Eric Roberts Professor of Computer Science Stanford University

1. Computer Science as an Essential 21st-Century Skill: Making the Case Eric Roberts Professor of Computer Science Stanford University K-12 Computing Teachers Workshop Grace Hopper Celebration Atlanta, Georgia October 2, 2010

2. Papers and Talks on Gender Equity Expanding the Audience for Computer Science Eric Roberts Stanford University

3. Why Diversity Is Essential —from my SIGCSE talk on “Expanding the Audience” in 2003 • Equality of access is an important ethical principle. • Greater diversity among those who create computing technology ensures that those technologies are relevant to and usable by a wider range of people. • More specifically, the male-dominated tradition of computing leads to an overall culture of technological machismo, as evidenced by modern computer games. • Despite the economic downturn, there continues to be a shortage of highly productive software developers. • Becoming a good software developer requires a rare combination of skills, creativity, and temperament, making it all the more critical to look for such talent in as wide a population as possible.

4. Talking Point #1 Demand for people with strong computer science skills has remained high throughout the history of the field, and has held up even during times of recession.

5. Computing and Competitiveness • In his 2005 book, The World Is Flat, New York Times editorial writer Tom Friedman argues that the new global economy places increasing weight on technological innovation to maintain national economic competitiveness. • Technological innovation requires a highly trained workforce with strong computational skills, which means that such skills are in high demand.

6. 1) 2) 3) 4) Increase America’s talent pool by vastly improving K-12 mathematics and science education; Sustain and strengthen the nation’s commitment to long-term basic research; Develop, recruit, and retain top students, scientists, and engineers from both the U.S. and abroad; and Ensure that the United States is the premier place in the world for innovation. The Challenge of the Global Marketplace In a world where advanced knowledge is widespread and low-cost labor is readily available, U.S. advantages in the marketplace and in science and technology have begun to erode. A comprehensive and coordinated federal effort is urgently needed to bolster U.S. competitiveness and pre-eminence in these areas. This congressionally requested report by a pre-eminent committee makes four recommendations along with 20 implementation actions that federal policy-makers should take to create high-quality jobs and focus new science and technology efforts on meeting the nation’s needs, especially in the area of clean, affordable energy:

7. Updates from Last Week’s Revision . . . Five years ago, the National Academies prepared Rising Above the Gathering Storm, a book that cautioned: “Without a renewed effort to bolster the foundations of our competitiveness, we can expect to lose our privileged position.” Since that time we find ourselves in a country where much has changed—and a great deal has not changed. So where does America stand relative to its position of five years ago when the Gathering Storm book was prepared? The unanimous view of the authors is that our nation’s outlook has worsened. The present volume, Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited, explores the tipping point America now faces. Addressing America’s competitiveness challenge will require many years if not decades; however, the requisite federal funding of much of that effort is about to terminate.

8. Literary Visions of America’s Future • As a result, this country has one of the worst economies in the world. When it gets down to it—talking trade balances here—once we’ve brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they’re making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here—once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel—once the Invisible Hand has taken all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity—y’know what? There’s only four things we do better than anyone else: • Music • Movies • Microcode (software) • Pizza delivery

9. Talking Point #2 Producing more students who are highly skilled in science and technology is widely recognized as essential to national economic competitiveness.

10. Employment (thousands) Top 10 job growth categories (2006-2016) 2006 2016 Growth 1. Network systems and data communications analysts 262 402 53.4 2. Personal and home care aides 767 1,156 50.6 3. Home health aides 787 1,171 48.7 4. Computer software engineers, applications 507 733 44.6 5. Veterinary technologists and technicians 71 100 41.0 6. Personal financial advisors 176 248 41.0 Google and Facebook are fighting hard to hire this year’s crop of computer science graduates, we’ve heard, and ground zero is Stanford. Most of the class of 2008 already have job offers even though graduation is months away. Last year, salaries of up to $70,000 were common for the best students. This year, Facebook is said to be offering $92,000, and Google has increased some offers to $95,000 to get their share of graduates. Students with a Master’s degree in Computer Science are being offered as much as $130,000 for associate product manager jobs at Google. 7. Makeup artists, theatrical and performance 2 3 39.8 8. Medical assistants 465 148 35.4 62 84 35.0 9. Veterinarians 10. Substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors 83 112 34.3 Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections: 2006-16, December 2007. Computing Opportunities are High • The computing industry offers some of the best employment opportunities for university graduates. Here are a few data points that can serve as evidence: • The number of jobs in the domestic software industry are at an all-time high and are projected to grow dramatically over the next decade. • Salaries for newly minted B.S. graduates in Computer Science are high, often exceeding the $100,000 mark. • In 2005, Money magazine rated software engineer as the number one job in America. • Labor statistics show that the ratio of the number of available jobs per graduate is higher in computing than any other employment category.

11. Degree Production vs. Job Openings 160,000 Ph.D. 140,000 Master’s 120,000 Bachelor’s 100,000 Projected job openings 80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000 Engineering Physical Sciences Biological Sciences Computer Science Sources: Adapted from a presentation by John Sargent, Senior Policy Analyst, Department of Commerce, at the CRA Computing Research Summit, February 23, 2004. Original sources listed as National Science Foundation/Division of Science Resources Statistics; degree data from Department of Education/National Center for Education Statistics: Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System Completions Survey; and NSF/SRS; Survey of Earned Doctorates; and Projected Annual Average Job Openings derived from Department of Commerce (Office of Technology Policy) analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics 2002-2012 projections. See http://www.cra.org/govaffairs/content.php?cid=22.

12. Industry Reports a Labor Shortage —April 28, 2005 Gates Cites Hiring Woes, Criticizes Visa Restrictions By David A. Vise Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates said yesterday the software giant is having enormous difficulty filling computer jobs in the United States as a result of tight visa restrictions on foreign workers and a declining interest among U._S. students in computer science. <tab>Speaking on a technology panel at the Library of Congress, Gates said a decline in the number of U._S. students pursuing careers in science and technology is hurting Microsoft in the short run, and could have serious long-term consequences for the U._S. economy if the problem is not addressed. <tab>“We are very concerned that the U._S. will lose its competitive position. For Microsoft, it means we are having a tougher time hiring,” Gates said. “The jobs are there, and they are good-paying jobs, but we don’t have the same pipeline.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/27/AR2005042702241.html

13. But Contrary Reports Keep Coming In —September 6, 2010 Once a Dynamo, the Tech Sector Is Slow to Hire By CATHERINE RAMPELL For years the technology sector has been considered the most dynamic, promising and globally envied industry in the United States. It escaped the recession relatively unscathed, and profits this year have been soaring. <tab>But as the nation struggles to put people back to work, even high-tech companies have been slow to hire, a sign of just how difficult it will be to address persistently high joblessness. . . . <tab>The chief hurdles to more robust technology hiring appear to be increasing automation and the addition of highly skilled labor overseas. The result is a mismatch of skill levels here at home: not enough workers with the cutting-edge skills coveted by tech firms, and too many people with abilities that can be duplicated offshore at lower cost. Nevertheless, many high-tech companies large and small say they are struggling to find highly skilled engineering talent in the United States. <tab>“We are firing up our college recruiting program, enduring all manner of humiliation to try to fill these jobs,” said Glenn Kelman, chief executive of Redfin, an online brokerage agency for buying and selling homes that is based in Seattle and San Francisco. “I do think we’re still chasing them, not the other way around.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/business/economy/07/jobs.html

14. 1. All IT jobs will soon be outsourced to India and China. 2. Good IT workers will be easy to find in the new “flatter” world. 3. Companies will always seek the lowest-priced labor. The 2006 ACM report on Globalization and Offshoring of Software finds that even though offshoring of software has increased the number of computing jobs in India and China, it has also increased the number of jobs in the United States.   Myths about Offshoring Thus, at least in computing, globalization has functioned exactly as the theory of comparative advantage suggests.  

15. A Thought Experiment about Offshoring • Suppose that you are Microsoft and that you can hire a software developer from Stanford whose loaded costs will be $200,000 per year. Over in Bangalore, however, you can hire a software developer for $75,000 per year. Both are equally talented and will create $1,000,000 annually in value. What do you do? • Although the developer in Bangalore has a higher return, the optimal strategy is to hire them both. After all, why throw away $800,000 a year? • Any elementary economics textbook will explain that one hires as long as the marginal value of the new employee is greater than the marginal cost. The essential point is that companies seek to maximize return, and not simply to minimize cost.

16. Talking Point #3 Demand for computer science graduates remains high in comparison with other scientific and engineering fields, even in the presence of offshoring.

17. The Problem Starts Early Despite recent increases in university majors, computer science remains unpopular in high school. Source: Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA, 2005

18. AP/CS Is Relatively Small

19. Eliminated in 2009 Worse Still, AP/CS Is Losing Ground • The Computer Science exam is the only Advanced Placement exam that has shown declining student numbers in recent years.

20. Computing Faces Huge Challenges in Schools • In many schools, computer science is classified as vocational rather than academic. • Students who are heading toward top universities are advised to take non-CS courses to bolster their admissions chances. • Because schools are evaluated on how well their students perform in math and science, many schools are shifting teachers away from computer science toward these disciplines. • People who have software development skills command high salaries and tend not to teach in schools. J • Administrators find tools like PowerPoint more sexy and exciting. • Modern tools have made programming more difficult to teach. • Computer science and computer scientists have a serious image problem that makes the field unattractive to many students.

21. Jan Cuny’s “Clean Slate” Project http://www.cra.org/Activities/summit/Cuny_A_Clean_Slate_Approach_to_High_School_CS.pdf

22. Talking Point #4 We will not be able to address the shortfall in computing expertise unless we improve the situation at the K-12 level. Fortunately, K-12 education is currently a very hot topic.

23. Waiting for Superman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKTfaro96dg

24. Matt Lauer Interviews President Obama http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/39378291#39378291

25. Talking Point #5 Solving this problem will require all of us to work together from the many constituencies we represent: teachers, academics, industry, government. No one can do it alone.

26. Key Initiatives • The National Science Foundation has launched an ambitious effort to mount a “clean slate” approach to teaching computing at the high-school level. • For the past two years, ACM and CSTA have worked to make sure that computer science is part of the many debates and proposals happening at all levels of government. • On October 6, CSTA and ACM will make two announcements: 1. 2. The release of a report entitled Running on Empty: The Failure to Teach K-12 Computer Science in the Digital Age, which examines how well the Model Curriculum has been implemented in the states. The formation of a new coalition for K-12 computer science education called Computing in the Core.

27. Talking Point #6 Building a successful partnership that can fix problems in computer science education is undeniably challenging, but success is possible.

28. About Bermuda • British overseas territory lying 600 miles east of North Carolina. • Land area just over 20 square miles (less than twice the size of the Stanford campus). • Total population of only 62,000 (roughly the size of Palo Alto) with two public high schools: Berkeley and Cedarbridge. • Local parliament has had a Labour majority since 1998. • Considerable national wealth, primarily from companies that relocate to Bermuda as a tax haven. • The CIA World Factbook for 2005 listed Bermuda as having the highest GDP per capita in the world.

29. The Bermuda.edu Documentary

30. Image of Computing (California) In 1998, sixth-graders in selected California schools were asked to draw their image of a computer professional. The drawings are for the most part aligned with traditional stereotypes:

31. Images of Computing (Bermuda) In Bermuda, we repeated this experiment after students had taken our courses and got rather different results:

32. The End