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posted by martyb on Sunday June 14 2015, @06:19AM   Printer-friendly
from the this-will-prove-interesting dept.

Within a few years, every single student in the San Francisco Unified School District will be studying computer science, at all grade levels.

The city’s Board of Education unanimously approved the measure during its weekly meeting on Tuesday evening.

"Information technology is now the fastest growing job sector in San Francisco, but too few students currently have access to learn the Computer Science skills that are crucial for such careers," Board President Emily Murase said in a statement on Wednesday. "We are proud to be at the forefront of creating a curriculum that will build on the knowledge and skills students will need starting as early as preschool."

According to the district, computer science classes are relatively rare across the United States.

"Currently, no national, state, or local standards exist for Computer Science and the academic research in Computer Science education is quite limited," the board wrote. "As such, a cohesive progression of Computer Science knowledge and skills does not yet exist."

It's the year 2015. Why isn't CompSci a mandatory part of the curriculum everywhere in America? It was at my gymnasium (academic high school) in Germany, and that was 25 years ago.


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by patrick on Sunday June 14 2015, @04:32PM

    by patrick (3990) on Sunday June 14 2015, @04:32PM (#196162)

    Actually, for the past decade, I've taught in a school that focuses on understanding instead of rote memorization. We don't give them any tests except one standardized test a year, and they score equal to (or slightly above) demographically similar schools.

    But we start at kindergarten and go up from there to Middle School. You can't suddenly switch a Middle School full of teachers & kids who are used to the "traditional" lecture/worksheet based curriculum to our model and hope for success (though I've seen schools try). Both teachers & students don't do well. You have to start from kindergarten, allow the children to keep their habit of exploring & learning for themselves, and build from there.

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