Computer Science Will Soon Be A Chicago Public Schools Graduation Requirement

By Zoe Greenberg in News on Feb 25, 2016 5:20PM

In the future, Chicago Public Schools students will need to know how to code before they cross the graduation stage.

On Wednesday, the Chicago Board of Education voted unanimously to make computer science a graduation requirement for all CPS students, beginning with next year’s freshman class. The move makes CPS the first school district in the nation to elevate computer science to an independent core requirement, instead of an elective or a slice of math or science learning.

"Requiring computer science as a core requirement will ensure that our graduates are proficient in the language of the 21st century so that they can compete for the jobs of the future," Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a press release after the vote.

The need for computer science education is clear: last year there were more than 600,000 high-paying tech jobs across the country that were unfilled, according to White House figures. And that number is only expected to grow: by 2024, the Bureau of Labor statistics predicts there will be over 1 million openings for computing jobs that are both high-skilled and high-paying.

The new graduation requirement is the latest in the city's ongoing “Computer Science for All” Initiative, which was launched in 2013. The city partnered with the non-profit Code.org to create a computer science curriculum and provide teacher training, with the ultimate goal of making computer science a core graduation requirement within five years. Already 107 of CPS schools have adopted a computer science curriculum, and 41 are ready to implement the new graduation requirement. The district says they hope to add 50-60 schools a year, focusing on high schools.

The move would make Chicago a leader in increasing access to STEM education, a field where experts recognize a pressing need and school districts are struggling to keep up. Only about 25 percent of K-12 schools in the U.S. offer computer science. Twenty-two states don’t allow computer science to count towards a diploma, according to the White House, and AP Computer Science was only taught in five percent of high schools.

The gender and race disparities in the schools that did offer AP classes were disturbing. In Mississippi, Montana, and Wyoming, no girls took the exam. And in 11 states (including New Mexico, North Dakota, and Nebraska) no black students took the exam. Those figures mirror the make-up of many of the country's largest tech companies, where women make up less than a third of technical employees and African-Americans make up less than 3 percent.

To combat these disparities, school districts around the country are increasing the focus on computer science education. Earlier this year, President Barack Obama launched a national Computer Science For All Initiative, requesting $4 billion dollars to fund states and an additional $100 million for districts to buy materials and train teachers.