Like teachers, administrators cited pervasive misunderstandings about CS as a barrier to implementing quality CS instruction. While teachers sometimes included their principals among those who did not understand CS, the administrators interviewed tended to view district administrators as the problem. They confirmed what the teachers said—that there is little incentive for school administrators to prioritize CS. One administrator summed it up, “A) people don't understand what it is, and B) they don't see how it translates to the all-important standardized test.”

Administrators also felt that students may not understand principles behind CS, and instead may think that CS is merely computer repair or other topics that are peripheral to the logic and problem-solving skills core to the discipline. Other administrators felt that parents in their community have serious misconceptions about what CS is today. As one explained:

Parents are thinking of computer science when they were in school, which is totally different now. The things that parents learned in school when they may have had computer science, our kids come to high school already knowing. So I think it's just more of a tweak, more of a PR kind of thing than a re-education.

Administrators expressed the difficulty they face finding qualified CS teachers when positions are open at their schools. They look for teachers that possess both CS and teaching experience, but finding individuals with these skills who are also willing to sacrifice the financial benefits that come with the CS industry are difficult to find. As one administrator explained, “The single biggest challenge is getting people capable of instructing students, people with a background and interest in education that want to teach CS.” Another administrator said this of computer science teachers: “Well, you know, they're not so easy to find. They have some competing possibilities that tend to be more profitable than teaching.”

Administrators also spoke of the gap between their expectations for a CS teacher and the reality of the applicants they receive. They noted that even when they list specific skills in job descriptions, they still receive resumes from applicants with outdated skills that “don’t know what computer science is or should be.”

Administrators identified the lack of funding as a significant barrier to not only bringing CS courses to their schools, but also to maintaining the quality of materials needed to teach those courses. They cited this as a challenge for many courses at their schools, but also indicated that CS requires more costly resources than other courses. One challenge is providing the necessary computer maintenance: “Whatever computer science courses you add, whether it's a one-to-one or there's a computer lab, you need that set of folks down the hall ready to assist.” Schools are receiving financial support to expand computer science infrastructure, but this might not always be enough, as one administrator explained:

There's a headline in the newspaper… and it talks about how the school system is going to spend a million dollars on technology. That's not going to go very far. I mean it's great, but it's going to be like a drop in the ocean, compared with how many schools they have… I could easily spend a million dollars today, and we're an individual school.

In some cases, financial barriers impact students’ home lives in ways that pertain to CS. Students’ home contexts can sometimes limit their experience and exposure to technology in particular compared to other academic areas, due to the expense of maintaining technology in students’ homes. This may ultimately factor into the level of CS knowledge that students bring with them to school:

One thing that I have learned here, is that we have quite an affluent community, but when one of the parents loses their job, and they have to cut something, one of the first things they cut is technology. They cut that Internet… and so we have to try to provide those pieces for those students, which… we try to do. Well, if that happens and that child is like in the sixth grade, and the student goes through the sixth, seventh, eighth grade, and the school couldn't necessarily provide those supports, and then they get to high school, they are a little further behind. And so I think that's a component that we need to think about.

Student interest can also influence the allocation of resources, and if students are not enrolling in CS courses, this may result in fewer CS course offerings, as one administrator explains:

I’m worried that we would not be able to generate a critical mass of students necessary to justify investment in the program. So I know that we have about ten students that are available at this point, and given the resource limitations we've had—in our school district we've cut about a hundred million dollars out of our budget, over the last four years. It seems like every year we turn around and the state legislature is asking us to cut another 20 million, 12 million, so we end up looking at how many students would potentially be interested in the course, and can we offer a staff member to teach it, and right now, I’m not confident that we'll be able to do that.

In some schools, students may not enroll in CS courses at rates high enough to justify keeping the course. This may not always be due to a lack of interest in CS, however. Since CS is usually considered an elective, it must compete for space in students’ schedules with all other elective courses. As one administrator said, this is “pretty scarce real estate for the high school student.” Administrators that understand the value of CS try to help students fit it into their schedules, but “students are choosing from music, the arts, some of the athletic stuff, weight training, and CS Principles isn’t very flashy, it isn’t sexy, it’s not going to sell itself. You have to market that class.” In other cases, CS courses can conflict with AP courses that may have limited offerings, such as AP physics, AP math, or other advanced courses.

All of the administrators expressed support for CS courses in their schools. This is not surprising, as we only spoke with administrators who already had CS courses at their schools and were willing to speak with the research team. Nonetheless, this underscores that an important support for quality CS instruction is an administrator who understands it and believes in its importance.

We just say, we think that this is a pretty fundamental skill and area for kids to be aware of, you know, that we're stepping it up from exposure to computer apps which, obviously, our kids are better at than we are. So when they enter high school, and they've got that computer app education behind them, we believe that the next step is exposure to programming language. We see it as language study as much as we see it as preparing them for any potential future work in computer science. And you know, it's like, don't you kind of want to understand the design of an airplane because you ride in them, you know? Same idea here, because, I mean, it's such an integral part of our lives, it seems like an exposure to the fundamental process of how it works is pretty important.

Erin Mayo, Assistant Head of Academics
Episcopal School of Dallas
Dallas, Texas

Even though most of the administrators felt they understood CS at least at a basic level, they recognized that their CS teachers are the most knowledgeable about the subject. When administrators were asked what supports they had for CS instruction, they said that they “really rely on their staff” to inform CS education at their schools. Further, they depend on their CS teachers to pursue funding both for students and to support CS extracurricular activities.

[The CS teacher] really does a great job of researching grants, she takes kids to competitions all the time, we had a boy who finished first place in a computer science competition at Georgia Tech, I believe two weekends ago, won a five thousand dollar scholarship. So a lot of the time when she's finding the money, it might not be for the school, it might be for the kids. But if students and parents are hearing that kids are winning scholarships like that, of course they're going to be interested.

Megan Strange, Upper School Principal
North Cobb Christian School
Kennesaw, Georgia

The administrators we interviewed expressed that teachers must stay up-to-date in CS, a rapidly changing field, in order to deliver the most relevant content to students. They recognized that CS teachers must constantly research the industry standards, and can’t “get comfortable with what’s going on.” They support their teachers by providing money and identifying possible CS teacher professional development opportunities.

Computer science industry professionals recognize that there is a deficit of people with the skills necessary to fill job demand. As a result, the industry is involved in supporting CS education at the high school level. As one administrator explained, a lot of support is “coming from community, more technical companies, more businesses that are requiring those kinds of …so having students leave high school prepared to enter those kinds of work areas, or go into college to pursue those kinds of careers has become really important.” This administrator recognized that the role of schools and education is to improve the community, and that in a rapidly-changing world, computer science is an important part of that:

I feel like sometimes we're educating for a future that we don't know what it looks like, and so we're just trying to push the kids to think outside the box and to think and to use those skills to, you know, basically make our community a better place. It sounds really corny, I know, but that's really what it's about.

Sheila Beckham, Principal
Oconee County High School
Watkinsville, Georgia

Parents and other community members also recognize the importance of CS. One administrator felt that parents in his community place value on STEM, and that they “put computer science in the bigger picture of STEM and engineering careers, so when we do put it like that, we have a lot of support for offering those classes.”

Another administrator summed this point up well:

Basically, if you have any type of computer science knowledge, no matter what field you go in, I think it makes you more marketable, no matter if you go into the medical field or go to be an attorney, it doesn't matter if you go to be an accountant. I think it makes you more marketable.

Nearly all administrators said that they looked for both CS content knowledge and the ability to teach well in prospective CS teachers. They recognize that this combination is difficult to come by, given the lack of monetary incentives compared to jobs in the computer science industry. The pedagogy skills are of particular importance in CS, because it is likely that students will bring vastly different background knowledge to the classroom, and it takes an experienced teacher to engage all students. As one administrator put it, “their backgrounds through math and science are so varied, so I think differentiation is huge, so that you meet that student at their level and you challenge them, but you've got to get them all to the same point at the end.”

Many administrators recognized the growing demand for people with CS skills in the workplace. While they acknowledge this demand, they worry that the education system will not be able to change quickly enough to equip students with the skills they will need to fill those jobs. One administrator said: “Because there isn't a whole lot of heat coming from outside schools… computer science offerings will tend more to be exposure to applications.” This administrator recognized that this was not sufficient to give students the CS background that they would need to pursue a career in the field.

Administrators recognized the disparity that exists in CS, both in industry and in their schools. For example, one administrator explained that he and the CS teacher at his school actively engage underrepresented minority and female students in CS courses, noting “I would love for my daughter to have [a CS career] as an opportunity…and not necessarily have her break through doors to get there.”

Another hoped to use all students’ inherent interest in technology as a way to engage more students in CS courses:

I think all students should have some exposure to computer science before they graduate from high school, and I don't mean a computer applications class, I mean a real computer science course. Students need to see the connection between computer science and their chosen career field, as well as, other curriculum areas. I think this would go a long way in promoting computer science not only in our state, but also in our nation. I also think we need to look at computer science as a way of improving our national math and science student achievement performance. I think students see the relevance of a computer science class more than they see the relevance of a trig class. Students naturally make the connection of computer science to their lives and career aspirations. What they do not realize is that they are learning the same skills taught in their math class.

Sheila Beckham, Principal
Oconee County High School
Watkinsville, Georgia

Administrators recognized that computer science relates to many other disciplines and expressed a vision for CS to be a subject more firmly integrated into other courses. Their suggestions included the removal of CS as a standalone course, and “a more integrated approach” that “intertwines itself with a bigger educational platform.” Another administrator said that she would like to see CS instruction take place across the curriculum, and that she sees CS as similar to writing:

As a language arts person, I’ve always argued that one of our failures is to not really teach writing across the curriculum, which is a recognition of ‘I don't care what area you're in.’ Ultimately, you're going to have to reduce your knowledge in a meaningful fashion, which will most likely be written, not spoken, and we really haven't gotten to the point where we teach writing across the curriculum, but it seems to me that CS should be embedded in almost every course.

However, teachers did not share this vision, and instead expressed the desire for an increase in CS course options as a way to increase student enrollment and exposure and ensure quality and resources are adequate.