Leadership magazine Sept/Oct 2015 V45 No 1 | Page 37
4.
Code.org. This nonprofit computer
science education organization
behind Computer Science Education Week and the Hour of Code campaign
is offering district partnerships with major
urban school districts across the country.
Code.org offers K-12 curriculum, tools,
on-site training and funding to qualifying
school districts.
Code.org believes computer science and
computer programming should be part of
the core curriculum in education, alongside
other science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics (STEM) courses, such as biology, physics, chemistry and algebra.
For more information about Code.org
district partnerships or other code.org resources, please visit www.code.org or contact [email protected].
• Update state standards for computer science education and advocate for computer
science to count for core credit (math or science) in high school graduation and UC/
CSU eligibility and admissions.
• Scale up successful K-12 computer science education models and curricula, such as
Exploring Computer Science and CS: Principles, to be emulated throughout California
and in other states.
To stay informed about statewide strategies to broaden participation in computing,
please visit www.access-ca.org and become a
subscriber. n
Gary Page is education programs consultant,
California Department of Education. Julie
Flapan is executive director of ACCESS.
Statewide advocacy to support equity
Scaling up computer science education requires local district implementation as well
as statewide support structures to ensure
computer science education is available to all
students. The Alliance for California Computing Education for Students and Schools
(ACCESS) works to bridge the needs of
schools and to respond through statewide
policy changes.
ACCESS is a statewide network of computer scientists, K-12 teachers, professors
from com munity colleges through universities, educational policy advocates, and
related industry professionals. ACCESS
is dedicated to advocating for high-quality
K-12 computer science education in California and ensuring its accessibility to all
students, specifically for traditionally underrepresented students: girls and students
of color.
The goals of ACCESS are to:
• Secure and elevate the status of computer science education in California.
• Establish a computer science certification pathway for K-12 teachers in California, and ensure that quality professional
development is available to these teachers.
ACCESS is currently proposing an updated
computer science supplementary authorization to build the capacity of teachers to teach
computer science.
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