Computer science education needs to expand
Emerging Nashville columnist Jamie McGee delves into why coding is important for local students.
Last spring, 271 Tennessee students took the Advanced Placement test in computer science, a fraction of the state's high school population and of its AP test takers.
Of those 271 students, very few were minorities: 8 percent were African-American, 4 percent were Hispanic and 14 percent were female.
In 2017, 168 students from Nashville’s RePublic High School are expected to take the exam. More than 90 percent are expected to be students of color and more than half are expected to be female, which puts each of those data points on a steep upward trajectory.
If the current freshman class continues in this field, they will encounter an average starting salary of $61,000 and median income levels exceeding $90,000, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In a school where more than 80 percent of students are eligible for free and reduced lunch, those estimates represent meaningful economic opportunities that are offered to a small slice of Nashville students.
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These students will not only have the skills to solve problems for existing companies, but they can follow the ranks of other software developers and create their own products, build their own businesses or solve a problem of their own choosing.
“Our ambitions for our kids is that they will not just be employees, we want them to be employers,” said Ravi Gupta, who leads RePublic High School and three other local charter schools that teach computer science to every student.
In Middle Tennessee alone, the need for computer science skills is significant. In 2014 there were more than 1,500 tech-related job openings and 280 openings posted each month in software development.
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But nationally only 10 percent of schools teach computer science, and only 27 states allow the course to count for graduation credits, according to Code.org. In Nashville, Hunters Lane, Overton, Stratford and Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet high schools and the four RePublic Schools offer computer programming courses, just scratching the surface among local schools. MLK and RePublic High teach computer science at the AP level.
“There is a huge disconnect between what kids are traditionally learning in school and what the real world is demanding of them and what would actually make them as successful as possible,” Gupta said.
Some other numbers of note: Among U.S. software developers and computer programmers, close to 5 percent are Hispanic, another 5 percent are African-American and about 20 percent are women, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. When the RePublic students created websites on leaders in computer science, their role models were Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Ada Lovelace and Alan Turing.
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While not all the students at RePublic will continue in the field, at least a few of the freshman students see their future in it.
“This is what I want to do when I grow up,” said Kofi Patterson, 14. “I want to start my business doing computer programming.”
Part of the curriculum being built at RePublic is based off a program created at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Through backing from Austin, Texas-based KLE Foundation, the RePublic curriculum is being shared with teachers in other schools, including seven in Texas. As the high school builds its AP curriculum to prepare for a new test used in 2017, it will be available to other interested schools, said RePublic's Chief Information Officer Ryan York.
“Our kids shouldn’t be the only ones benefiting from it,” said Delaine Wendling, who teaches computer science at RePublic High.
The RePublic model is only one strategy for introducing computer science skills and may not fit every school. Similarly, not every child will want to become a software developer or computer science major. But given the career potential in so many fields, more Nashville schools should be finding ways to offer it as a course option.
Reach Jamie McGee at 615-259-8071 and on Twitter @JamieMcGee_.
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Average starting salaries by college major expected in 2015:
Computer science: $61,287
Math and sciences: $56,171
Agriculture and natural resources: $51,220
Health Care: $50,839
Source: National Association of Colleges and Employers January 2015 Salary Survey report
Computer and information research scientists: $102,190
Computer network architects: $91,000
Computer programmers: $74,280
Software developers: $93,350
Web developers: $62,500
Source: 2012 Bureau of Labor and Statistics
Tennessee AP Computer Science demographics:
Total test takers: 271
Asian-American, or Pacific Islander: 43
Average number of test takers on an AP exam: 2,000