By Katy Murphy and Sharon Noguchi Bay Area News Group
December 13, 2015 | Contra Costa Times
Claire Shorall, teacher and computer science manager for the Oakland Unified School District, helps some of her students on a coding exercise in their computer science class at Castlemont High School in Oakland, Calif., on Friday, Dec. 4, 2015. Shorall co-teaches the class with full-time teacher Mana Jabbour. The school district has dramatically expanded the computer science offerings this year. (Laura A. Oda/Bay Area News Group)
It’s the backbone of Silicon Valley’s world-changing tech industry, but — like journalism and geography — computer science is considered just another high school elective by the University of California.
Now, a powerful coalition of technology leaders, state politicians and high school teachers has taken aim at the university’s influential set of high school courses required for admission, pressuring UC to count computer science as advanced math, alongside calculus and statistics.
They say elevating computer science would encourage more California high schools to offer it — and more students to sign up, preparing them to enter fields with few women and minorities.