TITLE: AP Computer Science in Iowa High Schools
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: July 18, 2013  2:22 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
Mark Guzdial posted
<A HREF="http://computinged.wordpress.com/2013/07/18/in-massachusetts-schools-computer-science-students-are-still-the-outliers-the-boston-globe/">
   a blog entry</A>
this morning pointing to a Boston Globe piece,
<A HREF="http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/07/02/massachusetts-schools-computer-science-students-are-still-outliers/uRCVAedtFIWd7FM0AlnN8L/story.html">
   Interest in computer science lags in Massachusetts schools</A>.
Among the data supporting this assertion was participation
in Advanced Placement:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 Of the 85,753 AP exams taken by Massachusetts students last
 year, only 913 were in computing.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Those numbers are a bit out of context, but they got me to
wondering about the data for Iowa.  So I tracked down this
page on
<A HREF="http://research.collegeboard.org/programs/ap/data/participation/2012">
   AP Program Participation and Performance Data 2012</A>
and clicked through to the state summary report for Iowa.
The numbers are even more dismal than Massachusetts's.

Of the 16,413 AP exams taken by Iowa students in 2012, only
sixty-nine were in computer science.  The counts for groups
generally underrepresented in computing were unsurprisingly
small, given that Iowa is less diverse than many US states.
Of the sixty-nine, fifty-four self-reported as "white", ten
as "Asian", and one as "Mexican-American", with four not
indicating a category.

The most depressing number of all: only nine female students
took the AP Computer Science exam last year in Iowa.

Now, Massachusetts has roughly 2.2 times as many people as
Iowa, but even so Iowa compares unfavorably.  Iowans took
about one-fifth as many AP exams as many Massachusetts
students, and for CS the percentage drops to 7.5%.  If AP
exams indicate much about the general readiness of a state's
students for advanced study in college, then Iowa is at a
disadvantage.

I've never been a huge proponent of the AP culture that seems
to dominate many high schools these days (see, for instance,
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2013-03.html#e2013-03-30T08_43_09.htm">
   this piece</A>),
but the low number of AP CS exams taken in Iowa is consistent
with what I hear when I talk to HS students from around the
state and their parents:  Iowa schools are not teaching much
computer science at all.  The university is the first place
most students have an opportunity to take a CS course, and by
then the battle for most students' attention has already been
lost.  For a state with a declared goal of growing its promising
IT sector, this is a monumental handicap.

Those of us interested in broadening participation in CS face an
even tougher challenge.  Iowa's demographics create some natural
challenges for attracting minority students to computing.  And
if the AP data are any indication, we are doing a horrible job
of reaching women in our high schools.

There is much work to do.
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