Wednesday, January 15, 2014

America's Tech Future

This is interesting:
The pipeline of students who will be tomorrow's tech leaders is alarmingly vanilla.

According to a new analysis of test-takers, not a single girl, African-American or Hispanic student took the computer science Advanced Placement test in Mississippi or Montana last year. More than a third of the population in Mississippi is black...

There are 11 states where not a single African-American took the test, and eight states where no Hispanics sat for the exam.

We're not talking here about people who passed or didn't pass, either. We're talking about people who simply took the test, which means African-Americans, Hispanics and girls aren't enrolling in AP computer science classes in the first place.
I'm sure there are some ready to cry racism here but feel compelled to echo Newsalert's snark:
The "diversity experts" tell us a companies can't succeed without diversity in gender and skin color: so someone will have to program those computers even if they are "alarmingly white". No word yet on whether the National Journal feels that public school teachers are "alarmingly female". Since, we all know registered Republicans control inner city public education: this must be a plot by Republicans to steer minorities away from the computer science field. 
Yeah, what he said :)

1 comment:

Auntie Ann said...

At our 13-year-old's private school, I think about 80% of the boys take programing, while less than 50% of the girls do (still a high number though.) She's took the first course this year, and will probably keep going. She enjoys it.

I like the way it forces you to think logically and keep lots of balls in the air at one time. It's great brain training.