A ??Moon Shot?? Goal for Computer Programming
Source: Robert Litan
President Barack Obama with a middle-school student participating in an event honoring Computer Science Education Week at the White House on Dec. 8.
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Internet pioneer turned venture capitalist Marc Andreessen famously said in 2011 that “software is eating the world.” By that he meant, among other things, that software is embedded throughout most every good and service produced and sold in this country and, increasingly, on a global scale.
Software guides our cars, appliances, electric grid, health-care system (imperfectly) and drug research. It is behind the design of just about everything. And then there is the huge role software plays in the information technology (IT) sector, in designing all kinds of IT hardware and the code required to run it.
In short, the multiple programming languages doing all this work are as important to understand as the English many of us speak. Yet our nation has a chronic shortage of good computer programmers. Established companies and start-ups are starving for talent.
Last week, the Obama administration announced an initiative, in conjunction with philanthropic supporters, to expand computer science education in 60 school districts, primarily at the high school level. That’s good. But as my Brookings colleague Bill Galston has pointed out, this falls far short of what’s needed if we want our economy to get back on a high-growth path, with a lot of well-paying jobs for the next generation. Mr. Galston suggests that the president announce an even more ambitious goal in his upcoming State of the Union address: that computer science courses be available to every K-12 student by 2020-21.
If I had my druthers, I’d be even more ambitious: moving up the target date (why wait six more years?) and requiring all students at some young age�Cperhaps sixth grade, maybe earlier�Cto take computer science. I don’t mean the theory of computer science but actual coding, building real software just like some students now build robots, akin to how students in my day used to build things in “shop.” I also wouldn’t stop with one year of classes but would require it for multiple years.
I realize, of course, that the federal role in education, especially curriculum, is limited. Even the multi-state Common Core curriculum is highly controversial.
But with presidential and congressional leadership�Cthis a bipartisan issue, after all�Cthe federal government could set the tone and begin to provide the money for training teachers, while states can and should allow alternative licensing of teachers of computer code to get all this going. There is no more pressing educational challenge than making sure that the next generation of students, not just a few savants, is highly conversant with software programming. The kids will take to it, I have no doubt. The question is whether parents and their elected representatives at all levels of government ensure that they do.
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