No Girls, Blacks, or Hispanics Take AP Computer Science Exam in Some States

[DEAD7]

theodp writes "At first glance, the headline in The Salt Lake Tribune — Very Few Utah Girls, Minorities Take Computer Science AP Tests — appears to be pretty alarming. As does the headline No Girls, Blacks, or Hispanics Take AP Computer Science Exam in Some States over at Education Week. Not One Girl Took The AP Computer Science Test In Some Stateswarns a Business Insider headline. And so on and so on and so on. So how could one quibble with tech-giant backed Code.org's decision to pay teachers a $250 "Female Student Bonus", or Google's declaration that 'the ultimate goal of CS First is to provide proven teaching materials, screencasts, and curricula for after-school programs that will ignite the interest and confidence of underrepresented minorities and girls in CS,' right? But the thing is, CollegeBoard AP CS exam records indicate that no Wyoming students at all took an AP CS exam (xls) in 2013, and only a total of 103 Utah students (xls) had reported scores. Let's not forget about the girls and underrepresented minorities, but since AP CS Exam Stats are being spun as a measure of CS education participation(pdf) and equity, let's not forget that pretty much everyone has been underrepresented if we look at the big AP CS picture. If only 29,555 AP CS scores were reported (xls) in 2013 for a HS population of about 16 million students, shouldn't the goal at this stage of the game really be CS education for all?"

 

[Blackking]

I think most of us have noticed this already w CS. I used to notice there wasn't too many black chicks swimming at the pool either.

What are we gonna do about these issues?

 

[Richard Wright]

Most of us will never take AP at all.

Low key AP has been the new "tracking" all along. This relates to socio-economic-status and the availability of choices.

There are levels to this. I went to a really good public school in a poor district. No choice to take AP cs, but I got 20 credits out of hs. I didnt really get to choose any of my classes tbh.

At the worst schools in my district, kids generally graduate about a year behind even getting the pre reqs for this, most kids (1/4 BM graduate, 1/2 of all students graduate) only go up to earth science, which i took in 8th grade, and maybe geometry.

In the schools in the rich suburbs, even bad students get to choose from among 20-30 AP classes. They have tutors.

As I said tracking has not gone away. However, the days of the vocational tracking and educational are over. The new tracks are minimum wage, jail, and college. I hope the expansion of cs education can change that, but this leads to the second issue I see with what happened in this article.

The digital divide is real and growing. The poor may have mobile if they are lucky, the middle class kid has like 5 connected devices. How can someone take AP cs if they use their mom's iphone 3 to check their facebook?

All this while the cities the poor live in lose revenue. The city can not make up the technology gap, so the district loses more funding, and more prisons are built.


I am inspired now to expand AP cs to buffalo public schools, in some way, Im gonna talk to a prof about it when the semester starts back up. CS has changed my life for the better and the more of us taking this exam the better the future will be for our people.

 

[DEAD7]

I think most of us have noticed this already w CS. I used to notice there wasn't too many black chicks swimming at the pool either.

What are we gonna do about these issues?

Hopefully nothing... I still dont get whats inherently wrong with a lack of diversity, or inherently good about it.

 

[blackzeus]

So let me get this straight, these studies were done in Wyoming and Utah? And we're supposed to be surprised? And what percentage of White chicks take AP CS exams? This is so f*cking stupid. Are AP CS classes even majority white anymore?

 

[superunknown23]

Pointless thread.
There were only 8-10 girls in my Aerospace Engineering graduating class (about 60 students). I was one of 3 blacks, which seemed to be a record (the following year there was zero).

 

[TLOL is back]

People have different interests. Big fukking deal.

 

[Richard Wright]

People have different interests. Big fukking deal.

This is the field that is taking over all of the others though

 

[TLOL is back]

This is the field that is taking over all of the others though

Yeah, and studies show that we can't predict someone's happiness based on salary alone. Whether they enjoy their job though, well that is a better predictor. Let people do what they want.

 

[Richard Wright]

Yeah, and studies show that we can't predict someone's happiness based on salary alone. Whether they enjoy their job though, well that is a better predictor. Let people do what they want.

So if young people only want to eat junk food and watch tv we should let them? So if someone does not even know they would like CS, EE, accounting or whatever because they have not been exposed to it they should be disqualified from doing it?

The fact that you equate important education with salary alone says enough.

You do realize some people in this country do not have the opportunities you/I have had?

 

[TLOL is back]

So if young people only want to eat junk food and watch tv we should let them?

Not going into a specific field is not the same as directly harming yourself.

So if someone does not even know they would like CS, EE, accounting or whatever because they have not been exposed to it they should be disqualified from doing it?

Nobody said anything about disqualifying people.

The fact that you equate important education with salary alone says enough.

You do realize some people in this country do not have the opportunities you/I have had?

I agree that there should be equal exposure so everyone can make an informed choice. Lack of opportunity does not explain gender differences in this area (which is what I'm mainly responding to).

 

[ltheghost]

I mean...the survey was done in Utah...I'm not expecting too many minorities to be involved in Utah..lol

 

[yoyoyo1]

randomly post articles in threads for no reason brehs

 

[Richard Wright]

Not going into a specific field is not the same as directly harming yourself.





Nobody said anything about disqualifying people.



I agree that there should be equal exposure so everyone can make an informed choice. Lack of opportunity does not explain gender differences in this area (which is what I'm mainly responding to).

Oh

 

[semtex]

I didn't even know what programming was in high school. Graduating with a software engineering degree in May.