0 Stuck in the Shallow End

Stuck in the Shallow End
Education, Race & Computing
Jane Margolis
with Rachel Estrella, Joanne Goode, Jennifer Jellison Holme and Kim Nao

This is my second time hearing Jane Margolis speak about education, race and computing. Earlier this year, Jane was a keynote at the Tapia Conference in Portland, Oregon. I read some of her research, regarding race and computing, sometime around 2004-2005. Her work led me to a commitment in computer science education. Today she is the morning keynote speaker at the K12 Teachers workshop.

One of the outcomes of her work in computer science education is the Exploring Computer Science Curriculum - A pre-APCS course. If you are teaching (or plan to teach) an introduction to computing course, I recommend reviewing this curriculum. It includes day to day lesson plans and activities.

• Over 20 schools/750 students
• relevant/engaging
• need to assess student achievement
• PD is important**

Key Question

Why are so few African American, Lationo/a and Female High School Students Learning Computer Science?

The Schools

East River High School

• Built for 2000 students, has 5000 students
• Technology rich, but curriculum poor; "filled with technology!"
• Classes: word processing, internet publishing, No APCS
  
• Teachers, administration were confusing computer literacy with computer science
• The thinking and problem solving was missing from the curriculum
• CS was vocational, NOT academic core; Did not "boost" academic transcript of college bound students, so they opted not to take the course.
• Teachers "out of subject"/no CS credential
• CS as a "dumping ground"
• Interest is there, courses are NOT

Westward Senior High - Math Science Aerospace Magnet

• Predominately African American, middle/working class families
• Similar to East River in many ways
• AP was there, but canceled after 1 year because the student's scores were so low
• Classes: Internet publishing class, Introduction to computers

Canyon High School

• "Preparatory Privilege" vs. Innate Talent
• Students from over 101 zip codes
• two- thirds of the students are of colore
• "Two schools in one"
• Incredible racial divide - but students of color not in honors classes

Issues in K12 Computer Science

• Disparities falling along race/class lines
• CS -- vocational
• Teachers isolated; need more training
• Pedagogy "boring", rote
• Pressure of high-stakes testing/shrinking curriculum
• computer classes as "Dumping Grounds"
• Insularity of AP CS
• Belief systems rationalize low curriculum

K12/University Partnership Formed: CS Equity Alliance

Initial Focus: Equity Access to AP CS (2004-07)

1. 11 (out of 57) High Schools offered AP CS
2. Commitments from principals
3. AP CS teachers attend UCLA Institute

Results

African Americans: 17 to 33
Latino/as: 53 to 297
Females: 47 to 230

Jane used the line "Two steps forward, one step back" to describe the persistent problems that exist, even though there is a big effort (and success) in computer science education at the K12 level.

1. loss of teachers and classes (testing pressures)
2. teachers need more training
3. students need more support/more preparation
4. frustrations with AP CS

Great keynote (as usual)!!

0 Stuck in the Shallow End

This mornings plenary speaker is Dr. Jane Margolis. I mentioned her work in a previous post, as she is one of the major reasons why I wanted to attend this conference. Her work in education, race and computing motivates and drives my life's work.

How do academic fields get segregated? Why does education have a deep history of inequity? "This is the issue we've been uncovering by looking at computer science." Under representation in CS is a contemporary window into how inequality is reproduced in this country.

The myth: Technology is the great equalizer.

• disparities in access along the race and class lines
• which students are learning to do what with technology

Stories from the 3 schools
East River High School

• Technology rich but curriculum poort
• No AP CS, but an Internet publishing class
• Cut and paste curriculum
• CS vocational, not academic
• 1 programming class that lasted 2 years, by a math teacher (on his own); but the class did not last because it was not aligned with the priorities of the school; the computer class could only fit 20 students
  
• "If computer science is not at the academic core, it is going to be put out ..."
• There was interest, but not courses
• These rudimentary classes became a "dumping ground" for students with interest in computing

Westward Senior High Math Science Aerospace Magnet

• Dr. Margolis described this as the most disturbing school
  
• Students often described as "lazy, not movitated, not capable, not up to it ..."
• Introduction to computers - 2 periods (taught by a history teacher)
  
• Internet Publishing - 2 periods
• 30% of the students interviewed at the school were self-described as "techies"
• Principal - "I just want students to be functional when they leave here."

Canyon High School

• Located in the white, wealthy part of LA
• 1/3 of students from the neighborhood, 2/3 of students (African American) from other neighborhoods
  
• Full array of CS courses, but little to no participation of students of color or females
• Programming actually turned off the kids to computer science, by the way that it was taught.
• While this is an integrated school with a diverse population, it was really "two schools in one."
• Preparatory Privilege = the "gift of computing"

What was happening in computer science, is similar to what is going on in many other subjects. The self-fulfilling prophecy across all three schools is best described by Shirley Malcolm:

Lack of authentic access gets translated into victim blaming, while preparatory privilege gets translated into a gift of computing, yielding the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy.

Despite all the issues, they found that the interest in computing is there, but the courses are not.

So they formed The Computer Science Equity Alliance
Mission: to help build capacity to expand access to college preparatory computer science learning opportunities and to broaden participation.
- In two years time, they had significant results.

And designed a Pre-AP course titled, Exploring Computer Science.

Their model for K-12/University Alliance to Help Build School Capacity: To Broaden Participation in Computing you need Technical Changes, Normative Changes and Political Changes.

• college prep currciulum
• engage diverse students
• new pedagogy
• create a pipeline of courses
• teacher leaders are key
• need CS certification
• must win support of district, state, washington DC
• need a Methods course at the college level
• Resources, resources, resources

"It's a question of STOLEN ACCESS ... and you can really see it in computer science."

Jane ended her talk with a picture of PRESIDENT Barack Obama in an office with his feet kicked up on the desk and described that we are in a NEW historical moment. "We have to think bigger than we ever thought before." Listening to her talk really confirmed by career aspirations and re-energized me for the work that God has set out for me to complete.



Reading List
Ensuring Exemplary Teaching in an Essential Discipline (CSTA)

0 Tapia Conference - Portland, Oregon

Over the next several days, I am attending the Richard Tapia Conference for Diversity in Computing. "The Tapia 2009 Conference is aimed at providing a supportive networking environment for under-represented groups across the broad range of computing and information technology, from science to business to the arts to infrastructure."

I am looking forward to networking, meeting other people who 'look like me' in computing and attending the sessions. Particularly, I am looking forward to hearing the Plenary talk by Jane Margolis. She is one of the primary reasons I am excited about attending this conference. Dr. Margolis is a researcher at UCLA and her research area is social inequality and education; the gender and race gap in computer science; high school to college equity issues: gender socialization and groupthink. I am most familiar with her work at CMU about women in computer science, their motivations, the culture and experiences. She published a book titled, Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing in 2002 about this work. She recently published another book, Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing in 2008. In this book, Dr. Margolis studies the culture and experiences of students in three Los Angeles public high schools- an overcrowded urban high school, a math and science magnet school and a school in an affluent neighborhood. She discovers how inequality and segregation are reproduced and creates this race gap in computer science. Dr. Magolis' work shares with the world how the computer sciene race gap is created and maintained through our secondary school systems. I definitely recommend reading this book!

The next several entries are my reflections and notes about the Tapia conference.