vjpgo

I am a software engineer I have kids in school now. They had access to learning software for all subjects including programming like stuff. They are good students and have been in honors classes. However, they have been basically driven from math by teaching styles and methods used in US schools. My kids have ability to excel in Math (and computer Science), BUT both have had teachers so strict and harsh in Math teaching that the are already thinking they do not want to pursue careers in Math related fields (Sad).

I see this, and the fact that there are many other potential career options, as a reason for drop in kids pursuing Computer Science as College path. Are you (Code.org) doing anything to change this? If not, how can you really raise your percentages of CS students in US?

There are opportunities, I live in San Diego and there are more software / IT jobs here than people to fill them. My small company alone has 5+ software type jobs and many other technically related. That said right now, without a degree in CS or related, you will not get paid more that you could get in many other jobs. Can we change that?

Right, but don't those 4 jobs need CS degrees? How do we get kids to go that way? How can we change mind set in USA that Math (and coding) are too hard unless you are really smart?

<<People all know US is behind in math/science,>> If we do not fix this first, how can we get kids interested in CS?

Isn't it a risk to have our kids spend extra time on programming sites, when they need high scores in all classes, AP classes, volunteer work, etc. to get to college these days? The only way to get my kids to see software development as something other that sitting in front of screen for extra hours cranking out the code, is to have them sit in front of screen when young and code. Then they still have to do all the other stuff (regular school, sports, volunteer, etc). Don’t we need to make a fundamental change in education?