Unpacking Systems for CSforALL with Leigh Ann DeLyser

Unpacking Systems for CSforALL with Leigh Ann DeLyser
Jared O'Leary
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In this interview with Leigh Ann DeLyser, we discuss the purpose of CSforALL, considerations for leading people with different visions for (or interests in) CS education, the evolution and future direction of CS education, positive and negative corporate influence on education, thinking through equity from a systems perspective, and much more.

  • Welcome back to another episode of the

    CSK8 podcast my name is jared o'leary

    every monday a new episode comes out

    that's either an unpacking scholarship

    episode where i talk about education

    research in relation to cs education or

    an episode where i interview a guest or

    multiple guests in today's episode i'm

    having a conversation with leanne

    delizer from cs4all and that's f o r not

    the number in this particular interview

    we discuss the purpose for cs for all we

    also discuss considerations for leading

    people with different visions for or

    interest in cs education we discuss the

    evolution and future direction of cs

    education we chat about positive and

    negative corporate influence on

    education we also think through equity

    from a systems perspective and so much

    more we do mention many resources in

    this particular episode that are listed

    in the show notes which you can find at

    jared o'leary.com where you'll find

    hundreds if not thousands of free

    resources including a link to

    bootuppd.org which is the non-profit

    that i work for where i create 100 free

    scratch and scratch in your curricula so

    make sure you check it out if you

    haven't with that being said we will now

    begin with an introduction by leanne i'm

    leanne delizer and i am the executive

    director and co-founder here at cs4all

    which is a non-profit committed to

    systems change around computer science

    education in the united states my

    personal story is a little bit longer

    than the organization as you can imagine

    i started my career as a high school

    teacher and i taught math and a little

    bit of computer science on the side

    because the school needed me to and i

    had done that in undergrad to pay for my

    degree and eventually became the

    computer science teacher and found that

    i had a real love not only for helping

    students in my own classroom but

    providing professional support to

    teachers as well i was a college board

    provider for the advanced placement

    courses i wrote a review textbook for

    the apa course a lifetime ago

    and served on the csta's board of

    directors for a while i figured out

    after

    not too much time that there was only so

    much advocacy you could do from the

    classroom and i had the opportunity to

    go to carnegie mellon as first a

    visiting faculty member and then as a

    computer science phd student

    and did a degree in computer science and

    cognitive psychology there

    studying the effect of feedback on

    novices learning to program i left

    carnegie mellon and came to new york and

    got involved with fred wilson and csnyc

    to launch the academy for software

    engineering and build new york city's

    computer science for all program

    and in 2016 had the joy of taking that

    work on the road

    and thinking about what it meant for

    this big broad nation

    to build computer science education that

    was

    locally sourced and had real roots in

    community

    as a way to get to high quality

    implementation for every student and i'm

    so glad to be here talking with you

    today

    so i'm curious there's a philosophy that

    has kind of informed what i do it's

    called career so it's like this

    continuous self-reflection of where you

    are in comparison to where you've been

    and where you want to go

    and so one of the questions that i

    really like to ask us is what's

    something that you believe when you

    first began working in education that

    you no longer believe so when i first

    started working in education i was 20

    years old i was bright-eyed and

    bushy-tailed

    and

    i

    believed the myth of meritocracy i

    believed that all things being equal

    that

    students would embrace knowledge and

    rise to the top

    and as you can imagine

    that wasn't necessarily the case

    my first teaching job was in fort

    lauderdale florida at stranahan high

    school which was a medical science and

    engineering magnet school so about a

    third of the kids in the school were

    these magnet kids

    who had through privilege of preparation

    tested into

    this magnet program

    and the other two thirds were similar to

    what we can call new york city

    neighborhood school they were zoned for

    that school building because they lived

    within a certain mile radius of the

    building

    and

    i had in my

    very first computer applications class

    a 16 year old student and it took 9th

    grader which basically meant at that

    time in florida that he had aged out of

    middle school once you turn 16 you can't

    be in middle school anymore and so they

    have to put you in ninth grade and it

    took me about two months he would come

    to class he would stare at the walls

    i did like little daily quizzes and they

    were simple things like

    you know how do you open an application

    on the computer we're talking about

    computer applications it was really like

    you click on it with the mouse was the

    right answer all of his quizzes and

    tests would be blank

    and took me about two months to figure

    out that he couldn't read

    we're not talking about like not reading

    on grade level he couldn't sound out the

    word who and

    it really opened my eyes to

    how

    preparatory privilege colors everything

    not just the individual academic domain

    like it's not that he only did poorly in

    his english class

    here he was in my computer applications

    class where we were

    you know

    doing word processing and spreadsheets

    because he had this other

    parallel challenge it made performance

    in my class

    also really difficult for him along the

    way i'm curious like how does that

    experience inform your

    approach at cs for all like the things

    that you do just in general

    that particular experience

    and

    all of the subsequent experiences around

    it because i also taught computer

    programming at that school and i taught

    pre-calculus at that school because i

    was a math teacher

    and i had a blind student in geometry

    which was a lot of fun and i got to play

    with lots of pipe cleaners as a way to

    give him tactile representations of the

    geometric shapes

    keeps my eyes open

    to

    how the system

    of normalcy

    what we consider the average classroom

    or what is expected practice

    lets not just kids slip through the

    cracks i think that that's a very

    passive way of saying

    that we've put structural

    barriers to any kind of level of success

    across the board for kids

    and so the more i do work in computer

    science education the more i'm asking

    myself

    how are all of the other things

    contributing

    to the outcomes that we're seeing

    as opposed to only drawing a direct line

    between that piece of computer science

    instruction

    and students ability to perform well

    in the class create the program

    or even pass an ap exam so i have a

    question about those like the hegemonic

    influences like the structure of

    structures but before like we dive into

    that a little bit more i'm wondering if

    we could take a step back if you were to

    provide like a quick elevator pitch of

    what cs for all is and like what do you

    intend to have in terms of impact on the

    field like how would you describe that

    so the

    purpose and goal of cs for all really

    came out of early work at csnyc in new

    york city and in new york city csnyc was

    the original

    force behind new york city's computer

    science education efforts

    in our early stages we funded

    professional learning for teachers so we

    brought in professional learning

    partners ran pd in the summer and during

    school breaks

    and prompted then teachers to offer

    computer science classes in the

    buildings that they were working in

    and

    we asked questions how's it going is it

    working and found that the pd providers

    had gaps

    for example the teachers wished they

    focused more on assessment or that they

    did more around culturally relevant

    pedagogies

    so then we provided pd to the pd

    providers

    because we wanted our partners in new

    york city to be meeting the needs of the

    teachers and the students who are our

    ultimate constituents

    we found that administrators

    often had trouble supporting teachers

    implementing computer science if they

    were not brought in early and so we

    launched cs4 all we imagined this

    multi-sector

    collaborative

    that would support computer science

    and make the field better

    and so we don't do professional learning

    for teachers

    but we support the community of

    professional learning providers

    we help support administrator buy-in by

    raising awareness of the importance of

    computer science education

    and we connect

    the folks from all these different

    sectors together and let them talk in

    the same room

    because if we're not listening to each

    other

    we're going to keep trying to solve day

    one problems

    when the schools have moved on to day

    of like you are

    by providing pd to the people who are

    providing pd that's a way of addressing

    some of those structural issues

    how do you identify which structural

    issues to address like the challenges we

    address those structural barriers and

    challenges

    through community participation

    ceos for all believes that the landscape

    knows the best what the landscape needs

    and so we not only participate in the

    community as

    providers of

    strategic planning through our script

    workshops we also participate as

    learners we listen to

    and we use that as a way

    to initiate thematic reports for example

    we're going to come out with a report on

    career and technical education and

    computer science education in a couple

    of months

    and that really brought together a

    landscape of experts we listened to them

    we took knots of notes about what they

    said and translated that into a sector

    report with recommendations

    and so

    our strongest feature at cs4l is our

    membership

    because not only do we expect them to

    contribute to the ongoing movement of cs

    education we learn from them

    we learn from them where the successes

    are and where the gaps are as a way to

    help everyone in the community get

    better so i have some ideas like based

    on

    my understandings of different research

    methodologies and whatnot but

    how do you or does the organization

    sort through what might be a signal what

    might be noise and then what's not being

    said in the field let's be clear around

    methodologies of the difference between

    producing policy landscapes and research

    we employ for a lot of our policy papers

    kind of a delphi method where you listen

    to experts and translate

    their things into the report we're very

    transparent about who those voices are

    and on the front end we try as much as

    humanly possible to get diverse voices

    in the room to ensure that we're not

    hearing only one side of the story but

    we're just not funded a level where

    those policy reports can rise to the

    same rigor

    as a research report and so i want to be

    clear about the distinction of the two

    when we do produce research

    through our

    research line

    then

    obviously we do publications through

    sigsi and other venues and are very

    explicit about our methodology but a lot

    of our landscape and policy reports are

    much more of this like delphi study

    methodology we listen to experts

    super transparent about who those

    experts are as we write it up and build

    off of those themes yeah so speaking of

    themes i previously did a couple of

    podcast episodes that was on the visions

    framework so one of them was an

    unpacking scholarship episode where i

    just kind of talked about well what are

    the different categories within this

    how do some of them resonate with myself

    but then i also spoke with rafi and

    sarah about this as well

    but and i'll include a link to those by

    the way in the show notes if anyone

    wants to check those out but if you were

    to take the visions quiz i'm curious

    like what values and projected impacts

    will kind of resonate with you because

    from an organizational standpoint i see

    very clear examples where you're hitting

    a lot of them but i'm curious for you as

    an individual like which ones stand out

    thanks for the question so my own

    personal

    bent not only changes from year to year

    as i'm sure many people's do but sits

    pretty much at the intersection of

    equity social justice

    school reform and improvement

    and

    competencies and literacies

    i grew up in rural america in a log

    cabin my father built

    and

    my ability to be a successful

    professional whether it be a teacher

    a

    organization leader or computer

    scientist was entirely dependent upon

    me gaining the competencies and

    literacies that allowed me to take the

    jump after high school

    into undergraduate

    and if we don't provide students with

    competitive transcripts

    at all levels for all kids

    we know that it's getting increasingly

    hard to get into colleges

    especially the top tier colleges and so

    it's one more way

    that computer science education

    will become one of these differentiators

    of who had quality education and who did

    not

    and so

    for me that notion of competency and

    literacy there's the global perspective

    of like computers are all around us and

    everybody needs them

    which is super important

    but it's also an important competency to

    create

    equal access for students when they exit

    k-12 and enter the next phase of their

    college or career life so i kind of have

    like a two-parter question as a

    follow-up to that so one is like how do

    those values and impact areas kind of

    inform your own work at cs for all but

    then

    as a leader like how do you

    also encourage and support

    other people's values and impacts that

    might differ from your own within your

    organization

    there's a great article which i'll share

    with you to put on the page below about

    culturally responsive school leadership

    and

    the first tenant of culturally

    responsive school leadership so not

    teaching not pedagogy but actual like

    administrators and like leadership

    working groups in schools is critical

    self-awareness

    and so being aware of our own internal

    motivations

    is the first step towards being

    inclusive

    in allowing not only those motivations

    but others motivations to be perceived

    in the environment

    and so we do at cs for all we actually

    take the visions quiz ourselves from

    time to time in our team meetings and

    talk about what it means how it might be

    influencing our decisions our

    communications

    and where we as an inclusive

    organization

    might be like

    shifting our course slightly

    to

    our own internal biases or outcomes and

    so we try to be critically self-aware

    and i as a leader try to be critically

    self-aware

    with my own staff and for many of the

    people who've been with me in workshops

    i'm often

    very clear about defining my own

    positionality on these things

    so i will say that my background leads

    me to feel this is important because

    and that does not diminish your

    background or the reasons you bring to

    this work and in fact i say explicitly

    over and over and over again in script

    workshops that it is

    a little ridiculous

    that

    in many places my computer science

    degree

    is somehow worth more

    than the

    decades of knowledge in the school

    leaders who come to the script workshops

    about the schools and communities

    they're working in

    that knowledge of kids that knowledge of

    their own buildings that knowledge of

    their own communities is way more

    important than my knowledge of an if

    statement when it comes to implementing

    high quality computer science in their

    schools

    elevating the voices of people with less

    power or less cultural capital however

    you want to phrase this so

    as a director within the nonprofit that

    i work for

    there are

    power dynamics at play with people that

    i've supervised or people who are lower

    on the pay tier basically that's

    probably the easiest way that i can say

    it how do you

    make it so that like

    they still feel the

    opportunity and ability and that

    openness to share their thoughts and

    disagreements with you or others in the

    organization while accounting for the

    fact that like some people

    might be hesitant because they know the

    power dynamics at play i think something

    that's really important for nonprofits

    is to have a north star

    we do this work in service of the

    community we do this work in partnership

    with the community

    we do this work for the intended benefit

    of the community

    now

    it may be

    that

    someone who reports to me i mean i'm the

    executive director so someone in the

    organization

    has an idea that goes against my own

    internal feelings

    then they need to come to me and

    describe how

    what their idea is is in service of the

    community in partnership with the

    community

    or for the beneficial outcomes that are

    part of our mission and vision

    and if they can bring that to me then

    it's likely i'll bring in other team

    members we'll have a conversation if i

    have a firmly held belief

    then like a really firmly held belief

    then it's likely i'll ask for data to

    support it

    and we'll make a data informed decision

    about what to do next

    but

    i think there's this

    notion in

    academic spaces that questioning is good

    and i think that can be healthy like how

    do we question each other and bring

    diverse perspectives

    but in an organization

    there needs to be some kind of structure

    right right

    i am

    accountable to our board members

    to our donors to ensure that we are

    responsible with the funds that we're

    given that we meet our mission

    and that

    the things we do

    fit a whole series of checklists right

    of things you have to do as an

    organization leader and holder of the

    budget

    and so

    i used to grade advanced placement exams

    and

    when i was a reader not a question

    leader

    i would say to my question leaders that

    i'm going to ask you a lot of questions

    i am going to ask all kinds of questions

    about the rubric i'm going to bring up

    weird cases i'm going to push around the

    edges and it's really to help me

    understand

    both where this is firm and where it's

    adjustable and why why did we choose to

    give this half point here and not here

    if we ever get to a point where

    the questions are just ridiculous or you

    don't see them as adding benefit

    just tell me because i am your question

    leader and i say so and i will stop

    and i think there's a time where

    sometimes an organizational leader has

    to say

    because this is why the money was given

    to us

    and we have a responsibility to enact

    this in the way that the donor has

    agreed upon with us in a contract we

    made six months ago or

    out in the national community right i

    can argue as much as i want with the

    broad community about different

    approaches to computer science education

    or

    the value of orientation pd in excess to

    the absence of second level professional

    learning or pathways for teacher mastery

    but it's not my job to make a decision

    for their organization the best thing i

    can do is bring my ideas support them

    with evidence and data and you know we

    go in front of funders and make our

    pitches

    and let the support flow to the places

    that are perceived to have the most need

    and best evidence of possibility yeah i

    really appreciate that response it

    definitely resonates with a lot of

    things that i believe in and have tried

    and continued to try and whatnot like

    education is very gray like there's no

    black and white in terms of like right

    and wrong answers for a lot of research

    you can find contradictory research like

    at the time of this recording i think

    it's coming out this upcoming monday

    there's an episode that i'm unpacking

    some scholarship and saying this

    contradicts a previous paper that i

    talked about on this podcast and it

    would be interesting to have the authors

    from both those papers get together and

    have a conversation about it because

    there's many different ways to do it but

    ultimately having a north star that kind

    of guides well which one do you choose

    and align with that totally makes sense

    to me and in the world of education too

    it's not only that it's black and white

    it's black and white and regionally

    defined so

    many people who've you know interfaced

    with me in the past in research circles

    know that one of the horses i ride all

    the time is that there's no such thing

    as a valid instrument

    we have instruments with evidence of

    validity

    in a particular place for a particular

    student population at a particular time

    and context and so

    when we bring forth these absolutes

    it's almost like saying this program has

    validity

    which we know isn't true and it's that's

    one of the tenets that see us for all

    and it's one of the reasons why script

    is not a checklist

    it's meant to be a continuous

    improvement process where we set a north

    star for districts

    and they build the solutions that move

    their student population closer to that

    north star

    so how do we create this

    environment this atmosphere and

    education where there aren't to your

    point absolutes

    but instead we're working to the benefit

    of students

    we have agreed upon goals

    to the best of our ability we measure

    our progress to those goals over time

    and let the really smart professionals

    who know those kids well and see them

    every day

    come up with those solutions that they

    iterate upon and improve upon over time

    so correct me if this is not a great

    example of a summary of it but script

    is basically a way to help districts

    think through their own implementation

    kind of come up with

    their plan think through

    okay well what do we need to do from

    administrative support community support

    teacher support et cetera and

    not being a script facilitator it comes

    across as like a heuristic a tool to

    think with not necessarily giving you

    a well-worn path to go down and that's

    the only way to go down it like but

    instead of presenting multiple

    perspectives and many different

    questions to think through and i don't

    know if that resonates with like the

    original intent behind scripts a

    thousand percent yes

    in fact my favorite part of script

    workshops is actually like drifting

    through tables as teams are working and

    they'll get to the point where they're

    reading one of the rubric robos

    and talking about whether they're

    emerging or developing

    and one school administrator will say oh

    i think we're emerging because we have x

    y and z and the teacher will say no

    we're developing because in addition to

    x y and z we have these other things you

    don't know about

    and then the administrator go well well

    there's this word here that doesn't

    quite meet what you described and

    they're starting to talk about the

    nuance of their own particular

    circumstance

    and then when they get to the end of the

    workshop they've taken all of those

    nuances all those individual goals and

    they do priority setting what's a

    priority for us

    what strengths do we have to build on

    right now and how can we build on those

    strengths to take a next step and that's

    what we really encourage districts to do

    in the script process not think about it

    from a deficit model

    but think about it from a landscaping

    and strength-based perspective as a way

    to build momentum

    because all of education is a work in

    progress

    nobody's got it right

    at the moment no matter what kind of

    education you do and so acknowledging

    that

    and thinking about computer science

    education the same way it's not that

    somehow we're going to take three steps

    and be done

    we're going to get on a path of

    iterative refinement and improvement and

    we want to build that routine

    where we're questioning whether or not

    the choices we're making

    are truly serving all of our students

    whether the policies we're enacting are

    having equitable outcomes whether

    there's a gap that emerges and needs

    closing or whether there's a gap that

    has come before our work that needs

    closing all in service of giving kids

    the best we possibly can now if we were

    to zoom out onto cs4 like as a whole

    what do you wish people

    knew or understood about the

    organization i think the biggest thing

    that i wish people knew

    about cs4 all

    was

    that

    we

    explicitly work in service of the

    community

    our goal is to raise awareness of the

    need for computer science education

    to support

    people being welcoming to

    all of the different providers that are

    out there the initiatives that teachers

    spin up right

    we build capacity so we want to resource

    the local leaders the organizations on

    the ground

    and really support them

    all of it in service of making change

    for kids

    and so we want to be

    your partner in the work

    when we launched cs4 all i found that

    many of my friends and jared you know

    i've been in this community for a long

    time

    a lot of people knew me when i was a

    graduate student

    my friends would call me and be like hey

    leanne and thinking about this thing can

    we just talk through it what do you know

    what are some good resources right we

    all have friends who do this to us

    and right away we noticed that that

    meant that certain members of our

    community got an outsized chunk of our

    time because they were willing to reach

    out to us and so we created a program at

    cs4 called office hours which still

    persists to this day

    where anyone can call and request an

    office hour and you don't have to have a

    reason for doing it you can simply like

    want to think through your

    implementation or program and

    we'll give you an hour of our time it'll

    probably be virtual and it was virtual

    long before the pandemic but it was a

    way for us to be a partner to the

    community and really support the work of

    the community overall i didn't know that

    existed i love that i might have to try

    and implement it at boot up what's

    something that has surprised you about

    either

    your time with cs for all or with csnyc

    i had a lot of imposter syndrome

    when i came into this space

    i used to describe myself as just a high

    school teacher

    and

    over time realized that my own privilege

    of preparation at carnegie mellon

    set me up to understand research really

    well

    and that my own background in education

    having been a teacher

    a

    you know participant in policy

    initiatives an interested consumer of

    all things education and education

    policy

    meant that i had insight

    and then finally

    as a white woman that my voice

    could be useful in advocating for equity

    even though my own lived experiences

    were not the same as many of the

    students i was serving in new york city

    and so overcoming that imposter syndrome

    and

    really

    believing that not only did i not sit

    quietly in rooms but there was value in

    me speaking up in those rooms was

    something that i had to learn over time

    yeah that definitely resonates like

    because all my degrees are music

    education i came into this with that

    imposter syndrome because music in

    particular

    is very territorial and the field as a

    whole like if you don't have degrees in

    music performance or music education

    they're kind of like well why are you

    teaching that thing like you're not good

    enough it's very exclusionary and

    deficit based but i found at least from

    my experiences that the cs ed community

    is different it is very much so strength

    based in terms of

    looking at an individual and going cool

    you have a different perspective to

    bring to the table let's chat about that

    not oh you don't have a degree in cs so

    therefore i don't have to listen to you

    so kudos to you field of computer

    science education i actually enjoyed it

    so zooming out even more how has cs

    education evolved over the past decade

    and where do you think it's going i

    remember

    walking into the first advisory board

    meeting at the academy for software

    engineering in new york and

    we're in one of the big rooms in tweed

    which is the department of education

    building in manhattan which is an old

    courthouse

    so picture these big beautiful old

    courtrooms there is a conference table

    like this beautiful mahogany conference

    table

    down the middle of the room

    and on half of the table are the

    computer scientists the googlers the

    facebookers the vcs right fred wilson

    evan korth from nyu

    and on the other half of the table

    basically are the doe folks and we're

    trying to imagine a new high school

    focused on computer science education

    and this work really you know there's a

    lot of credit that has to go to mike

    zamanski for standing up and saying we

    need

    computer science themed schools in new

    york city at that time

    and the computer scientists on one side

    were almost adamant

    that they wanted to make more stuyvesant

    and bronx science students

    this needed to be a selective high

    school where you have to pass a test to

    get into

    and if you know anything at all i knew

    about new york city public schools that

    that is super controversial and not at

    all equitable across the city so on the

    other side you have the doe folks like

    no this will be a non-selective high

    school this will be a school that any

    kid can get into and it will be a

    lottery admission process

    and you can imagine the rift

    in the middle of the table like

    is this even possible

    there was a lot of back and forth about

    how much computer science is rocket

    science

    is could an average new york city public

    school student in ninth grade even

    engage in a meaningful way

    with computer science education

    activities that weren't like word and

    powerpoint

    and

    telling that story now to you i think

    and to your listeners

    they're all shaking their head going

    they were so wrong

    and that's what we've done in the last

    decade we've moved computer science from

    a post-secondary rocket science

    into

    the possibility of age-appropriate

    instruction

    and fundamental principles that can be

    learned by any student

    and that i think is the biggest thing

    in the last decade is just that shift

    that there is computer science that you

    can do in third grade with every third

    grader and where do you see it going

    over the next decade we spent the last

    decade really thinking about

    how to make

    the concepts of computer science

    accessible what is it that we can do in

    third grade or fifth grade or eighth

    grade or ninth grade as a part of a

    preparation pathway

    and how do we get kids who whether

    they've had no experience or at all or

    some experience into activities that

    engage and accept them that's good what

    i'm hoping for in the next decade is we

    really think about progressions of

    learning how do we not just have your

    first experience in second grade and

    then your first experience in third

    grade and oh by the way welcome to fifth

    grade this is an if statement thank you

    for coming to computer science and then

    we get to seventh grade and welcome to

    your first computer science course it's

    going to be great because we're going to

    use scratch right and then we get to

    computer science that literally is a

    rehashing of something that student has

    done since third grade

    right so how do we really get to a point

    and this is where the systems come in

    because you can't get to coherent

    sequences

    until the whole system agrees

    that students need pieces of this along

    the way and so i think we get to the

    point of coherent pathways

    for students that allow them to get to

    sophistication of knowledge that is age

    appropriate

    and then what's really exciting is we

    can start to bring in some of the funky

    things we can really throw at them well

    here are some of the biggest problems in

    the world

    how does technology contribute to those

    problems and what might you imagine or

    design at this point in your learning

    journey in order to address those

    problems

    and maybe that means

    in

    third grade

    students are creating a fun cute little

    game about what gets recycled and what

    doesn't

    and in fifth grade they're thinking

    about collecting data from local streams

    outside their school like they're doing

    in ithaca new york to monitor pollution

    and by the time they get to high school

    they're thinking about

    apps or

    other intelligent

    ways

    to not only collect the data but use the

    data to predict

    what seasons does pollution occur and

    when would be the best time to schedule

    community cleanup efforts

    then maybe by the time they're getting

    to college

    they're really thinking about the

    intersection of all of that with

    behavioral science with marketing with

    business models

    with everything under the sun in order

    to make a technologically not only

    literate

    a competent generation of problem

    solvers that'll move our world forward

    together yeah many snaps for that answer

    that definitely

    makes a lot of sense to me especially

    because of all the bottom-up efforts

    that are going on like with the

    non-profit that i'm at like we focused

    on elementary school and so because kids

    are now potentially if it's like a

    kasich school they might have seven

    years of going through cs that means

    that the middle school and the high

    school who previously could assume oh

    they probably don't have experience with

    it they're gonna have to completely

    change what they're doing and that's

    gonna make it so that by the time a

    student goes from kindergarten all the

    way through 12th grade if they

    potentially have 13 years of cs

    experience like the level of depth that

    you can get with that is just phenomenal

    but one of the problems that i at least

    had in my districts was they were highly

    nomadic in that people were constantly

    coming in and out of the district and

    the schools

    which is why like i've argued in other

    podcasts like the rhizomatic learning

    episode that you gotta have multiple

    entry points and pathways that students

    can take that allows them to go at their

    own pace along a path that makes sense

    for them and their own interests i'm

    curious

    about your perspectives on like the

    corporate influence so you mentioned

    like the table with like a bunch of like

    tech people and then we have educators

    and there's this tendency especially in

    like the neoliberal culture for the

    corporate influence to say well we're

    providing the money so therefore we set

    the direction and the tone but because

    your organization has cs for all

    those

    interests of every student aren't likely

    going to align with the people who are

    providing the funding in terms of what

    we want future

    people to work for us

    but kids who are taking it are like cool

    cs is awesome but i don't plan on

    getting a degree with that it's on

    strong teachers and school leaders to

    advocate for their students it's on

    strong non-profit leaders to advocate

    for their theories of change but it's

    also on corporations

    to be clear about what their needs are

    because

    if

    for some reason

    we produced an educational system

    that did not produce enough computer

    scientists

    that actually would be detrimental to

    the communities we're also trying to

    serve

    right there is a part of a global view

    of outcome where some percentage of the

    population

    and from my point of view a very diverse

    percentage of the population should be

    engaged in

    the creation of the technology we all

    live on

    so

    i think

    finding the intersection

    of those needs and values

    is something we try to do at cs for all

    and part of that is when i said early on

    i introduced how we came to be as an

    organization this notion of

    bringing together the school districts

    the researchers the curriculum providers

    the funders

    right those corporate folks who are

    bringing computer science education to

    communities either through volunteerism

    corporate support

    dollars or other means

    then

    right if we're all listening to each

    other

    then it's more likely our goals will be

    aligned

    than if we're operating in silos

    and the only person that each silo hears

    is the person who's trying to pitch them

    to buy something or give them money yeah

    that's a great point i want better

    educated funders

    i want corporate america to be better

    educated about what schools look like

    and what they need

    i want corporate america to be better

    educated about the problems schools can

    solve on their own

    because administrators and teachers are

    some of the best problem solvers on the

    planet

    so that they if they invest money they

    invest things in the challenges that

    schools can't solve on their own so on

    your twitter bio you mentioned that

    you're an advocate for

    education reform if i were to give you

    like a magic wand and you could just

    wave it and make one change that had an

    impact on educational reform what would

    you make for that change and why jared

    did you read my syllabus when i was

    teaching intro to csa at nyu so there

    would be this pair of assignments i

    would give my students and these were

    undergraduates or graduates preparing

    for a minor in computer science

    education this was like the first course

    in the sequence and i would first tell

    them that they were king of the world

    and they could do whatever they want by

    decree

    and so they'd go away in like a half an

    hour and they all like come out with

    these things and in pairs and they come

    back and present their ideas and then i

    said great

    welcome to the world you have five

    thousand dollars what would you do with

    five thousand dollars because we live in

    this world of magic wands and

    constraints right so if i had a magic

    wand

    i would

    create a world where the systems never

    underestimate any student that's in them

    where

    the pathways in front of every single

    child were

    created in a way to help that child live

    up to their full potential no matter

    what zip code they're in the color of

    the skin

    whether they identify as male female or

    something else entirely

    so often

    we underestimate

    the youth in front of us

    so if i could wave a magic wand i would

    simply want us to create

    systems that allow

    the youth to get to the biggest

    potential they could possibly have i

    like that answer thank you

    i'm a dreamer if nothing else

    what recommendations do you have for

    improving equity and inclusion in cs

    education we value what we measure and

    we measure what we value we have to

    measure it

    and we have to be clear about what we're

    measuring and so at cs for all we have

    lately started using the cape framework

    from ut austin

    so capacity access participation

    experience

    as a way to truly disaggregate

    what we're thinking about when we talk

    about equity in education

    because if we're only looking at

    participation rates

    then we're not getting the whole story

    we launched the academy for software

    engineering in new york city

    that year in 2012 all of new york state

    only two black girls took the advanced

    placement exam

    that's in a city

    with over 400 000 black girls in the

    city and we're talking about the entire

    state too

    past the computer science exam

    the only exam that was more difficult

    for black students than computer science

    that year was chinese language and

    culture

    so the score gap between black students

    and their white peers was so large that

    black students did better in every other

    subject than computer science a we have

    to look at that

    and then we have to not blame that on

    the student

    that's not a call

    to remediate

    another kit

    that is systemic and structural barriers

    that prevent

    an entire student population from being

    successful

    in that particular bank

    and so

    i think if we're talking about improving

    equity and inclusion there are a million

    things we can do

    at each individual level to improve

    but most important from my perspective

    is we have to be clear

    about what we value

    we have to measure it

    in detail

    and then we have to be clear with

    ourselves when our measurement falls

    short

    we can't just look at the gaps we have

    to close them as structural gaps

    not one student at a time yeah and i'll

    make sure to include in the show notes

    some links to other podcasts that i've

    done that specifically talk about some

    of the gaps like whether it's in

    representation of the lack of diversity

    in teachers or the lack of diversity in

    curriculum materials et cetera so i'll

    make sure to link to those and we've

    learned in computer science education

    that the adage if you build it they will

    come

    simply refers to more of the students

    who are already there so how do you

    iterate or practice to refine your own

    abilities either as like an educator as

    a researcher or

    executive director this is going to be a

    super nerdy answer

    i consume as much as i possibly can and

    so right here on the corner of my desk i

    have two books

    you asked about as an executive director

    leader so social startup success

    and act like a leader thinks like a

    leader which are two of my current reads

    for myself in terms of growing as a

    leader of an org

    in the

    file next to them is beyond marginality

    which i highly recommend for your

    research leader audience so this is

    beyond marginality understanding the

    intersection of race ethnicity gender

    and difference in educational leadership

    research by elizabeth murakami and holly

    mackey and it is a collection of

    articles

    by

    researchers outside of

    the mainstream ethnicities and race and

    so black researchers hispanic

    researchers indigenous researchers who

    speak about the way our

    methods and approaches and assumptions

    in mainstream research actually

    disadvantage those populations from

    truly telling their stories and having

    research outcomes that are reflective of

    ground truth so i consume as much as i

    possibly can and i

    try as much as possible to participate

    in the cs education community as a

    community member to really hold true to

    that notion that cs4 was created for us

    to listen to each other and so how am i

    listening

    while still at the helm of us as an

    organization so with that listening

    though can come

    some burnout whether it's from hearing

    all of the negative things that are

    going on and not being able to do much

    to assist with that but also just the

    general demands

    working as an executive director working

    in the field of education etc i'm

    curious how do you try and prevent that

    burnout that can come with

    that openness and willingness to listen

    and engage in difficult conversations

    it helps to be an internal optimist

    i joke that i'm a glass of quarter full

    kind of girl i often surprise

    taxi drivers when i got off of airplanes

    because they're expecting like grumpy

    travel passenger and i'm like it's a

    great day and they're like what

    why

    huh and i'm like it is highly improbable

    that any day will be the worst day in

    real life

    you only get one of those but you get a

    whole lot of dates

    and so every day holds promise

    and while i recognize that in the

    current place i am in my life there's a

    lot of privilege to support that growing

    up i was a foster child for a short

    while

    and

    that has really grounded in me to take

    the things around me that are good the

    progress that we make every day

    and value it

    that doesn't mean you don't strive

    harder to keep making change but it does

    mean you value the small things and the

    small wins along the way and i think

    that is

    cored of who i am as an individual

    and

    i also need to credit a little bit of my

    house crew

    so for those of you who know me on

    social media you may have seen at the

    last 60 and the last csta

    i found places where i could go with

    maya israel and diane levitt we're both

    not only academic colleagues but good

    friends and we literally retreated to a

    house together

    because when you're listening in

    isolation to that stew of community that

    you've talked about those negative

    messages when you don't have anybody

    around you to unpack them can be

    dangerous

    and so how do we find

    not only our

    allies but also the folks that you can

    be vulnerable with how do you say like i

    didn't understand that to someone who's

    not going to judge you for it

    talk through it

    be able to say like i don't have the

    right language around this yet

    but i am thinking about this from this

    way

    over the last year i've developed a lot

    of worked really hard to try and develop

    improvement in my own language

    about how i

    refer to black indigenous and hispanic

    people

    how to be

    more

    thoughtful

    in the way that i engage other audiences

    and people whose life experiences is

    different from my own and i'm not there

    yet

    i'm still working on it but it's really

    really helpful to me to have someone who

    i trust where i can try things

    and they'll tell me like no

    you don't want to go that's not right

    and at the same time to wander in that

    space together to think through like

    what are our goals for the world and

    how do we get there or

    maybe that's not the right

    particular compass direction anymore we

    have to go one degree to the left but

    having those sounding boards

    who understand enough about your

    professional domain not just your

    personal one that you can live in that

    camaraderie is really important yeah

    that's great that you have that

    opportunity to do that

    for myself like this last year

    it's been a lot of listening to

    perspectives that i know in advance of

    that i'm going to disagree with and

    actively sitting to try and understand

    why is it that you think that way and

    where do we align and where do we

    diverge

    and how can we engage in a respectful

    dialogue through that and there's been a

    lot of successes and failures along it

    so it's definitely an iterative process

    for myself but i appreciate you sharing

    that idea i'm gonna have to actively

    seek out some individuals that i can use

    as a sounding board as well a few years

    ago i went to a grace hopper conference

    and i attended a session about creating

    your own personal board of directors

    and thinking about the roles of the

    people in your life who support your

    ability to be vulnerable and develop as

    a human and a professional

    and i've always thought about how do i

    bring that into my life into my work

    into my projects how can i be that

    person for other people whether it's

    mentoring someone on my team or

    providing an interview to a new graduate

    student

    trying to live in that give and take can

    be really important in

    you know going back to that eternal

    optimist

    seeing things

    move forward whether it be

    one person at a time one school system

    at a time one state at a time one policy

    at a time

    one crazy funder at a time

    oh what do you wish there was more

    research on that could inform your own

    practices computer scientists are

    problem solvers so we jump in and solve

    the problems

    and we heard

    five to seven years ago that teachers

    were the problem

    they were the missing widget

    needed more teachers

    and so we spun up an entire community to

    produce more computer science teachers

    and along with that more curriculum

    right more supports for teachers all

    that kind of stuff

    we haven't really done

    computer science education research that

    exists in the field of educational

    leadership

    and educational policy

    because those teachers in those

    classrooms

    don't operate in a vacuum

    because we've been hyper focused on

    teachers and because our community

    started with a bunch of teacher leaders

    we've been hyper focused on teacher

    leadership and i know jake baskin shares

    this opinion that sometimes we ask too

    much of teachers

    if a teacher

    is fighting for equitable implementation

    of computer science education in their

    classroom or building

    and a significant portion of their job

    is getting over the roadblocks that are

    in their way what we really need is

    research and how to get rid of the

    roadblocks

    not how to make the teacher better so

    they can jump higher

    so i look forward to emerging research

    which i know is coming and i know that

    different folks are starting to really

    work on this notion of what is the role

    of school administrators in supporting

    equitable implementations of computer

    science education

    what is the role of policy and how does

    it have an impact on

    the outcomes that we see at the student

    level and where does that policy have

    unintended consequences so josh childs

    who's one of the co-leads of the esop

    alliance has done great work in

    unintended consequences of policy he's

    really starting to think about that from

    a computer science education policy

    perspective

    and i think we sometimes treat our

    education systems a little too

    simplistically we have all of this

    amazing computational power in the world

    right now

    be able to model complex systems

    all of the things between that

    youth

    and the computer science learning that

    they're getting they are wrapped in so

    many onion levels

    we

    can model that

    and we can truly understand

    what are some of the systemic barriers

    what are some of the things that we're

    seeing in every community across america

    that are making girls less likely to

    participate in computer science than

    boys

    right

    that's not a one by one thing like

    that's happening everywhere

    and we're imagining solutions and we're

    creating opportunities for teachers to

    jump a little bit higher to get more

    girls involved

    or for schools to jump a little bit

    higher to get more girls involved

    but we still haven't been able to fix

    the problem

    which tells me it's still a barrier and

    a jumping problem

    right

    so i really look forward to us treating

    the complexity of the educational system

    as a complex system

    and not as an opportunity to

    fix one classroom or one student at a

    time

    i appreciate the nuances that you shared

    in that answer so

    what's something that you're currently

    working on that you could use some

    assistance with

    we're currently working in partnership

    with the office of science and

    technology policy and the national ai

    initiative

    to think about artificial intelligence

    and data science education

    and we have a project with the air force

    and soon to be marines for

    junior rotc to think about cyber

    security education

    and

    you know computer science as a field is

    kind of entering its teenage years it's

    late teenage years

    right

    it's discovered there's a big huge world

    out there

    it's it's trying to get its own sense of

    fashion

    like what is it and what does it do

    it's realizing that its actions have

    implications bigger than itself yep

    and it's testing out lots of little

    different subfields

    right totally an older teenager right

    and

    that's rolling down into k-12 so when we

    started imagining the k-12 computer

    science framework and the csta standards

    in their last rewrite we were focused

    very much on

    the legacy of algorithmic programming

    with a smattering of things around it

    including like social impacts

    networks in the internet all that kind

    of stuff what we're starting to see is

    increasing demand for just as the

    sophistication of algorithmic thinking

    and computational thinking has made its

    way into lower grades there's increasing

    pressure to give students

    all the flavors of that

    as a part of engaging them in and how

    this is applied right and all the

    subfields of computer science so what i

    would love is i would love for our

    community to share with us great

    examples of what that looks like

    does cyber security education have to be

    cyber security education in stand-alone

    structured coursework

    or

    is it flavors that can be explored

    through

    a broad approach to computer science

    education right

    right cs4 all has a curriculum portal

    we invite our members to submit those

    curricular examples so that we can get a

    landscape of what's happening on the

    ground and be able to tell the story of

    how it's happening in the field

    and

    for the researchers and

    leaders out there who listen to your

    broadcast what does it mean for the way

    that we're talking to policymakers and

    school leaders

    do they now have to add cyber security

    to every student's learning trajectory

    do they now have to add artificial

    intelligence to every student's learning

    trajectory they have to add data clients

    to every student's learning trajectory

    is machine learning the next thing you

    know

    go down the list right as we're growing

    up

    and as we're getting to this broad thing

    are we going to be like the sciences

    where you study biology for you're in

    chemistry for a year in physics for you

    do we keep them siloed

    or is it going to be like the old school

    computer applications where you would

    loop through word processing and

    powerpoint and spreadsheets but you

    would loop through them based upon

    whatever problem you were trying to

    solve in the moment or whatever task

    you're trying to do in the course

    so we need to understand

    how that's being implemented on the

    ground what successes people are having

    creative things

    teachers and curriculum providers are

    trying to do so that we can really think

    about when we're talking to policymakers

    we're working with the white house for

    making recommendations for

    what kind of curriculum should be

    supported by funders who are part of our

    collective

    like what's working what are teachers

    seeing

    i've been out of the classroom for long

    enough that i don't feel like i have the

    right knowledge for what the answer that

    question is

    we'd love to hear from all of you about

    how you're addressing all these

    different flavors of computer science

    education i invite

    community members to write for a medium

    send us an email info cs4l.org and

    say hey i want to write an article about

    and we'll reach out to you and see if

    you know there's a favorite lesson you

    want to share if there's a unit you're

    doing if there's something interesting

    you're doing and we'd love to feature

    that excellent answer yeah the siloing

    that's going on within the silo is

    interesting to kind of witness it's

    exhausting

    yeah fortunately it's not happening as

    much in the elementary space but i do

    start to see it like creep down it's

    like definitely in the high school realm

    and obviously undergrad and grad

    students but it's starting to happen in

    middle schools but not so much yet in

    elementary give it time

    do you have questions for myself or for

    the field you know jared i think you

    asked me so many great questions and

    i might flip one back on you

    you're a member of the cs4l community

    how are we doing as an organization so

    from an outside perspective

    there are two

    main areas that i see working really

    well with cs4

    one is

    the ability to connect others whether

    it's through the summit or

    through

    the

    commitments and then sharing that

    across the community or through the

    website

    the other area

    is highlighting

    [Music]

    either

    resources or

    organizations or people or even ideas

    that can help kind of

    guide individuals down a pathway

    whether it's like creating like the

    scripts to help

    think through a heuristic to figure out

    implementation or the visions to help

    figure out

    what direction do we want to go in and

    why what is the purpose of this

    so for me i see those as two invaluable

    things that the organization does really

    well from my outside perspective

    so i don't know if that answers your

    question fully but like

    as an organization

    i'm glad we have that because we have

    like code.org is really good at

    getting

    policymakers involved in some way

    getting

    action and change to happen within

    states and then providing like the

    support whether it's through curriculum

    or workshops or whatever to just get

    teachers introduced to it and so like

    that organization is great for that but

    what i see cs4 all really doing well is

    the connection and then highlighting and

    providing resources that really help

    dive deeper

    rather than just kind of like some of

    the more surface level things that i see

    in other organizations that doesn't mean

    code.org i just mean other organizations

    in general we all have a role to play in

    this landscape right there's plenty of

    work to go around

    there's too much work for any one org to

    do at all

    we need

    different organizations focusing on

    different pieces of the work in order to

    get to the kind of quality we all hope

    and dream for for kids and i would be

    remiss if i didn't mention if your

    listeners don't know about the summit or

    the commitments we have a website

    summit.cs4all.org and there's a

    beautiful commitments visual that's

    relatively new where you can actually

    search over the last four years this is

    going to be our fifth year of collecting

    commitments look at commitments by state

    by organization by year all kinds of

    different ways for you to see

    how computer science education has

    emerged in your own state or community

    and what the trajectory of that's been

    like over the last four years

    when we host our summit in october we'll

    release the fifth year of commitment

    data and we're going to celebrate a

    little bit of this year five years of

    progress in the community yeah i know

    because like having worked as a

    specialist in different subject areas in

    schools there's like this tendency to

    feel isolated because you're like

    sometimes literally the only teacher in

    your school doing a particular subject

    so i see

    the commitments in particular

    as a way like it was kind of equivalent

    to like having a plc in my district so

    like oh i'm actually getting together

    with other people who do this thing and

    we can engage in conversations and go oh

    you're doing that cool well i'm doing

    this thing and from an organizational

    standpoint the commitments like serve as

    at us like hey i didn't realize you were

    doing these awesome things

    check out what we're doing maybe we can

    collaborate in some kind of a way and

    that's you know one of the reasons

    behind them and it goes back to like our

    original intent which was to bring the

    community together and get them to hear

    what each other is doing and listen to

    each other so i'm glad that they are

    working in that way for you and it means

    that we're hopefully living our mission

    a little bit are there any questions

    that i haven't asked that you want to

    discuss i think we've talked a lot about

    equity and inclusion and if we're going

    to really count this as

    like not just an entry-level course

    like everybody has their own definition

    of equity right and it at cs for all

    we're working really hard to think about

    what does it truly mean

    to serve

    student populations with equity and when

    we talk about it from a research

    standpoint or an enacting word

    standpoint so think about it like a

    school district or a curriculum provider

    we tend to think about the momentary

    countables

    how many students are in the room

    what is the color of their skin and the

    shape of their butt

    right

    and how does that represent the general

    overall population but education

    for youth

    isn't

    these isolated standalone experiences

    they are

    stackable and parallel and happen in a

    whole bunch of different ways

    and so we're really thinking about

    equity from a standpoint not only of

    the

    data you collect at the moment but how

    do you look at it from that 360 view of

    a child

    so i live outside of new york city in

    westchester county there is no doubt

    that my community has

    more privilege than others

    and

    my daughter

    if i look at her ecosystem

    she not only gets an hour of computer

    science a week in her school

    it's one of the specials in her

    elementary school she's going into third

    grade she also has access to i think

    right now it's like seven different

    out of school or after school programs

    that involve computing or stem in some

    way

    there's a robotics program

    there's a coding program there's a lego

    encoding program

    the local library has something once a

    month

    the town rec center has something

    right so there's so many things that she

    can choose from based on her individual

    interest

    right which means that she's probably

    gonna find something if she chooses to

    go that way

    that will continue to develop that

    interest into long-term interest because

    she was excited and engaged in that

    moment

    if we look at other communities it might

    be that they

    maybe they have that fundamental

    standards complete learning pathway in

    the school

    but then there's only one opportunity

    for a kid to go deeper right right one

    after school program or one weekend

    activity or one thing at the library and

    so how do we

    look at equity from the perspective of

    that full wrap around on a student do

    they both have that standards complete

    minimum bar pathway that we think is

    important for every child

    and

    the suite of opportunities that will let

    them build off of their personal

    interests

    to develop a deeper interest

    and find computing or computational

    thinking

    intersects with their own worldview

    and the things they want to keep doing

    and so we're really trying to think

    about equity

    both from a

    instantaneous measure of participation

    and from an individual student 360 view

    how are we supporting that child so that

    they can access all of those

    opportunities so that their community

    has all of that around them so that the

    parent

    knows enough to broker for them as our

    colleague rafi likes to talk about

    into those activities and help them

    guide through that pathway so that when

    they get to high school and there's a

    choice of whether they want to try the

    ap class or not or go into a career and

    technical education program or take a

    digital art elective they can make that

    decision with information and then use

    that again

    at that next brokering point when they

    go into college

    make a decision about how computer

    science can impact their lives and we

    talk about

    helping students get over the hump right

    the drop withdrawal fail rate a

    university for computer science majors

    disproportionately affects women

    and is significantly higher than many of

    the other degree granting programs and

    institutions

    so if the cs1 and two courses

    are hard

    and

    are not disconnected from the real world

    ways that computer science can impact

    the world

    how do we best prepare a student with

    enough intrinsic motivation to persist

    through those

    because they've been able to experience

    that

    pathway and sweet and opportunities that

    allow them to persist and have success

    in later life

    so for us equity involves

    really

    not only that instantaneous view

    but all of that surrounding things

    around a child how do we make an

    equitable ecosystem

    from community to community so that your

    zip code doesn't determine your

    opportunity yeah and to build off of

    that i mentioned in an episode where i

    talked about candice erickson's

    discussion of expertise and skill

    advocates acquisition which was like

    what malcolm gladwell basically cited to

    come up with the ten thousand hour rule

    which isn't actually a rule if you

    actually read the research but

    like

    once we get

    the

    floor to the point where everybody has

    opportunity to do it in cs in a school

    awesome but like you mentioned some

    schools then have after school

    okay that's great so what if we get

    everybody that opportunity but the thing

    to develop that expertise

    the next level is

    what about at home access to devices

    into internet that was really evident in

    this past year and a half with all the

    things that went on with covet and

    remote teaching and whatnot and learning

    is just the understanding of oh wow most

    of my kids don't even have the ability

    to log into a device or they have one

    device for like five siblings and they

    have really bad internet access like

    that level of inequality compared to

    like myself who had full internet access

    my own personal computer didn't have to

    share with anyone else like

    that really made it so that i could dive

    deeper into some areas where my friends

    could not because they just simply

    didn't have that opportunity so that's

    definitely something we have to continue

    to discuss and

    try and

    improve in some way and very much like

    the work we're doing with script

    there's not going to be a checklist it's

    not going to be that every school or

    community needs to have these 10 things

    right it's going to be

    do students have access

    to devices and high-speed internet

    are there programs available those

    programs might be offered through the

    library they might be offered through a

    community center it might be offered

    through a boys and girls club they might

    be offered by the school itself right

    so the question is about

    like what is the fundamental

    underpinning of what makes something

    equitable

    then how do communities

    create the opportunity and the resource

    for that to exist across the landscape

    and so it might be that you know what

    there is an ipad checkout at the local

    library

    that students can check out an ipad and

    bring it home or

    for new york city right they're putting

    these new york city they were for a

    while putting these new york city links

    that would project wi-fi

    to a radius from these stands which

    actually they put on top of old phone

    booths did you know this

    new york sydney took all of the like

    phone infrastructure yeah and created

    these podiums that basically replaced

    the phone booths that are wi-fi hotspots

    for communities

    that's smart

    with screens on them so that if you

    didn't have your own device you could

    actually do a little browsing in real

    time as well and it was a great way that

    they

    worked on that rather than wiring

    high-speed internet to every apartment

    in every building right

    creating those hot spots was the

    community-based solution for

    providing access to maybe not around the

    clock but not everybody needs it when

    they sleep

    but access to high-speed internet

    to serve the community at scale with

    some level of speed of rollout

    versus trying to

    somehow subsidize

    high-speed internet into every single

    apartment building in the city right so

    there has to be community-based

    solutions that can be creative

    that are centered in the community that

    get to those core

    principles that north star of what we're

    aiming for in order to claim that

    there's some kind of level playing field

    for students as they're making their way

    through

    the educational experiences that

    hopefully launch them into the next

    space i like how you just

    brilliantly like put a bow like you

    wrapped in some previous ideas into that

    closing idea so my last question for you

    is where might people go to connect with

    you and the organizations that you work

    with yeah absolutely so we have a

    website cs4l.org and i think that's your

    best starting point

    for connecting with us you could reach

    out to us at info at cs4.org and i

    actually get that through my inbox so

    that does come through b as well

    and we'll make sure that you connect

    either with me or the right staff member

    for any questions you might have and

    we'd love for you to ask for an office

    hour share our brain participate with us

    in the summit make a commitment we'd

    love to see you and we're looking

    forward to bringing the community

    together around this year's theme which

    is change happens in places at the

    summit in october and with that that

    concludes this week's episode of the

    csk8 podcast i really hope you enjoyed

    this particular interview with leanne

    and i hope you take the time to check

    out some of the resources in the show

    notes at jared o'leary.com if you'd be

    so kind please consider adding a review

    on the podcast app that you listen to

    this on or simply sharing this with a

    colleague who might be interested in

    this particular interview stay tuned

    next week for another episode and until

    then i hope you're all staying safe and

    are having a wonderful week

Guest Bio

Dr. Leigh Ann DeLyser has spent her career building the K-12 computer science (CS) field. As an Executive Director of CSforALL (csforall.org), she oversees programs and strategic planning and supervises research to build support for high quality CS education at all levels. A former high school and university CS educator, Leigh Ann understands challenges faced by teachers, administrators, and students developing their competency in the field and accessing high-quality learning opportunities and resources. Her influential “Running on Empty” report guides policies and research that support high-quality program implementation. Previously, Leigh Ann was Director of Research and Education at CSNYC, which built a foundation for CS in New York City public schools. She received a PhD in Computer Science and Cognitive Psychology, with a focus on CS education, from Carnegie Mellon University.

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