Communications of the ACM
Non-Profit ScriptEd NYC Teaches Coding to Underprivileged Students
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ScriptEd NYC has launched a pilot program designed to teach computer skills to students from underserved communities.
Tech professionals are teaching 15 high-school freshmen at Harlem Village Academies how to use JavaScript, twice a week for an hour and a half after school. They will focus on HTML and CSS next, and students will have to make their own interactive Web site or video game by the end of the program. Only five of the participants are female students.
Maurya Couvares, pro-bono coordinator at the law firm Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, and Elizabeth Davidson, an education policy Ph.D candidate at Columbia University, are behind the nonprofit. The Teach for America alumni plan to expand the program throughout New York City, but keep classes co-ed. Couvares and Davidson also would like to add an internship component, which would enable students to shadow tech professionals and apply the skills in real life. "We want to teach them something that they can actually use to market themselves in the future, and do something with computers beyond just surfing Web pages," Couvares says.
From Time
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