Iowa has been recognized among the best in the nation (8th, to be exact) for its support of public high schools offering computer science courses. A new national report shows that Iowa is one of the top 10 states for computer science education. Iowa's Area Education Agencies (AEAs) has worked closely with local school districts to help them meet the new state requirements to make this achievement possible.
Timeline:
2020 - Iowa law requiring CS instruction in high schools by 2022-23 and in elementary and middle schools by 2023-24.
2021- Iowa’s Area Education Agencies utilized almost $500,000 ($467,000) in computer science grant funding to provide training for 350 Iowa teachers in grades 6-12.
2022- Iowa’s Area Education Agencies utilized $1 million ($1,028,474) in grant funding to provide statewide K-12 computer science professional development for more than 900 educators across Iowa. This funding allowed AEAs to expand training to include K-5 teachers.
In 2023, Iowa’s AEA’s utilized $600,000 in funding to coordinate a week-long computer science professional development week for 280 PK-12 educators across Iowa.
Iowa grew from 71% to 84% of public high schools offering computer science foundational courses; ranking our state 8th in the nation in computer science education.
Chief Administrator, John Speer comments, "Iowa's AEAs have been critical in supporting districts in meeting requirements from a 2020 law requiring computer science instruction in public schools. Since the law's passage, the AEAs built statewide curriculum and professional learning to help Iowa's teachers meet this requirement."
Why is this important? According to the 2023 State of Computer Science Education Report from Code.org and other organizations, there has been an average of 4,641 open computing jobs each month. These jobs have an average salary of $91,730/year. The AEAs are committed to ensuring our districts can support a future-ready workforce. Our support of educators includes providing local resources to our districts and helping teachers implement learning in a way that ensures opportunities are available for all students. AEAs have been working with local educators to create their required district computer science plan, provide them with professional development and coaching, as well as provide assistance with understanding the standards, available curriculum, best instructional practices, and tools and resources that can be used in the classroom. As teachers work to better prepare themselves to teach computer science at all grade levels, Iowa's AEAs have also partnered with the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) to provide teachers with free classes for the Computer Science Teaching Endorsement.
In the dynamic world of science education, collaboration is the key and together, we can make a lasting impact on the future of science education in Iowa.