Coding instruction begins in elementary school in California’s Compton USD to prepare students to succeed with STEM technology in the ever-changing high-tech job market.
Grants have allowed Compton USD leaders to create an ed-tech feeder pattern that runs from elementary schools, where specialized coding coaches supplement STEM instruction for the district’s youngest students, all the way up to high school, Superintendent Darin Brawley says.
“By the time they leave us, the opportunity gap related to brown and African-American students is eliminated so they can compete,” Brawley says.
In Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools, building a local talent pipeline for STEM fields was a key goal of free coding camps offered this summer to middle schoolers.
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The more than 900 students in the Montgomery Can Code online courses—taught by Montgomery College instructors—focused on app development using Apple’s Swift platform.
Administrators recruited students from underrepresented backgrounds and children living in poverty to participate. In fact, students from the district’s highest-poverty school got the chance to sign up first, says Scott W. Murphy, director of the Department of Secondary Curriculum and Districtwide Programs.
“We want to light a spark into IT and open access to students who may not have had these experiences before,” Murphy says.
Read the other stories in our series on the future of work:
