Washington Governor Jay Inslee today signed into law HB 1472, which directs school districts to award a math or science credit to students who complete an AP Computer Science class.
We disagree with many aspects of the motivation as described in the Governor’s news release – “This bill will help students train for high-paying jobs in the technology industry and start addressing our state’s computer programmer shortage” is one of the least compelling reasons to encourage kids to study computer science” in our view.
But for our own reasons – the deep intellectual substance, “change the world” potential, and ubiquity in the modern world of computer science and computational thinking – we certainly support treating AP computer science as a core element of STEM education.
Read the Governor’s news release here.