WILL THEY, WON'T THEY: A recently-released Google-sponsored Gallup report shows that parents want computer science courses for their kids; in fact, 90% of them see computer science as "a good use of school resources." But there seems to be some loss in translation when it comes to what the districts know of this parent demand--the report says that fewer than 8% of administrators believe parent demand is high for computer science education. Unsurprisingly, about 75% of principals report having no computer science courses in their schools.
As Wired points out, major reasons for this dearth in CS education include the fact that computer science isn't tied to testing requirements. But there's a "silver lining," says Hai Hong, program manager of Google’s K-12 education outreach; at least half of principals at schools with computer science programming report that CS professional development has been on the rise.
