Review by Jacob Pleasants

The Battle for the Soul of Computer Science Education

Coding Kids begins with the story of two competing visions for Computer Science in K-12 schools. In one corner is Jane Margolis, a scholar of STEM education (and friend of CoT!) with a longstanding interest in the problems of underrepresentation within STEM fields. When she turned her attention to Computer Science, she focused her attention on understanding why women and students of color were being driven away from the field. With her collaborators, she developed an approach to teaching Computer Science that was focused less on coding and more on understanding computational systems, especially those that influence the everyday lives of students. She documented successes with the approach, but it proceeded at the pace of careful academic research.

In the other corner is Hadi Partovi, an industry insider looking to do some good. Bringing a Silicon Valley orientation to the work, he set out to get coding into schools. Unlike Margolis, he already had the solution, he just needed to sell it. He founded Code.org, created a viral video promoting the power of coding, gathered corporate donors, and launched the “hour of code” campaign. With his connections, he even got Barack Obama to write some code. Without question, Partovi was largely successful in his efforts, and did so at the pace and scale of the tech industry, largely swamping the slower and more deliberate efforts of Margolis and other longtime educators and researchers.

As well-intentioned as Partovi seems to be, his corporate-backed and fast-moving approach has had deep consequences for Computer Science education in the United States (and globally). It gave tech companies a foothold in Computer Science curricula that is truly unlike what we see in any other school subject. Coding Kids tells the story of how it happened, its consequences for schools, its impacts on students, and what the future may hold. 

Importantly, though, the book is not only about Computer Science. There’s a bigger story here about how the tech industry wields its power to influence schools. 

Computer Science, Brought to You By…

Would we accept a Chemistry curriculum sponsored by DuPont? Or a Biology curriculum developed by Monsanto? Well, actually, there is something of a precedent. In a particularly illuminating chapter, Singer recounts corporate efforts to worm their way into the curriculum, which reached a crescendo in the 1970s. In fact, it rose to such a level that it drew the attention of the Nader center (of Unsafe at Any Speed fame), which published a wonderfully-named report: “Hucksters in the Classroom: A Review of Industry Propaganda in Schools.” 

Today, we have fortunately left behind such gems as “Mr. Peanut’s Guide to Nutrition” and “Cooking with Dr. Pepper,” and most core subject area classrooms are relatively free of corporate branding. But not so for Computer Science:

“One of Google’s early computer science education programs is a fascinating case in point: When a tech giant applies its might and scale, even genuinely well-meaning local programs that help teach students new sills can end up as a global exercise in company self-promotion.” (p. 180)

Here, Singer is referring to “CS First,” a coding club for elementary and middle school students. It was initially launched in South Carolina to give back to local communities where Google had built several data centers, and it was well received. It quickly spread. Many teachers appreciated the support that Google provided, and no doubt many students benefited from the experience. But as Singer shows, even a seemingly benign program will inevitably be warped by its corporate benefactor. Whatever else it may be, a program like CS First must serve the interests of Google. 

Throughout the book, Singer draws parallels to the pharmaceutical industry (her previous beat) and their relationship with medical education. The medical profession has learned some important lessons over the years. We now know that even something as seemingly trivial as a drugmaker buying lunch for some medical residents can influence their prescribing practices. We know that providing training on specific company’s medical devices means that doctors will end up using that company’s devices for years to come. When medical technology companies are the providers of “education,” it turns out to be an incredibly lucrative investment. Which is why the medical profession has implemented rules to clamp down on such practices.

We see the very same tactics being deployed for Computer Science education. But it appears that we have yet to learn the right lessons.

The Future is Not Determined

Computer Science is not yet a standard school subject on par with, say, Biology or Chemistry. But it has made considerable inroads and, in some states, has been fully established as a required part of schooling. This is no small feat. And while many people have worked to bring about this change (including educators like Jane Margolis), the influence of the tech industry looms large. Coding Kids shows that Computer Science education could have been, and could yet be, many different things. It could be oriented toward developing coding skills, understanding the digital networks that underlie so much of our lives, and/or investigating the political and economic structures surrounding those systems. As the push for Computer Science education shifts its emphasis towards AI, the question of what form it will take becomes even more pressing. We know what the tech companies’ answers are. We do not have to go along with their vision.

Coda

As a science educator, the ongoing push for Computer Science education has affected my subject areas. One of the tactics used by promoters of Computer Science has been to shoehorn its content into the natural sciences, not as a distinct subject but rather as a set of “practices” that should be integrated into Biology/Chemistry/etc. Thus, “Computational Thinking” (Singer writes informatively about the origins of this term) has made its way into the most recent science standards.

This has not exactly been welcomed by educators in my field, and my own feelings are mixed. On the one hand, expanding the scope of the science standards creates important opportunities to teach about technology – something I obviously value. But on the other hand, it’s easy for Computational Thinking to wind up being just another set of technical skills. This, of course, is the very same divergence of purpose that Singer writes about. It’s just that in this case, it is playing out within already-existing science subjects. It also mirrors some very longstanding debates about the purpose of science education more broadly. These questions are never settled.