WHAT IS CODE.ORG UP TO?
PAT YONGPRADIT
PAT@CODE.ORG
THE SITUATION
• Less than 2.4% of college students graduate with a degree in computer
science…. That’s fewer than 10 years ago
Sources: College Board, Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Science Foundation
2012 HIGH SCHOOL A.P. ENROLLMENT
Exposure to CS leads to the
best-paying jobs in the world.
But it’s only available in 5% of
high schools
Source: College Board
THE NUMBERS ADD UP FAST!
$500
billion
over 10
years!!
• The highest-paying salaries in the US, job growth 2x the national average
• 67% of software jobs are in other industries: manufacturing, retail, banking, gov’t
Sources: BLS, NSF, Bay Area Council Economic Institute
WE CAN FIX THE AMERICAN DREAM
• Only 5% of high schools teach AP computer science.
• As of 2012 there were fewer classes offered than 10 years ago
• Exposure to CS in high-school is a fast-track to the best jobs in
the country, but it’s largely out of reach for most Americans, esp
in under-served rural or urban communities
obligation
• We have an opportunity to fix the American dream
CODE.ORG LAUNCH – CHANGE THE DISCUSSION
• Short film starring Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey,
will.i.am, Chris Bosh, many others.
• Directed by Lesley Chilcott (An Inconvenient Truth)
WE’VE RECRUITED SUPPORT FROM DOZENS OF LEADERS
• Politicians (Democrats, Republicans, Independents)
– Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Governors of Colorado, Washington. Mayor Cory
Booker, Mayor Bloomberg, Marco Rubio, Thune, Eric Cantor
• Business leaders
– Richard Branson, Steve Ballmer, Sheryl Sandberg, and CEOs/founders of
Lotus, AOL, Salesforce.com, and many many others
• Educators
– Presidents/deans of Stanford, Harvard, U of Washington, Harvey Mudd.
Sup’t of LA USD.
– Heads of Teach For America, KIPP schools, Aspire schools.
– Union leaders: Randy Weingarten (AFT), Dennis Van Roekel (NEA).
– NGSS/Achieve.org
• Doctors, lawyers, scientists, astronauts
– Leland Melvin (NASA), Lee Hood (modern genomics), Larry Corey (Fred
Hutch), Stephen Hawking, Dr. Oz
• Celebrities
– Bono, Ashton Kutcher, Linkin Park, Enrique Iglesias
It would be wonderful if
every kid wrote computer
programs and understood
how computers work. It
would certainly make you a
better thinker
Bill Gates
In fifteen years we’ll be
teaching programming just
like reading and writing. We’ll
be looking back and
wondering why we didn’t do
it sooner.
Mark Zuckerberg
“support the american dream n
make coding available to
EVERYONE!”
Snoop Lion
(formerly Snoop Dogg)
CODE.ORG AUDIENCE
• Over 20M views on YouTube + FB
• Distributed to 500,000 teachers to
play in classrooms.
• Shared over 100,000 times on
Facebook
• Hundreds of articles, dozens of TV
appearances, including 5 min on
NPR, and CNN Headline News
• Played in ½ the movie theaters in the
country before the trailers for 2
weeks
#1 video on YouTube for a day!!
INCREDIBLE RESULTS
• More than 3,500,000 students tried learning online
• More than 730,000 signed petitions (with ZIPs) and growing
• Teachers and principals from over 12,000 schools want help setting up
coding classes or clubs
• More than 25,000 software engineers already volunteered to help
teach/mentor.
• CS enrollment in high schools that promoted the video tripled !!!
WITH SUCCESS, CONCERNS: CS ED COMMUNITY
• “Why do you say ‘Code’ instead of ‘Computer
Science’?”
• “What is your plan for equity within the
school, universal access?”
• “Now that lots of people are excited, how do
we coherently steer them towards CS (and not
HTML and PowerPoint)?”
CODE.ORG’S GOALS
Short-term:
(1) Get computer
science into more
U.S. classrooms
(2) Change the rules in
the easiest states
(3) Inspire students,
parents
Medium-term:
(1) Every school in the
US offers some
form of computer
science instruction
(2) Every state
recognizes
computer science
as part of STEM
Long term:
(1) Every student is
exposed to
computer
programming at
an early age
(2) Computer Science
is in the “core”
THE NEXT DECADE: 3 MAIN AREAS OF ACTIVITY
1. Educate: Get CS into schools
– Work with supportive districts to provide for the professional
development, mentorship, and policy support to set up and sustain
computer science classes
– 7-10 demo cities before expanding more broadly
– Develop curriculum in a few areas that can help all teachers
– Building on work by NSF and NSF-funded projects
2.
Advocate: change the rules.
– Get all 50 states to count computer science toward graduation
– Use a coalition of tech companies and other orgs for lobbying
– Get the Common Core / NextGen standards to include CS
– Computing in the Core as sister-org, partnering with CSTA
3. Celebrate: inspire youth (and parents) to learn
– Continue using social media, celebrities, videos, to inspire students
– Run regional, state, and national events to reward/recognize CS in K-12,
esp for women and minorities
CELEBRATE: AUDACIOUS MARKETING GOAL
An Hour of Code for
every student
OUR INCREDIBLY AUDACIOUS MARKETING GOAL
An Hour of Code for
every American
KICK OFF “HOUR OF CODE” AT A LOCAL SCHOOL
• Thousands of schools will host “Hour
of Code” activities all week starting
Dec 9, 2013
• In every state we will have signature
events with a local politician, tech
leader, celebrity, or athlete to kick it
off at a local school
• We’re asking the nation’s top leaders
to participate (examples: President
Obama, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg)
WHO ELSE IS PARTICIPATING?
• Already agreed:
– Google: promoting from Google.com search page!!
– Microsoft: free hardware for participating schools
– Teach for America: 22,000 teachers to participate
– Donors Choose: asking 250,000 teachers to participate
– Electronic Arts: licensing video-game artwork for curriculum
– Bill Gates. Mark Zuckerberg. Other tech leaders.
– (Many other smaller partners)
• In discussions / very interested:
– Amazon, Facebook, eBay, LinkedIn, Starbucks, etc
– NCAA, Boys & Girls Club
– Numerous celebrities and athletes
CS ED WEEK 2013
• If you are in this room, we want you to participate
• Sign up at http://csedweek.org
• Contact james@code.org if you are hosting an event
CS ED WEEK 2013
•
•
•
•
What does success look like?
10,000 schools
100,000 teachers
10,000,000 students and parents
• If we get to even 1,000 schools, it will
be enough to permanently tip the
scale of nationwide awareness
• Laying foundation for future efforts
to educate or advocate
ADVOCATE: CHANGING POLICIES IN EVERY STATE
• In 36 of 50 states, computer science doesn’t even count towards high
school graduation requirements. (in China: it’s required to graduate)
• In states that recognize it, C.S. enrollment is 50% higher
2013 present-day. (WA just flipped)
Sources: ACM, College Board
ADVOCATE: RECENT SUCCESS
• In Washington State: HB-1472 passed with
nearly unanimous support
– 95-3 in Democratic house
– 45-1 in Republican controlled Senate
– CS now counts towards math or science
graduation credits
• In the US House of Representatives, the
Computer Science Education Act was
introduced by a bi-partisan group of
sponsors.
• NCAA recognition of CS
EDUCATE: GETTING CS INTO SCHOOLS
• Pat Yongpradit, Director of Education
– Help pick “demo” cities
– Establish programs to prepare math, science, CTE
teachers to teach CS next year
– We want to work together with NSF and NSFfunded efforts (CS-P, ECS, NMSI, and others)
• We are still very early at this, we want to gain
experience and traction, learn what it takes to
succeed/fail before expanding
CURRICULUM
• We’re developing our own resource modules
• 100% free, open-source, web-based, zero-install
• Focused on areas that are under-served (not reinventing wheel):
– Video lectures to teach CS Principles topics
– Short Inspirational content, casting role models
from all walks of life to emphasize equal access
– Web-based, self-guided curriculum for early
introductory programming, targeting 1hr/week
for K-8 students
• We hope to contribute free tools that can be used
by any teacher to educate and inspire
CODE.ORG VISION
Every student in
every school should
have the opportunity
to learn computer
science
Questions?
pat@code.org
CHALLENGE
PLAN
US
YOU