Looking Back & Driving Forward
Reflecting on my time as Chief Evangelist at CSforALL.
The word is out that I am leaving CSforALL at the end of June 2021. As I prepare to step away to focus on scaling up the Last Mile Education Fund, it feels like the right time to look back at all we’ve accomplished.
July 1, 2017, a few months after departing the Obama Administration, I joined the small but mighty team at CSNYC, the organization leading the effort to bring computer science to the New York City public schools (ahem, the largest school district in the US). Together, in a few short months, we turned the organization to be nationally facing, expanding the NSF-funded CSforALL Consortium project to become CSforALL, a national hub for the K-12 Computer Science education movement.
We’ve made huge strides in these four short years.
Catalyzed a Community
A big part of my work as Chief Evangelist and the focus of the entire CSforALL team has been to invite all potential stakeholders to the table, and make the table bigger. I often explain that it’s my job to convince others that CS education is their job
We’ve done just that.
When launched at the White House Summit on Computer Science for All in September of 2016, the CSforALL Consortium membership included 188 organizations. Today, CSforALL has 803 members. That includes schools and districts, local, regional and state governments, nonprofits of every size and scope, researchers, curriculum providers and edtech companies, along with the corporations and foundations that invest in CS education. This diversity of participation is critical, because this is a big job. It will take all of us — working at it from every angle — to achieve the systems-level change required for #CSforALL.
Reached for the Summit
The most visible CSforALL program is the annual CSforALL Summit and Commitments event. The Summit brings together the entire #CSforALL community of organizations, partners and individuals. We celebrate progress and announce new efforts to move towards our collective goal. It is also a lot of fun. This work takes time and dogged persistence. It’s critical to mark milestones along the way — while keeping an eye on the future.
CSforALL Commitments drive action, inviting the entire community of CS stakeholders to publicly commit to stretch goals — often as collaborations that can achieve greater impact — bringing us all closer to the finish line. Collectively, the #CSforALL community has made 870 commitments to action since 2017, ranging from individual schools committing to offer CS classes for their students to sweeping national programs that serve millions of students and families. You can read about each of the #CSforALL commitments in our awesome Commitments Visualization.
Logged Some Major Miles
Pre-COVID I was traveling over 100K miles per year as Chief Evangelist for CSforALL. Much of that time was spent speaking to and learning from organizations and community leaders, sharing stories of success from around the nation, and incubating new commitments to help move the needle further, faster. I couldn’t even enumerate all the keynotes, panels, podcasts, interviews and presentations since 2017 if you asked me to.
The best part of my role has been the people in the #CSforALL community — the dedicated and determined educators and activists that live and breath the mission every day. I’ve been fortunate to witness their work in action and share it with the wider community. Post-COVID, the CSforALL team is still out in the community, albeit virtually. CSforALL’s monthly community calls and Medium channel highlight the work of members to both recognize innovative efforts, share knowledge, and inspire others to follow suit.
Climbed the Hill
Policy making — both local and national — has been a less visible but powerful part of our work. We are proud to collaborate with the ECEP Alliance on state-level policy for K-12 CS and teacher education. At a national level, we’ve been privileged to support and advise members of Congress in creating CS education legislation such as the Teach CS Act (pending, reintroduced in 2021) and the PROMOTES Act (passed in 2020) which authorized and funded a program to ensure high quality computer science, cybersecurity and related STEM subjects are available at over 3400 JROTC host high schools across the US — serving 545K JROTC cadets and ensuring access for over 4M students overall.
With the unprecedented investments being made in infrastructure currently, we are looking forward to finally seeing a legislative focus on CS education (as well as broadband and device access, which is critical) and an infusion of investment. Computing education is infrastructure. It is the infrastructure to equip our young people with the skills to become innovators of the future.
What’s Next for Me: Investing in the Last Mile for Striving Students
Much of my work over the past two decades has been about getting more students — particularly historically excluded students — into tech and engineering pathways, building tech and engineering programs and badges for Girl Scouts of the USA, NCWIT’s Aspirations in Computing, AspireIT, TECHNOLOchicas, and of course, CSforALL.
The good news is that community-wide efforts to increase participation in computing pathways are working and we’re seeing surging enrollment in college CS. Unfortunately the structural barriers that hinder success for low-income students remain firmly in place. Currently less than 20% of students in the bottom two income quartiles complete a degree within six years of starting college. That is an abysmal rate, given all the effort made to get them there.
We must do better. We can’t afford not to.
The Last Mile Education Fund is an effort to close this gap and ensure that the resources, time and efforts already invested in getting students to that point are not lost. I am so excited about this work and the impact we have already had. Since January 2020 we’ve invested more than 600K in the last mile to a degree for over 500 women and non-binary computing students (94% non-white) — of which 93 have already graduated, with more to follow. You can learn more and contribute at www.lastmile-ed.org and follow us @LastMileFund.
Not to worry, I’m certainly not exiting the #CSforALL movement (far from it). I’ll just be focused on the critical last mile of our students’ journey.
I pledge to continue leveraging my voice and networks to champion diversity and inclusion in tech, and am always interested in supporting those doing the work on the ground. You can reach me @RutheF or ruthe@lastmile-ed.org.
What’s Next for CSforALL
As for CSforALL, they are growing their national team and footprint, with a focus on strengthening and innovating their flagship membership program that connects and supports the CS education movement for a growing cohort of organizations that represents millions of students. This year, they will be releasing an online resource for school districts to track their computer science education advancement, along with the ability to connect and share resources. CSforALL understands that educational change needs to happen in the places where students are, whether that be a city, town, or rural community with the support of national initiatives. Stay tuned for 2021 Summit announcements, a new community-based initiative, and resources and research. You can stay connected to the movement via CSforALL’s social media channels, the 2021 CSforALL Summit, virtual meetings, and all the places between!
