Communications of the ACM
Ethnic, Gender Imbalances Plague Computer Science Education
"Most of the kids who do not get to participate in computer science are kids of color, kids in low-income communities, and girls," says the U.S. Education Department's Melissa Moritz.
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The U.S. Education Department's Melissa Moritz laments the disproportionate unavailability of computer science education to low-income students, and contends conscious or unconscious prejudices are discouraging many female and minority students from pursuing computer science careers.
"Most of the kids who do not get to participate in computer science are kids of color, kids in low-income communities, and girls," Moritz says. "And there's a number of reasons for that. First, it's not offered in their school. Second, we also have to look at who is either encouraged to take it, either explicitly or implicitly."
Moritz says the Obama administration's Computer Science for All initiative aims to make computer science education universally available, while the president's latest budget proposal asks for two tracks of funding to support state and district initiatives to expand programming courses in schools.
New BSA-sponsored research from the Economist Intelligence Unit found such efforts, in conjunction with Code.org and other nonprofits' work, are economically warranted, with the software industry contributing $1.07 trillion to U.S. gross domestic product in 2014. The study also found software comprises about 9.8 million jobs, while U.S. Department of Labor data estimated software developers earned an average salary of $108,760 in 2014.
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