Schooling for Work: Computer Science Education and Skills for the New Digital Economy by Nora Reikosky

In his weekly presidential address to the American public on the morning of January 30th 2016, President Obama asserted, “In the new economy, computer science isn’t an optional skill—it’s a basic skill, right along with the three ‘Rs.’” By claiming that computer science (CS) education should be prioritized with the same importance as reading, writing, and arithmetic, Obama formally planted an executive stake in the ground. The Computer Science For All presidential initiative claimed it would “empower all American students from kindergarten through high school to learn computer science and be equipped with the computational thinking skills they need to be creators in the digital economy,” ensuring broad “economic opportunity and social mobility” (White House 2016). In charting the path for this expansion, Obama extended an invitation to the private sector for a greater partnership role within public education, noting the importance of “engaging CEOs, philanthropists, creative media, technology, and education professionals to deepen their CS commitments” (Obama 2016). On first blush, this call for more CS opportunities and expanded commitments from private sector actors to fulfill this access seems laudable. Yet scholars, educators, parents, and the public alike should evaluate both the risks of increased entanglement between the private sector and public education, and the limitations of K-12 schools as sites of career training for economic mobility, particularly in under-resourced schools that serve significant populations of historically marginalized students.

My primary concern here is about who is driving the discourse in favor of preparing students for future work—in technology careers or otherwise. To be clear, I take no issue with computer science education in and of itself. There are exciting possibilities for a robust CS curriculum that focuses on building comprehensive computational thinking and includes critical discussions of computing ethics, technological citizenship, and aesthetic creativity (Coleman 2013; Eubanks 2011; Morales-Navarro & Kafai 2022). Yet there is reason to be skeptical that the CS curriculum being developed and implemented is indeed this more robust version, particularly where it targets poor and racially minoritized students (Anderson 2016). Contemporary educators and even select technology professionals have voiced concerns about the substitution of skills training—in the form of coding or other strictly technical learning—for more comprehensive and critically engaged aspects of liberal education (Allen 2016; Anderson 2016; Berghel 2014; Dougherty & Lombardi 2016). A narrow technical education for some students may reinforce a stratified and segregated education, at worst inadvertently preparing certain students for technical jobs that may soon cease to exist, particularly as automation of technical tasks are performed by increasingly sophisticated AI, or otherwise exported to locales in the globalized economy where labor costs less. 

Philanthropists and corporations indeed rose to the occasion, rapidly initiating philanthropic relationships to expand CS education in Oakland Unified School District through partnerships with Code.org and Salesforce (2015), in Virginia through the CodeVA Amazon Future Engineer partnership (2019), and elsewhere. Since Obama’s initial pronouncement, the Trump and Biden administrations have continued the commitments outlined in CS For All (OSTP 2018), most recently reinforced through Biden’s national vision and strategy to “Transform and Enhance the U.S. STEMM Ecosystem” (White House 2022). Philanthropically funded, private intermediary organizations like the Expanding Computing Education Pathways (ECEP) Alliance and Code.org claim 23 U.S. states and territories have adopted or updated 35 polices to make computer science foundational. These private actors note that through their advocacy, 53% of high schools offered computer science in 2022, up from 35% in 2018. But their work won’t be finished until all states adopt CS policies for all students across K-12 (Code.org, et al. 2022). 

It is important to consider the ways powerful and wealthy actors, such as the philanthropists and corporate actors Obama called upon, might pursue their own economic and ideological ends by shaping education policies and practices, continually (re)positioning K-12 schools as sites for training future workers. As schooling for future work becomes an increasingly dominant and mainstream objective of public education, such a singular focus on human capital development can come at the expense of other educational aims (Allen 2016; Brighouse 2006; Dewey 1916; Gutmann 1987). Those who care about access and equality should be wary of the ways politicians and (philanthropic) technologists position access to CS education within K-12 schools as a primary means of addressing persistent poverty and income inequality without significantly changing other underlying structures that redistribute wealth or political power (Greene 2021). I contend that further deepening partnerships with corporate actors to expand CS education poses at least two risks. First, enhancing the role of corporations and philanthropists gives certain wealthy actors too much power to narrow public education without public accountability. Second, narrowing the purpose of education to reflect the needs of employers limits the possibilities of education while promising more than schools can deliver in terms of economic mobility and poverty alleviation.

In many ways, this is a human capital theory of education, one that responds to recurring reports that the country faces a pending “skills gap.” Such reports claim there is unmet demand by employers across various sectors, and most alarmingly within the scientific and technology industries (Berghel 2014; Cappelli 2015; Charette 2013). A report made to the Executive Office of the President in 2012 collated and formalized this anxiety, claiming “The United States is now putting its future at risk by forfeiting its historical strengths in STEM education,” (PCAST 2012, 1). Indeed, the entangled relationship between private sector actors and K-12 schools—particularly where schools serve as sites for training workers—long predates this current iteration of CS education. The latter part of the 20th and early 21st centuries saw the rise and dominance of the human capital approach within mainstream education, which takes at its base that investments into education and the development of productive, technologically proficient workers will lead to economic growth and therefore assuage social problems (Goldin & Katz 2008). The influential figures driving this political discourse were and are often economically minded government representatives and members of the business community who have something to gain by training young people for a particular kind of work. 

In the ongoing “skills” and “CS crisis,” businesses claim they are unable to locate adequately trained or skilled (diverse) employees, which in turn jeopardizes the economic health of the nation—a problem public schools must work to resolve. Put more bluntly, “employers complain that the education system does not meet their needs, and politicians listen” (Brighouse 2006, 3). In mainstream contemporary education policy and discourse, schools are increasingly tasked with meeting career readiness objectives in this vein. And as Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona (2022) recently confirmed in a tweet, “Every student should have access to an education that aligns with industry demands and evolves to meet the demands of tomorrow’s global workforce.” This is not necessarily to say that preparedness for a future career has no place in public education, but rather that the loud voices of powerful and wealthy actors might diminish or exclude the perspectives of educators, education scholars, or the public who envision other educational possibilities.

The role of corporate actors—both business representatives and wealthy philanthropists—is prominent in these reform conversations and educational policy spaces, where these actors operate as policy entrepreneurs, agitating for specific educational policies. For example, philanthropic technologist Bill Gates and other philanthropists were instrumental in the development and implementation of the Common Core State Standards Initiative—released to the public in 2009—which asserts that “the mastery of each standard is essential for success in college, career, and life in today’s global economy” (CCSSI 2021, emphasis added). Gates joined over 300 other grants awarded by private foundations in support of Common Core reform and adoption, totaling $330 million philanthropic dollars (Hess 2012; Kornhaber, et. al. 2016; Phillips and Wong 2012). Likewise, PCAST, the council outlining the pending STEM skills gap, included a mixture of representatives from higher education institutions, professional organizations, and private businesses—notably both Google and Microsoft. 

By narrowing the purpose of public education to reflect the perceived needs of employers or the competitive national economy, students may be prepared for a “particular slot in the economy” (Brighouse 2006, 34), rather than for a full and flourishing life that includes and extends beyond work. Pushing job training—increasingly, CS and STEM education at the strong recommendation of business leaders—to K-12 schools shifts both the instructional and financial burden from employers to schools, effectively down-streaming the costs of training (future) workers to the public sector. So, while efforts to expand access to skills training are continually framed as quests for further equity and access, it is reasonable to question whether these initiatives disproportionately benefit some and promise more than schools can possibly deliver. Schools cannot be the only or even primary site of resolving issues of political and economic inequality, and charging them with yet another burden at the behest of future employers perpetuates and perhaps reinforces structural inequalities. Rather, further enhancing the role for corporations and philanthropists in educational and other public initiatives through invitations to support CS for All gives wealthy actors disproportionate access to decision-making, and undemocratic influence over matters of common concern, like public education. While the integration of business leaders into the administration and governance of public education is persistent—it should not be so readily accepted. 

About the Scholar

References

Allen, Danielle. 2016. Education and Equality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Anderson, Melinda D. 2016. Will the Push for Coding Lead to ‘Technical Ghettos’? The Atlantic, February 29.

Brighouse, Harry. 2006. On Education. London: Routledge.

Berghel, Hal. 2014. STEM, Revisited. Computer 47 (3): 70–73.

Cappelli, Peter H. 2015. Skill Gaps, Skill Shortages, and Skill Mismatches: Evidence and Arguments for the United States. ILR Review 68 (2): 251–290.

CEOs for CS. n.d. Computer Science: Opportunity for Every Student: A message from over 800 business, education, and nonprofit leaders. Retrieved September 5, 2023, from www.ceosforcs.com

Charette, Robert N. 2013. The STEM Crisis Is a Myth. IEEE Spectrum 50 (9): 44–59.

Code.org, CSTA, & ECEP Alliance. (2022). 2022 State of computer science education: Understanding Our National Imperative. Retrieved from https://advocacy.code.org/stateofcs

Coleman, E. Gabriella. 2013. Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Committee on STEM Education of the National Science & Technology Council, Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). (December 2018). Charting a Course for Success: America’s Strategy for STEM Education. Executive Office of the President. 

Common Core State Standards Initiative Standards-Setting Criteria. (n.d.). Accessed December 16, 2021. http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Criteria.pdf

Dewey, John. 2008/1916. Democracy and Education. New York: The Free Press Macmillan Company.

Dougherty, Shaun M., & Lombardi, Allison R. 2016. “From Vocational Education to Career Readiness: The Ongoing Work of Linking Education and the Labor Market,” Review of Research in Education 40: 326–355.

Eubanks, Virginia. 2011. Digital Dead End: Fighting for Social Justice in the Information Age. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Goldin, Claudia and Katz, Lawrence F. 2008. The Race between Technology and Education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Greene, Daniel. 2021. The Promise of Access: Technology, Inequality, and the Political Economy of Hope. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

Gutmann, Amy. 1987. Democratic education. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Kornhaber, Mindy L., Barkauskas, Nikolaus J., and Griffith, Kelly M. 2016. Smart money? Philanthropic and federal funding for the Common Core. Education Policy Analysis Archives 24 (93): 1-37.

Morales-Navarro, Luis & Kafai, Yasmin B. 2022. Conceptualizing Three Approaches for Integrating Criticality in K-12 Computing Education. In Proceedings of the 16th International Conference of the Learning Sciences-ICLS 2022.

Phillips, Vicki & Wong, Carina. 2012. Teaching to the Common Core by Design, Not Accident. Phi Delta Kappan 93 (7): 31–37. 

President’s Council of Advisors (PCAST). 2012. “Report to the President: Engage to Excel: Producing One Million Additional College Graduates with degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.” Executive Office of the President. February. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/pcast-engage-to-excel-final_2-25-12.pdf

Secretary Miguel Cardona [@SecCardona]. (2022, December 16). Every student should have access to an education that aligns with industry demands and evolves to meet the demands of tomorrow’s global workforce. [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/SecCardona/status/1603831119962570771

The White House Office of the Press Secretary. 2016, January 30. “Weekly Address: Giving Every Student an Opportunity to Learn Through Computer Science For All.” The White House President Barack Obama. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/01/30/weekly-address-giving-every-student-opportunity-learn-through-computer

The White House. 2022, December 12. Equity and Excellence: A Vision to Transform and Enhance the U.S. STEMM Ecosystem. OSTP Blog. https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2022/12/12/equity-and-excellence-a-vision-to-transform-and-enhance-the-u-s-stemm-ecosystem/