KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
In his State of the Union Address this week, President Obama said the country has made progress in education, and it's time for a new goal.
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BARACK OBAMA: Offering every student the hands-on computer science and math classes that make them job ready on day one.
MCEVERS: That got us wondering just what might it look like if every student could take a good, hands-on computer science class? NPR's Eric Westervelt from our Ed team went to find out.
ERIC WESTERVELT, BYLINE: UC Berkeley computer science professor Dan Garcia spends part of everyday thinking about how to best teach computer science to everyone. He's turned part of his home next to his laundry room into a makeshift studio to webcast to the world a massive open online course he calls BJC, the beauty and joy of computing.
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DAN GARCIA: Welcome, everybody, we're live on BJC on the air, hanging on the air. Week five - welcome, everybody, from the BJCX.
WESTERVELT: Garcia co-developed the popular undergraduate computer science course at Berkeley for non-majors. And for the last five years, he's helped more than 200 high school teachers across America learn to teach the subject through a summer course. And he's also helping New York City public schools create an advanced placement course for high school students there. Key to a good hands-on course, he says, take that joyful part seriously. He advises teachers to help their students cultivate a passion for the creative possibilities of computing.
GARCIA: Picking a project, getting engaged, getting really deep into the weeds of it, feeling they owned it, having trouble - having like, oh, it's not working - and then finally getting over that hump, getting it to then just sing. That's the most exciting time in a young student's computer science career is when they finally finish their first project and they want to just shout to the rooftop, this is mine.
WESTERVELT: But before students can shout from the rooftops, more schools need to actually offer computer science. It's taught in less than 10 percent of America's high schools. Adding to the dysfunction, some schools are teaching the basics of Microsoft Office and search and calling it computer science. It's not.
GARCIA: We have a crisis in the country that we don't have enough computer science teachers, well-trained, engaging computer science teachers. We just need more bodies.
WESTERVELT: But it's tough to attract more bodies when the tech sector is so hot. Big tech companies and startups alike are struggling to hire enough engineers. And young CS majors can make maybe three times as much in the private sector than as a public school teacher. And because computer science traditionally has not been taught in schools, many administrators are struggling to find a place for it in an already-packed school day and crowded curriculum. I recently asked Sal Khan about this. He's the founder and CEO of Khan Academy.
SAL KHAN: A lot of educators haven't been exposed to it when they were you. So that's the challenge, but there's also an opportunity in that there isn't anything to replace. It's green field. It's a new area and there's all sorts of incredible tools for people to learn.
WESTERVELT: Another hurdle is diversity. Women and minorities are underrepresented in tech fields and in participation in computer science courses. Dan Garcia at UC Berkeley advises teachers not to shy away from the big, important and often controversial topics that connect computer science to the larger world.
GARCIA: It is coding and data and issues of power. You have the digital divide, and what does that mean for equity? What does that mean for fairness, privacy issues?
WESTERVELT: There is some good news. Seven of the nation's largest school districts have pledged to radically expand access to computer science classes including San Francisco, Chicago and New York City. Eric Westervelt, NPR News, San Francisco.