Planning: CE21 Maryland - Building Community and Knowledge to Increase Statewide Support for Computing Education

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The University of Maryland, Baltimore County will gather data about the status of Computer Science education in Maryland high schools and build relationships among high school teachers, community college and university faculty, and state education administrators to facilitate and increase state-level support for lasting improvements to computing education. Despite the overall success of the K-12 education system in Maryland, opportunities to study computer science vary tremendously among the 24 school systems and approximately 200 high schools in the state. This disparity can be attributed to several factors, including the lack of a state-mandated computer science high school graduation requirement, the fact that there is no state-required teacher certification in the discipline, the absence of a standardized computer science curriculum, and barriers to entry for girls and underrepresented minorities.In this CE21 Planning project, the interdisciplinary team at UMBC will focus on two main goals: (1) performing an assessment of the current state of high school computer science in each of the 24 Maryland school systems and (2) increasing knowledge about national issues associated with computer science education among high school and state administrators in Maryland, through state-wide summit meetings for teachers, administrators, and higher education faculty. The longer term objective of this work is to develop curriculum and teacher development programs that will improve the quality, breadth, and student diversity of computer science education in Maryland.