Thread by @SvetlikCS

A hypothesis on why #CSforAll remains so elusive in American K12 education (a thread):

“Career pathways” isn’t cutting it as rationale for broadening equitable participation in Comp Sci education across K12.

We need to reframe the need.

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#iledchat #edchat #edutwitter #twill

The impact of computing innovations on society, economy, and culture - particularly in just the past 25 years - is undeniably immense.

Not one school, district, state, tribal, territorial, or federal education administrator or policymaker will deny this.

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But, even as educational leaders can see as clearly as #remotelearning just how pervasively computing innovations now-constantly alter our day-day lives..

..we’re afraid, systemwide, to take on the question of whether to allow K12 kids to study that which impacts them, too. 3/

Another way to put this:

We’re afraid, systemwide, of enacting the kind of uncomfortable change to our K12 educational system that is required to make it truly “equitable”, even as #Diversity #Equity #inclusion have become chic (and lucrative) w/in #edreform and #edresearch.

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Meanwhile, though organizations such as @csteachersorg, @codeorg, @ECEP_CS, @NCWIT, @NSF, @TheOfficialACM, @CSforALL, and many, many others have effectively argued the value of K12 #CSforAll in democratizing the technologies that impact us..

..this message still gets lost.

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Instead, as this message carries down eventually into the hands of local education policymakers, somehow it seems to always take the back burner to the ostensibly “more impactful” case for increasing equitable access to computing “career pathways”..

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I’m going to contend that this is actually a case of intellectual laziness coming from most educational leaders:

“Follow the money” is an easy, borderline-cliché fallback in guiding many educational policies.

It will **always** fail in solitude as the case for #CSforAll.

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Because.. deep w/in the weeds of American federal education policy & funding, “Computer Science” doesn’t even exist as a standalone field of study.

The closest we come in American “Career and Technical Education” is “Information Technology”.

But “IT” & CS” aren’t the same.

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As a result, the reality in the current American K12 education system is that a minority of its leaders and policymakers can articulate what “Computer Science” even is.

Is is “STEM”? Is it “STEAM”? Is it “building a makerspace”? Is it “going 1-to-1”?

They don’t know.

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And if the majority of those closest to power - those closest to decision-making that changes systems in favor of more equitable opportunities for all - if they can’t even articulate what computer science..

..then how can we fairly expect them to truly campaign for it?

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A key step yet to be taken in the movement for #CSforAll is a systemwide effort to elevate it to the status of “best practice” in schooling.

This is possible.

We have seen “STEM” emerge into the mainstream.

As with “RtI”, and then “MTSS”.

As well as “SEL”.

All post-Y2K.

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To the point: when we collectively *CHOOSE* to get every educational leader/policymaker who would know what “SEL” or “Collective Efficacy” means for their work to ALSO be able to articulate the value of ALL K12 students studying CS..

..then we’ll see #CSforAll truly scale.

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The implication:

We need a systemwide campaign across K12 Ed to move every education leader and/or policymaker to action in knowing the value of democratizing *Computer Science in particular* (not “IT” or “STEM”).

This is about something far greater than career pathways alone.