Impact of the CPS Computer Science Graduation Policy on Student Access and Outcomes

In this episode I unpack McGee, Dettori, and Rasmussen’s (2022) publication titled “Impact of the CPS computer science graduation policy on student access and outcomes,” which explores the impact of a computer science graduation requirement in Chicago Public Schools.

  • Welcome back to another episode of the

    csk8 podcast my name is Jared O'Leary

    each week of this podcast is either an

    interview with a guest or multiple

    guests or a solo episode where I unpack

    some scholarship in relation to Computer

    Science Education in this week's

    particular episode I'm unpacking a paper

    titled impact of the CPS computer

    science graduation policy on student

    access and outcomes this paper was

    written by Stephen McGee Lucia datori

    and Andrew rasmusen apologies if I

    mispronounced any names here's the

    executive summary for this paper quote

    the Chicago Public Schools CPS leads the

    nation in computer science education

    each year 14 000 Chicago public school

    students graduate with at least one year

    of computer science this is the result

    of a graduation requirement that CPS

    enacted in 2016. the foundational course

    that most students completed to fulfill

    the requirement is exploring computer

    science ECS this evaluation of the

    impact of the graduation requirement was

    framed around the cape framework to

    ensure that a district supports equal

    outcomes in computer science they need

    to develop capacity for schools to offer

    computer science increase access to

    computer science ensure equal

    participation and then examine how

    computer science experiences lead to

    equal outcomes the analysis was

    conducted through a cme-funded summer

    fellowship program which included

    Advanced graduate students and early

    career researchers they found the

    following results the ECS professional

    development program supported a rapid

    expansion of school capacity after the

    enactment of the graduation requirement

    at the time the graduation requirement

    was enacted roughly half of the schools

    did not offer any computer science and

    two-third did not have sufficient

    capacity to support computer science for

    all students larger schools with fewer

    low-income students and a strong

    college-going climate were more likely

    to offer computer science just before

    the enactment of the graduation

    requirement access to computer science

    expanded significantly after the

    computer science graduation requirement

    participation in computer science

    significantly increased across all

    demographic groups after the graduation

    requirement by the time the second

    cohort graduated after the requirement

    the demographics of students taking

    computer science matched the

    demographics of the district students's

    experiences with ECS led to equivalent

    course performance between students

    taking ECS before and after the

    enactment of the graduation requirement

    the number of students pursuing computer

    science Pathways in CPS doubled after

    the enactment of the graduation

    requirement end quote that summarizes

    paper into a single sentence I'd say

    that this paper explores the impact of

    computer science graduation requirements

    in Chicago public schools now if you

    want to find a direct link to this paper

    itself make sure you check out these

    show notes at jaredolui.com and just go

    to the Computer Science Education

    content on there there's a bunch of

    content in terms of gaming and drumming

    content so check out that if you're

    interested in it but make sure you check

    out the cska podcast shown notes you can

    even just click the link in the app that

    you're listening to the song it'll take

    you directly to this so you can read

    this paper which I do highly recommend

    doing so the intro this paper discusses

    how they were one of the first districts

    to adopt the exploring computer science

    curriculum this was in 2012 and so they

    did a four year pilot program and then

    in 2016 they required that all students

    participate in ECS exploring computer

    science as a graduation requirement and

    so this paper is going to explore what

    is the impact of that so in section 1.1

    which is titled the Chicago Alliance for

    equity and computer science they kind of

    talk about the history of the program so

    if you're interested in that I highly

    recommend checking out that particular

    paper or rather that section of the

    paper now section two is on the methods

    so the data that they use was student

    demographic data computer science

    enrollment and outcomes teacher

    demographic data teacher preparation

    data and data about school

    characteristics and that is directly

    pulled from page two and on page three

    they talk about the cape framework which

    is organized around four different

    questions and so the cape framework is

    an acronym so c-a-p-e so C stands for

    capacity a stands for Access P stands

    for participation and E stands for

    experience so here are the four kind of

    guiding questions for this particular

    paper quote how did cps's capacity to

    offer computer science change after the

    graduation requirement was enacted two

    how did access to computer science

    courses changed after the graduation

    requirement was enacted three how did

    participation in computer science change

    after the graduation requirement was

    enacted four how consistent were the

    student experience in and outcomes from

    their computer science courses before

    and after the enactment of the

    graduation requirement to answer this

    question they had six different fellows

    come in and these were like early career

    Scholars graduate students and so they

    kind of like each would work on a

    different section of the cape framework

    and analyze it all right so Section 3 is

    on the results and 3.1 talks about the

    graduations requirements impact on

    capacity so prior to the graduation

    requirement they had a net average of

    about 15 computer science teachers

    being added each year either through

    professional development or through

    earning some kind of an endorsement of

    teaching computer science but in the

    first four years after the graduation

    requirement Chicago Public Schools

    averaged a net increase of 38 teachers

    per year either through professional

    development or through an endorsement so

    that rate was more than double what they

    were previously doing before the

    graduation requirements so they're able

    to do better with meeting capacity

    within that period of time after the

    graduation requirement in addition by

    which is a school type that is kind of

    like discussed in the paper itself 82 of

    them were able to meet capacity and this

    Compares with in 2015 2016 it was 22 and

    then four years prior that it was only

    three percent so that's a huge increase

    if we go back uh several years from

    three percent all the way up to 82

    percent and then for the other school

    types in the district the stem schools

    had 100 capacity and then the selective

    schools had all but one school so this

    was around 90 capacity now here's an

    interesting quote from page five to

    consider quote it is important to note

    that CPS would not have been able to

    achieve the goal of computer science for

    all students if it had relied solely on

    fully endorsed computer science teachers

    in the first year of the taste of

    computing project one capacity to offer

    computer science was limited more than

    two-thirds of the computer science

    teachers were fully endorsed by the time

    the computer science graduation

    requirement was enacted in school year

    science teachers were fully endorsed by

    the time the first cohort of students

    subject to the graduation requirements

    graduated in 2020 less than 40 percent

    of the teachers were fully endorsed end

    quote so when it started it was more

    than 66 percent and now after a few

    years of the graduation requirement it's

    all the way down to 40 percent so

    meaning the majority of the teachers do

    not have like full computer science

    endorsements which full disclosure I

    don't have a computer science

    endorsement when I was still teaching in

    Arizona this was several years ago they

    did not have have a computer science

    endorsement so it was basically for the

    Elementary classes that I was working in

    and the K-8 classes so kindergarten all

    the way up through eighth grade they did

    not have any kind of requirement so it

    was really kind of up to the principal

    or superintendent or whomever to

    determine whether or not I was qualified

    enough to actually teach in the

    classroom but now they do have a

    computer science endorsement in Arizona

    and I haven't signed up for it because

    I'm not teaching in the classroom

    anymore and I don't really need to worry

    about that so if your initial reaction

    is I don't know about this if they're

    not endorsed then they can't be good

    well I mean maybe it kind of depends I

    know some people who are endorsed that

    aren't very good at whatever subject

    area and then people who are not that

    are phenomenal at it some of the best

    teachers I've had don't even have

    degrees in whatever subject area they

    are teaching or in teaching in general

    so section 3.2 talks about how the

    graduation requirement impacted access

    to computer science courses so let's

    take a look at this figure two and this

    is a figure from page six so when they

    enacted graduation requirement 100 of

    the stem classes the students had access

    to it okay that continued throughout but

    for the selective schools about 90 of

    them only had access but by the end of

    this uh current study or where this was

    published it is a hundred percent and

    then for the neighborhood schools it was

    like around 45 or so of students had

    access and then it goes all the way up

    to just under 100 in the in neighborhood

    schools at the time that they published

    this article now here's an interesting

    caveat to that dative this is from page

    six quote on the strength of cps's

    capacity building efforts the number of

    schools offering at least one computer

    science class in the year after the

    graduation requirement was enacted more

    than doubled by school year 2020 all the

    stem schools all the selective

    enrollment schools and all but one of

    the neighborhood schools offered at

    least one computer science class the one

    neighborhood school that did not offer a

    computer science class instead waived

    all their students due to their particip

    innovation in CTE programs end quote

    okay so CTE is Career and Technical

    education at least that's the most

    common acronym for that if you're

    unfamiliar with it all right so in other

    words basically everybody would have had

    it but that one school happened to waive

    it because maybe they're doing similar

    Concepts or practices in their CTE

    requirements I don't know so as a result

    of this graduation requirement and as a

    result of the capacity building efforts

    basically this said that all of the high

    schools had access to computer science

    classes okay so if we have the teacher

    capacity if we have access through the

    courses being offered how does this

    impact the participation after the

    graduation requirement was enacted so

    this is where question 3.3 comes into

    play on page seven so what they expected

    is that if everyone was required to

    participate then the demographics of the

    classes should reflect the demographics

    of the school which makes sense because

    everyone's basically being required to

    be there here's a quote from page seven

    quote the overall participation rates

    were 84 percent and 80 33 respectively

    roughly 17 percent of each cohort were

    eligible to receive a waiver from

    completing a computer science class

    those students were participating in a

    CTE program the IB program or similar

    career oriented or College Prep program

    end quote now when it came to the

    demographics when it was race and

    ethnicity the numbers that were before

    this graduation requirement was enacted

    the Asian population was higher than

    average and then when it was enacted it

    mostly was about the same or equal

    representation that matched the

    demographics of the district itself

    quote with a few exceptions highlighted

    in red the percent representation of

    Asian black Hispanic and white students

    taking computer science was within two

    percent of their representation in CPS

    overall end quote in other words it was

    like pretty close so that's great now

    when it came to the gender demographics

    they noted that consistently before and

    after the graduation requirements that

    there were higher percentage or

    population of males attending these

    classes than there were for female and

    there was no demographic data data for

    non-binary students which makes sense

    because a lot of school districts don't

    collect that and even though I don't

    appreciate it as a non-binary individual

    that's just kind of how things are at

    this moment so if you are also a

    researcher I highly recommend

    encouraging districts to collect

    non-binary or trans data outside of just

    male and female for gender here's a

    quote from pages eight and nine quote

    throughout the period prior to the

    enactment of the graduation requirement

    there was an average of 8.5 percent

    difference between the representation of

    computer science students who identified

    as female and the representation of all

    CPS students who identified as female

    after the enactment of the computer

    science graduation requirement the Gap

    in representation had narrowed to two

    percent or less end quote so that's also

    an excellent little bit of data right

    there one of the things that I really

    appreciate about this report is they

    talk about students with their

    disabilities participating in the

    computer science classes so this is in

    section 3.3.1 so they specifically focus

    on six different categories and this is

    from page nine the categories were

    autism deaf or hearing impaired

    emotional disability intellectual

    disability learning disability and other

    health impairment overall after the

    graduation requirements there was a

    significant increase statistically

    speaking between all of these different

    categories however here's a quote from

    page 10 quote five of the six most

    prevalent categories of IEPs had

    equivalent participation rates for the

    first cohort subject to the graduation

    requirement and were close to the cohort

    participation rate for all CPS students

    students with emotional disabilities had

    lower cohort participation rates than

    the other five most prevalent IEP

    categories in the first two cohorts

    subject to the graduation rate end quote

    so in other words the emotional

    disability students did not have as much

    participation in the computer science

    classes as the other disability

    categories and that's really interesting

    I'm curious as to why that is the case

    all right so now let's talk about the

    graduation requirements impact on

    experience so this is 3.4 part so here's

    a quote from page 10 quote computer

    science course grades were higher than

    the other subject areas during the time

    when computer science was an elective

    class did the rapid expansion of

    computer science in CPS impact the

    quality of outcomes that have been

    achieved under the taste of computing

    program end quote

    I am not sure what they mean by that

    particular statement there and the

    reason why I'm kind of like raising some

    questions there is I'm not sure how you

    can really compare across different

    subject areas across different grades

    Etc it doesn't necessarily mean that

    like students enjoy it more or are doing

    better or worse it could just mean that

    like the assessments that are being used

    are easier or harder in some subject

    areas than in others I don't know

    there's too many variables here or

    factors to consider that I'm not really

    sure what that means but they're citing

    a paper that I probably need to read in

    order to really understand what those

    like two sentences mean but diving a

    little bit deeper in 3.4.1 they talk

    about the comparison of exploring

    Computer Science grades before and after

    the graduation requirement so they found

    no statistically significant difference

    between the before and after grades for

    exploring computer science which I'm I

    mean that makes sense I don't know why a

    graduation requirement would necessarily

    impact the grades in there but to argue

    with myself it prior to this it was

    students who were electing to take it

    and now it was students who were

    required to attend this and those are

    two very different categories so when

    you are teaching a class where students

    are electing to participate or are

    paying to participate that is like night

    and day different than students who are

    required to be there in terms of like

    whether or not they're going to be

    engaged so that is an actually very

    interesting finding because it

    demonstrates that exploring computer

    science whether you choose to be there

    or required to be there is an effective

    course to participate in and if you want

    to learn more about the exploring

    computer science curriculum I highly

    recommend checking out the interview

    that I did with Joanna good it is a

    fantastic conversation and I'll include

    a link to that in the show notes at

    jaredelary.com here's an interesting

    quote from page 10 quote fam found

    students who identified as female

    achieved higher grades in ECS than

    students who identify as male students

    who identify as Hispanic and black

    achieved lower grades than students who

    identified as Asian and white end quote

    now I can only kind of like speculate as

    to why that is but there's a lot of

    research that kind of talks about why

    different demographic categories perform

    better or worse in school in general and

    I think those would probably apply here

    and as a lot of it just has to do with

    like structural inequalities that are

    placed into it and here's one more quote

    on this particular discussion from page

    policy enactment period whether a

    teacher was at least partially qualified

    correlated with student course grades

    since almost two-thirds of the ECS

    teachers are endorsed in a subject other

    than computer science these results

    provide validation for the ECS

    professional development model teachers

    who participated in the workshop were

    able to overall support the same level

    of student achievement in ECS as those

    teachers who were fully endorsed in

    computer science end quote okay and I

    having spoken with Joanna good many

    times and again interviewed her on the

    podcast I really like ECS it sounds

    phenomenal but I don't know if we can

    necessarily say that it's the

    professional development model that led

    to this kind of success or if it's

    actually the curriculum itself that led

    to it and I say this because there are

    some curriculum providers and kind of

    really any subject area that I'm aware

    of where they kind of have like a

    curriculum in a box where they advertise

    it as well you don't even need to be

    qualified to teach this it does it for

    you and it takes out all of the

    difficulties of the teacher and it makes

    it so that students can learn on their

    own and so while that makes it a whole

    lot easier for the adult in room who is

    maybe teaching or not teaching it

    doesn't really make it so that it

    empowers a teacher to become an expert

    in that particular area so in this

    particular instance having not gone

    through ECS what I don't know is how

    much of it is the curriculum itself that

    is like making it so that students are

    having a great experience with this and

    then how much of it is the professional

    development that supports the teachers

    to be able to teach the curriculum or a

    combination of those two and again I

    don't know I have a feeling that it's

    both and that they both are supporting

    this just knowing the people involved

    with this particular curriculum who have

    created it but I'm not sure but the next

    subsection for this particular area is

    how the additional courses takings

    before and after the enactment of the

    graduation requirements so like did

    students continue to take computer

    science after the graduation requirement

    was enacted at a rate that was higher

    than before it was enacted here's a

    quote from page 11 quote overall about

    science class prior to the enactment of

    the graduation requirement took an

    additional computer science class after

    the enactment about 18 percent of

    students who completed a computer

    science class took an additional

    computer science class this increase in

    the probability of students taking an

    additional computer science class after

    the enactment of the computer science

    graduation requirement was small but

    statistically significant end quote a

    little bit further down on that page

    quote across all cohorts students who

    identified as female were 50 percent

    less likely to take additional computer

    science courses relative to students who

    identify as male in addition students

    who identify as Hispanic were 13 less

    likely to take additional computer

    science coursework relative to students

    who identify as students of other racial

    and ethnic backgrounds end quote I'm

    curious if they were to share the like

    the inverse of that the opposite of that

    where they're like for different racial

    demographics based off of like the data

    that they had on here in some of the

    earlier sections were Asian students

    more likely than other race and

    ethnicities to want to participate and I

    don't know but going back to the idea

    that only 17 participated before the

    graduation requirement to then 18 chose

    to participate after that that might be

    like okay whoop-dee-doo you got like a

    one percent increase like what how is

    that helpful well when it comes to the

    overall numbers if we think about how it

    was a small subset of students who are

    participating beforehand and then when

    the graduation requirement was enacted a

    larger population of people even if it

    stayed exactly at 17 you're still

    getting more students participating and

    therefore going to need even more

    computer science classes so from an

    advocacy standpoint you're increasing

    the numbers overall even if you are not

    increasing the percentage of people who

    participate so in the conclusion the

    authors talk about the Prosper framework

    which stands for programs research

    organizational structure and policy for

    Equitable results so I highly recommend

    taking a look at this particular section

    if you want to learn more about like the

    background of how they were doing this

    but here's an interesting quote that is

    from page 13. quote teachers are the

    most important ingredient to success

    schools should focus on capacity

    building before enacting significant

    policies end quote now this really

    really resonated with me so I haven't

    worked with like teachers around the

    country I can say that if you are

    obviously I'm going to make a policy

    change but you don't have the capacity

    in place it's it's the not really going

    to go anywhere pretty fast you have to

    really hit the ground running so like

    when I was still teaching in the K8

    classes in Avondale the superintendent

    made a shift so that all the K-8

    mandatory technology classes were going

    to 100 only teach coding classes not to

    support this rollout we had to have a

    full-time person who was dedicated to

    mentoring the computer science teachers

    in the district and that ended up being

    me in the second and third year that was

    in that District but in the first year

    it was somebody else and so in order to

    support that we had to have constant

    professional development for one or

    three hours each week to kind of like

    dive into the content knowledge to

    really understand how to do computer

    science before we could understand how

    to teach computer science so if you are

    really interested in kind of making this

    graduation requirement that's great but

    you're gonna need to have the capacity

    of teachers who can teach this in order

    to actually fulfill the uh like demand

    that's going to come from this so if

    you're going to all of a sudden have

    instead of like 20 students

    participating you're going to have 100

    students participating you're going to

    need teachers who are going to be able

    to help out with that and so again it

    sounds like exploring computer science

    is a great option for the classes in

    high school I've also heard some good

    things about the high school program for

    code.org leave it CS discoveries so I

    highly recommend taking a look at that

    as well but there are many options out

    there besides just doing like AP

    Computer Science you can do an intro

    course into computer science topics or

    like an app development course or

    whatever there are many different

    options out there hopefully this paper

    serves as kind of like a potential

    framework or a heuristic to think

    through if you're going to implement a

    graduation requirement in your District

    but I want to now to kind of talk about

    some of my lingering thoughts and

    questions which is something that I like

    to do at the end of these solo episodes

    so the first question that I have is

    just like I wish I had more data to get

    more granular about the impact so for

    instance what was the impact on students

    during high school and after graduation

    so how did their participation impact

    other subject areas like did their math

    scores change at all For Better or For

    Worse or did they say the same that

    would be really interesting to know

    whether or not computer science as a

    graduation requirement would have some

    kind of an impact on mathematics or

    science or I don't know whatever subject

    area did this also have any kind of

    impact on students pursuing Computing

    careers so while only the increase was

    from 17 to 18 did was there a higher

    likelihood of students who pursued a

    Computing career so even if there wasn't

    an increase in the number of students

    participating in classes after this

    integral course maybe it led to a higher

    rate of people who ended up pursuing

    some kind of a Computing career that

    would be really interesting to know how

    did this also impact the open job so if

    you look several years down the road or

    even like a decade from now how would

    this impact any of the open jobs in

    Computing but then to kind of like argue

    with that one of the things that has

    been really fascinating to see is the

    recent developments with AI in relation

    to Art and writing with like chat GPT

    and I'm curious are there going to be so

    many open jobs in the next decade or two

    and I don't know because with chat GPT

    it can actually write out some code for

    you depending on what kind of a prompt

    you give it and so rather than having to

    hire I don't know five programmers maybe

    you only hire one who is able to kind of

    like Outsource some of the writing

    process to chat GPT and they kind of do

    the refining or the editing of what the

    AI develops for them so you only need

    one person and maybe you pay them at a

    higher rate but it's not as much as if

    you had to pay five people I don't know

    we're really kind of at the

    nascent period of all of this in terms

    of AI and creativity and jobs and

    whatnot so it'd be really interesting to

    see a decade or two from now how things

    are going to be impacted but I guess

    that also kind of relates to one of the

    bigger arguments or rationales for why

    some people think computer science needs

    to be in the classroom is jobs well if

    there are not jobs down the road what is

    the advocacy like headline for Computer

    Science Education are we going to need

    one is computer science education going

    to be something that should be a core

    requirement I don't know maybe it's

    going to be computational literacies

    like I talked about in a previous

    podcast episode unpacking Cafe and

    Proctor's paper on that particular topic

    which is kind of like a more nuanced

    discussion on computational thinking so

    I highly recommend checking out that

    episode if you have not done so yet I'll

    include a link to that in the show notes

    at jaredolary.com so another question

    that I have or a lingering thought is

    how did this course require environment

    negatively impacts students so were

    there less electives or less of some

    other requirements like did they have

    one less math requirement like for

    instance when I was in high school I

    took two math classes in my junior year

    and the one of the reasons why is

    because I took a math classes like

    pre-calc or something and then the

    computer science class counted as a math

    credit so I was able to fulfill another

    credit by taking computer science maybe

    they instead of having like four math

    requirements they only had three and

    then they replaced it or maybe they

    added it in addition to that if that's

    the case did that then take away from

    another elective so like for myself it

    was very hard my freshman and sophomore

    more year to have electives because I

    was in band and I was going to be in

    band all four years and so that really

    limited the number of electives that I

    could take and it made it so that I

    could only take like typing class I

    think my freshman year and had no other

    electives outside of that but maybe they

    talk about this in other papers or in

    other writings but I I don't know based

    off of what I read and maybe I missed it

    so another question that I have is how

    might other districts support similar

    requirements in their schools so for

    example could districts partner with

    universities to prepare pre-service

    Educators again to build up that

    capacity that the authors highly

    recommend having or could you partner

    with PD providers who teach a person to

    fish rather than making you reliant on

    buying the same fish so again going back

    to like the curriculum in a box like are

    you creating a professional development

    experience that teaches that content

    knowledge and the pedagogical knowledge

    that is

    inclusive of identities or are you just

    providing a curriculum that does all

    that for the teacher and then in the end

    they don't actually learn the content

    knowledge they're just kind of

    facilitating without actually being able

    to teach anything I don't know so every

    district is going to be different in

    terms of how they end up implementing

    but it's going to be something that

    districts will need to consider if

    they're going to do some kind of a

    graduation requirement how will you be

    able to build up that capacity and there

    is no right or wrong way to do it it's

    just the you gotta spend some time

    really sitting through that and thinking

    through that the last question that I

    got is how might the district have

    achieved the same results without the

    graduation requirement so it's great

    that they had the impact but what other

    Solutions might exist without making

    schooling even more one size fits all

    through more requirements so in other

    words instead of making it so that

    everybody is kind of like coming out of

    high school with the same course

    requirements and experiences at the end

    of it are there ways that we could have

    had the same results without doing

    another graduation requirement or

    eliminating graduation requirements

    altogether across all subject areas and

    I know I've talked about this quite a

    bit and I currently have not had anyone

    on who has argued with me on this so I'm

    going to keep making this radical

    statement and hope that eventually

    somebody is going to come on this

    podcast episode and tell me what they

    think about why that would not work out

    well in the long run to be able to have

    individualized or customized or bespoke

    curricular experiences in K-12 or even

    higher education where students are able

    to walk out of it with individualized

    expertise rather than having the same

    general knowledge as everybody else

    around them I think employers are going

    to likely want to hire somebody who is

    very good at something to be able to do

    that thing for their organization rather

    than just a generalist where everybody

    kind of like who applies knows the same

    thing as everybody else but I don't know

    I'm I'm not really in that position

    where I'm having to make those kind of

    decisions or worry about that right now

    so that was my kind of quick summary of

    this paper itself and then some

    lingering questions or thoughts if you'd

    like to be a guest on this particular

    podcast feel free to contact me at

    jaredelary.com there is a contact me

    button up there and if you'd be so kind

    please consider sharing this episode

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    I have noticed that there have been some

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    you so much it helps more people find it

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    it retweeting it so we're reposting it

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    opportunities to help spread the word

    about the free resources at

    jaredillary.com and there's going to be

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    on them uh quite a bit in the last

    couple of weeks but I hope you all have

    a wonderful week I hope you all stay

    safe and stay tuned for next week for

    another episode

Article

McGee, S., Dettori, L., & Rasmussen, A.M. (2022). Impact of the CPS Computer Science Graduation Policy on Student Access and Outcomes [report]. Chicago, IL: The Learning Partnership. https://doi.org/10.51420/report.2022.4


Executive Summary

The Chicago Public Schools (CPS) leads the nation in computer science education. Each year 14,000 Chicago Public Schools students graduate with at least one year of computer science. This is the result of a graduation requirement that CPS enacted in 2016. The foundational course that most students completed to fulfill the requirement is Exploring Computer Science (ECS). This evaluation of the impact of the graduation requirement was framed around the CAPE framework. To ensure that a district supports equal outcomes in computer science, they need to develop Capacity for schools to offer computer science, increase Access to computer science, ensure equal Participation, and then examine how computer science Experiences lead to equal outcomes. The analysis was conducted through a CME-funded summer fellowship program, which included advanced graduate students and early career researchers. They found the following results. The ECS professional development program supported a rapid expansion of school Capacity after the enactment of the graduation requirement. At the time the graduation requirement was enacted, roughly half of the schools did not offer any computer science and 2/3 did not have sufficient capacity to support computer science for all students. Larger schools with fewer low-income students and a strong college going climate were more likely to offer computer science just before the enactment of the graduation requirement. Access to computer science expanded significantly after the computer science graduation requirement. Participation in computer science significantly increased across all demographic groups after the graduation requirement. By the time the 2nd cohort graduated after the requirement, the demographics of students taking computer science matched the demographics of the district. Students’ Experiences with ECS led to equivalent course performance between students taking ECS before and after the enactment of the graduation requirement. The number of students pursuing computer science pathways in CPS doubled after the enactment of the graduation requirement.


My One Sentence Summary

This white paper explores the impact of a computer science graduation requirement in Chicago Public Schools.


Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

  • What was the impact on students during high school and after graduation?

  • How did this course requirement negatively impact students?

  • How might other districts support similar requirements in their schools?

  • How might the district have achieved the same results without the graduation requirement?


Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode



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