On July 15th, the Senate Committee on Education unanimously approved AB 1258, authored by Assemblymember Ed Chau (D-Monterey Park), which would establish a public-private partnership grant pilot program to support innovative ways of introducing and engaging students from historically underrepresented groups to computer science.

“While computers and information technology are projected to produce over four million jobs by the year 2020, our state’s high school students are not all taking the time to study computer science, likely due to a lack of exposure to the field of study,” said Assemblymember Chau. “As the world continues to move towards a technology intensive society, we as state leaders must do more to bring early exposure of computer science to all California students.”

California is moving towards integrating computer science into all K-12 classrooms, as evidenced by the numerous bills signed into law in 2013-2014.  When we look at the number of students that took the Advanced Placement Computer Science exam in California in 2013, out of the 4,964 students, 74 were African-American, 392 were Hispanic, and 1,074 were females.  Consequently, there is a need to incentivize school districts to support innovative ways of introducing computer science into the classroom, and to offer professional development to their teachers on this emerging subject matter.

Specifically, this bill would establish the Computer Science Education Grant Pilot Program under the administration of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. Under the program, eligible local educational agencies, as defined, could apply to receive grants, not to exceed 2 years, to establish and maintain computer science courses in underserved areas and among pupils from groups historically underrepresented in the field of computer science, and to provide professional development for teachers to teach computer science, either as a stand-alone course or as integrated into other courses.

Assemblymember Ed Chau represents the 49th Assembly District, comprised of the cities of Alhambra, Arcadia, El Monte, Monterey Park, Rosemead, San Gabriel, San Marino, Temple City and portions of Montebello, and South El Monte.