opportunity, we as a state and as leaders in our various fields must do more to bring computer science into our schools,” concluded Assemblymember Chau.
Present at the roundtable were school board members, administrators, teachers, parents and students from throughout the 49th Assembly District. Prior to the roundtable discussion, there was a tour of the school site’s Google CS-First afterschool program that is operated by teachers and community volunteers and is designed to increase student access and exposure to computer science education.
