2023 State of Computer Science Report Highlights Record Growth, Urgent Areas for Improvement

Code.org, CSTA and the ECEP Alliance Release Annual Report on the State of Computer Science Education, Urge States to Adopt Policies to Ensure Equitable Access for All Students

SEATTLE, Nov. 1, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Code.org, the Computer Science Teachers Association, and the Expanding Computing Education Pathways Alliance released the 2023 State of Computer Science Education.

Published annually, the report provides a comprehensive analysis of national progress in computer science education, featuring national and state-level policy and implementation data with a focus on high school data. It puts forward ten policy recommendations to make computer science foundational to K-12 education.

"AI is on the mind of every educator across the world asking: How will it change education and the workforce?" said Cameron Wilson, president of Code.org. "Exposing students to computer science and AI education can answer these questions. We've made remarkable progress in 2023, but without graduation requirements for computer science, students from diverse backgrounds are going to miss out on this fundamental knowledge."

Key Findings

• 2023 is the year of the largest growth in the percentage of high schools offering foundational computer science since 2018. 57.5% of U.S. public high schools offer foundational computer science (up from 53% last year), but disparities in access persist.
• Across 35 states, 5.8% of high school students are enrolled in foundational computer science.
• Eight states have passed a graduation policy: Arkansas, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
• More than $120 million was allocated for computer science in state budgets when this report was published in 2023, the most ever allocated in one year.
• States that have adopted at least seven policy recommendations have 73% of their high schools offering foundational computer science, compared with 50% in states that adopted fewer than seven policies.

Computer Science as a Graduation Requirement
In June, the Code.org Advocacy Coalition officially adopted computer science as a graduation requirement as the tenth policy recommendation after a thoughtful look at how to change the trajectory of computer science education and to open doors of opportunity to all students.

This year, three additional states adopted a graduation requirement—North Carolina, North Dakota, and Rhode Island—joining Arkansas, Nebraska, Nevada, South Carolina, and Tennessee as the eight states that have begun implementing this policy.

Impact of Statewide Policies
Statewide policies create a sustainable and equitable computer science education environment, and the ten policies recommended by the Code.org Advocacy Coalition have accelerated the availability of computer science opportunities across schools nationwide. States that have adopted at least seven policies have 73% of their high schools offering foundational computer science, compared with 50% in states that adopted fewer than seven policies.

View the full report findings here.

About the Code.org Advocacy Coalition
Bringing together more than 70 industry, non-profit, and advocacy organizations, the Code.org Advocacy Coalition is growing the movement to make computer science a fundamental part of K–12 education.

About the CSTA
The Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) is a membership organization that supports and promotes the teaching of computer science. CSTA provides opportunities for K–12 teachers and their students to better understand computer science and to more successfully prepare themselves to teach and learn.

About the Expanding Computing Education Pathways Alliance
The Expanding Computing Education Pathways (ECEP) Alliance is an NSF-funded Broadening Participation in Computing Alliance (NSF-CNS-1822011). ECEP seeks to increase the number and diversity of students in computing and computing-intensive degrees by promoting state-level computer science education reform. Working with the collective impact model, ECEP supports an alliance of 22 states and Puerto Rico to identify and develop effective educational interventions and expand state-level infrastructure to drive educational policy change.

SOURCE Code.org