Equity for Massachusetts Students' CS Education

Abstract

Since the mid-2000s, Massachusetts has endeavored to increase access to CS education for all of the state's K-12 public school students. During this period, those driving Massachusetts's efforts to develop a coherent and systemic approach to CS education have recognized the critical importance of grounding their work in a commitment to equity. Efforts within Massachusetts have largely focused on increasing the availability of CS courses in high schools across the state and, simultaneously, on developing a cadre of CS teachers to offer these courses. This paper offers an assessment of the state's early-stage progress toward achieving its goals with respect to equity. We report on statistics comparing 2006 and 2016 for Massachusetts students on the Educational Testing Service's AP Computer Science A exam (AP CS A), and data from the first two years of administration of CSP (2017-2018). The analysis yields some "good news" with respect to trends toward closing the gap for participation in AP CS test-taking by females and by Black and Latinx students, but some "not so good news" with respect to performance data. Using Massachusetts as a case study, the paper considers implications of these data for revisiting strategies for addressing inequities in CS education.