School Level Computer Science Education and Computer Science Teacher Training in the US: An Overview and an Example Solution

Future economic growth and prosperity of the US rely heavily on the strength and skills of the IT and computing workforce that will be able to expand and maintain the nationwide IT infrastructure. Unfortunately, the drop in standard of school level CS education over the last several decades threatens the United States’ capability to expand and maintain the nationwide IT infrastructure. Recent studies show the quality of CS education falling far short of the standard set by the ACM, and CS teacher certification programs being available only in a minority of states in this country. The measures undertaken by the state of Georgia to improve school level CS education is described along with the structure and implementation of a CS teacher endorsement program by Columbus State University.