Computer Science as an
st
Essential 21 -Century Skill:
Making the Case
Eric Roberts
Professor of Computer Science
Stanford University
K-12 Computing Teachers Workshop
Grace Hopper Celebration
Atlanta, Georgia
October 2, 2010
Papers and Talks on Gender Equity
Why Diversity Is Essential
—from my SIGCSE talk on “Expanding the Audience” in 2003
• Equality of access is an important ethical principle.
• Greater diversity among those who create computing technology
ensures that those technologies are relevant to and usable by a
wider range of people.
• More specifically, the male-dominated tradition of computing
leads to an overall culture of technological machismo, as
evidenced by modern computer games.
• Despite the economic downturn, there continues to be a shortage
of highly productive software developers.
• Becoming a good software developer requires a rare combination
of skills, creativity, and temperament, making it all the more
critical to look for such talent in as wide a population as possible.
Talking Point #1
Demand for people with strong computer
science skills has remained high throughout
the history of the field, and has held up even
during times of recession.
Computing and Competitiveness
• In his 2005 book, The World Is Flat,
New York Times editorial writer Tom
Friedman argues that the new global
economy places increasing weight on
technological innovation to maintain
national economic competitiveness.
• Technological innovation requires a
highly trained workforce with strong
computational skills, which means
that such skills are in high demand.
The Challenge of the Global Marketplace
In a world where advanced knowledge is
widespread and low-cost labor is readily
available, U.S. advantages in the
marketplace and in science and technology
have begun to erode. A comprehensive and
coordinated federal effort is urgently
needed to bolster U.S. competitiveness and
pre-eminence in these areas. This
congressionally requested report by a
pre-eminent committee makes four
recommendations
along
with
20
implementation actions that federal policymakers should take to create high-quality
jobs and focus new science and technology
efforts on meeting the nation’s needs,
especially in the area of clean, affordable
energy:
1) Increase America’s talent pool by vastly
improving K-12 mathematics and
science education;
Updates from Last Week’s Revision
. . . Five years ago, the National Academies
prepared Rising Above the Gathering Storm, a
book that cautioned: “Without a renewed effort to
bolster the foundations of our competitiveness, we
can expect to lose our privileged position.” Since
that time we find ourselves in a country where
much has changed—and a great deal has not
changed.
So where does America stand relative to its
position of five years ago when the Gathering
Storm book was prepared? The unanimous view
of the authors is that our nation’s outlook has
worsened. The present volume, Rising Above the
Gathering Storm, Revisited, explores the tipping
point America now faces. Addressing America’s
competitiveness challenge will require many years
if not decades; however, the requisite federal
funding of much of that effort is about to
terminate.
Literary Visions of America’s Future
As a result, this country has one of the worst
economies in the world. When it gets down to it—
talking trade balances here—once we’ve braindrained all our technology into other countries, once
things have evened out, they’re making cars in
Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and
selling them here—once our edge in natural
resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong
Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North
Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel—
once the Invisible Hand has taken all those
historical inequities and smeared them out into a
broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker
would consider to be prosperity—y’know what?
There’s only four things we do better than anyone
else:
 Music
 Movies
 Microcode (software)
 Pizza delivery
Talking Point #2
Producing more students who are highly
skilled in science and technology is widely
recognized as essential to national economic
competitiveness.
Computing Opportunities are High
• The computing industry offers some of the best employment
opportunities for university graduates. Here are a few data
points that can serve as evidence:
– The number of jobs in the domestic software industry are at an all-time
high and are projected to grow dramatically over the next decade.
– Salaries for newly minted B.S. graduates in Computer
Employment Science are
(thousands)
high, often exceeding the $100,000 mark.
Growth
Top 10 job growth categories (2006-2016)
2006
2016
–
In
2005,
Money
magazine
rated
software
engineer
as
the
number
one
1. Network systems and data communications analysts
262
402
53.4
job in America.
2. Personal and home care aides
767
1,156
50.6
–
Labor
statistics
show
that
the
ratio
of
the
number
of
available
jobs
per
3. Home health aides
787
1,171
48.7
graduate is higher in computing than any other employment category.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Computer software engineers, applications
Veterinary
technologists and technicians
Google and Facebook are fighting hard to hire this year’s
crop of computer
Personal
financial science
advisorsgraduates, we’ve heard, and
ground zero is Stanford. Most of the class of 2008 already
Makeup
theatrical
and performance
have job artists,
offers even
though graduation
is months away.
Last year, salaries of up to $70,000 were common for the
Medical
assistants
best students.
This year, Facebook is said to be offering
$92,000, and Google has increased some offers to $95,000
Veterinarians
to get their share of graduates. Students with a Master’s
degree in Computer
Science
are being
offered counselors
as much as
Substance
abuse and
behavioral
disorder
$130,000 for associate product manager jobs at Google.
507
71
176
2
465
62
83
733
100
248
3
148
84
112
44.6
41.0
41.0
39.8
35.4
35.0
34.3
Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections: 2006-16, December 2007.
Degree Production vs. Job Openings
160,000
140,000
120,000
100,000
Ph.D.
Master’s
Bachelor’s
Projected job openings
80,000
60,000
40,000
20,000
Engineering
Physical Sciences
Biological Sciences
Computer Science
Sources: Adapted from a presentation by John Sargent, Senior Policy Analyst, Department of Commerce, at the
CRA Computing Research Summit, February 23, 2004. Original sources listed as National Science
Foundation/Division of Science Resources Statistics; degree data from Department of Education/National
Center for Education Statistics: Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System Completions Survey;
and NSF/SRS; Survey of Earned Doctorates; and Projected Annual Average Job Openings derived from
Department of Commerce (Office of Technology Policy) analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics 2002-2012
projections. See http://www.cra.org/govaffairs/content.php?cid=22.
Industry Reports a Labor Shortage
— April 28, 2005
Gates Cites Hiring Woes, Criticizes Visa Restrictions
By David A. Vise
Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates said yesterday the software giant is having
enormous difficulty filling computer jobs in the United States as a result of tight visa
restrictions on foreign workers and a declining interest among U._S. students in computer
science.
<tab>Speaking on a technology panel at the Library of Congress, Gates said a decline in the
number of U._S. students pursuing careers in science and technology is hurting Microsoft
in the short run, and could have serious long-term consequences for the U._S. economy if
the problem is not addressed.
<tab>“We are very concerned that the U._S. will lose its competitive position. For
Microsoft, it means we are having a tougher time hiring,” Gates said. “The jobs are there,
and they are good-paying jobs, but we don’t have the same pipeline.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/27/AR2005042702241.html
But Contrary Reports Keep Coming In
— September 6, 2010
Once a Dynamo, the Tech Sector Is Slow to Hire
By CATHERINE RAMPELL
Nevertheless,
For
years the many
technology
high-tech
sector
companies
has beenlarge
considered
and small
the say
mostthey
dynamic,
are struggling
promising
to find
and
globallyskilled
highly
envied
engineering
industry talent
in the
in the
United
United
States.
States.It escaped the recession relatively
unscathed,
<tab>
“We areand
firing
profits
up our
thiscollege
year have
recruiting
been soaring.
program, enduring all manner of humiliation
to try
<tab>
But to
as fill
the these
nationjobs,”
struggles
said toGlenn
put people
Kelman,
back
chief
to work,
executive
even of
high-tech
Redfin, companies
an online
have been slow
brokerage
agency
to hire,
for buying
a sign ofand
just selling
how difficult
homesit that
will be
is to
based
address
in Seattle
persistently
and high
San
joblessness.“I. do
Francisco.
. . think we’re still chasing them, not the other way around.”
<tab>The chief hurdles to more robust technology hiring appear to be increasing
automation and the addition of highly skilled labor overseas. The result is a mismatch of
skill levels here at home: not enough workers with the cutting-edge skills coveted by tech
firms, and too many people with abilities that can be duplicated offshore at lower cost.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/business/economy/07/jobs.html
Myths about Offshoring
1. All IT jobs will soon be outsourced to India and China.
2. Good IT workers will be easy to find in the new “flatter” world.
3. Companies will always seek the lowest-priced labor.
The 2006 ACM report on Globalization
and Offshoring of Software finds that
even though offshoring of software has
increased the number of computing jobs
in India and China, it has also increased
the number of jobs in the United States.
Thus, at least in computing, globalization
has functioned exactly as the theory of
comparative advantage suggests.
A Thought Experiment about Offshoring
• Suppose that you are Microsoft and that you can hire a
software developer from Stanford whose loaded costs will be
$200,000 per year. Over in Bangalore, however, you can hire a
software developer for $75,000 per year. Both are equally
talented and will create $1,000,000 annually in value. What do
you do?
• Although the developer in Bangalore has a higher return, the
optimal strategy is to hire them both. After all, why throw away
$800,000 a year?
• Any elementary economics textbook will explain that one hires
as long as the marginal value of the new employee is greater
than the marginal cost. The essential point is that companies
seek to maximize return, and not simply to minimize cost.
Talking Point #3
Demand for computer science graduates
remains high in comparison with other
scientific and engineering fields, even in the
presence of offshoring.
The Problem Starts Early
Despite recent increases in university majors, computer science
remains unpopular in high school.
Source: Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA, 2005
AP/CS Is Relatively Small
Worse Still, AP/CS Is Losing Ground
• The Computer Science exam is the only Advanced Placement
exam that has shown declining student numbers in recent years.
Eliminated in 2009
Computing Faces Huge Challenges in Schools
• People who have software development skills command high salaries
and tend not to teach in schools.
• In many schools, computer science is classified as vocational rather
than academic.
• Students who are heading toward top universities are advised to take
non-CS courses to bolster their admissions chances.
• Because schools are evaluated on how well their students perform in
math and science, many schools are shifting teachers away from
computer science toward these disciplines.
• Administrators find tools like PowerPoint more sexy and exciting. J
• Modern tools have made programming more difficult to teach.
• Computer science and computer scientists have a serious image
problem that makes the field unattractive to many students.
Jan Cuny’s “Clean Slate” Project
http://www.cra.org/Activities/summit/Cuny_A_Clean_Slate_Approach_to_High_School_CS.pdf
Talking Point #4
We will not be able to address the shortfall
in computing expertise unless we improve
the situation at the K-12 level. Fortunately,
K-12 education is currently a very hot topic.
Waiting for Superman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKTfaro96dg
Matt Lauer Interviews President Obama
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/39378291#39378291
Talking Point #5
Solving this problem will require all of us to
work together from the many constituencies
we represent: teachers, academics, industry,
government. No one can do it alone.
Key Initiatives
• The National Science Foundation has
launched an ambitious effort to mount
a “clean slate” approach to teaching
computing at the high-school level.
• For the past two years, ACM and
CSTA have worked to make sure that
computer science is part of the many
debates and proposals happening at all
levels of government.
• On October 6, CSTA and ACM will make two announcements:
1. The release of a report entitled Running on Empty: The Failure to
Teach K-12 Computer Science in the Digital Age, which examines how
well the Model Curriculum has been implemented in the states.
2. The formation of a new coalition for K-12 computer science education
called Computing in the Core.
Talking Point #6
Building a successful partnership that can
fix problems in computer science education
is undeniably challenging, but success is
possible.
About Bermuda
• British overseas territory lying
600 miles east of North Carolina.
• Land area just over 20 square
miles (less than twice the size of
the Stanford campus).
• Total population of only 62,000
(roughly the size of Palo Alto)
with two public high schools:
Berkeley and Cedarbridge.
• Local parliament has had a Labour majority since 1998.
• Considerable national wealth, primarily from companies that
relocate to Bermuda as a tax haven.
• The CIA World Factbook for 2005 listed Bermuda as having
the highest GDP per capita in the world.
The Bermuda.edu Documentary
Image of Computing (California)
In 1998, sixth-graders in selected California schools were asked to
draw their image of a computer professional. The drawings are
for the most part aligned with traditional stereotypes:
Images of Computing (Bermuda)
In Bermuda, we repeated this experiment after students had taken
our courses and got rather different results:
The End