Mr. Partovi compared Code.org’s approach to those of start-ups like Airbnb and Uber. “Airbnb is disrupting the travel space, but they don't own the hotels,” he said, adding: “We are in a similar model, disrupting education. But we are not running the school and we don't hire the teachers.”
Mr. Partovi’s elite connection didn't hurt.
One day in 2013, he bumped into his neighbor, Bradford L. Smith, then a senior Microsoft executive, in a driveway at their homes in Bellevue, Wash. Mr. Smith had recently published a Microsoft report calling for a federal plan to better prepare students for careers in computer science and engineering.
Mr. Partovi, for his part, was hoping to go viral with a message that coding could improve students’ job prospects. Teaching skills that may lead to higher-paying jobs “seems like the kind of idea that everyone in the country can get behind,” he said.
Mr. Partovi promptly invited Mr. Smith over to preview his celebrity coders video.
Microsoft soon became Code.org’s largest donor. Mr. Smith, now the president of Microsoft, compared their efforts to an educational initiative in the late 1950s. Back then, the Soviet Union had just won the space race by launching Sputnik, and the United States, in an effort to catch up, passed a law to finance physics and other science courses.
Mr. Partovi’s elite connection didn't hurt.
One day in 2013, he bumped into his neighbor, Bradford L. Smith, then a senior Microsoft executive, in a driveway at their homes in Bellevue, Wash. Mr. Smith had recently published a Microsoft report calling for a federal plan to better prepare students for careers in computer science and engineering.
Mr. Partovi, for his part, was hoping to go viral with a message that coding could improve students’ job prospects. Teaching skills that may lead to higher-paying jobs “seems like the kind of idea that everyone in the country can get behind,” he said.
Mr. Partovi promptly invited Mr. Smith over to preview his celebrity coders video.
Microsoft soon became Code.org’s largest donor. Mr. Smith, now the president of Microsoft, compared their efforts to an educational initiative in the late 1950s. Back then, the Soviet Union had just won the space race by launching Sputnik, and the United States, in an effort to catch up, passed a law to finance physics and other science courses.
“We think computer science is to the 21st century what physics was to the 20th century,” Mr. Smith said.
Together with local groups, Mr. Partovi said, Code.org and Microsoft have helped persuade 24 states to allow computer science to count toward math or science credits required for high school graduation. Along with groups like Black Girls Code, Girls Who Code and Latina Girls Code, Code.org has worked to make the subject accessible to a diverse group of students.
But the movement has also supported legislation that could give companies enormous sway in public schools, starting with kindergarten, with little public awareness.
Last year, Microsoft and Code.org helped push for a career-education bill in Idaho that education researchers warned could prioritize industry demands over students’ interests. Among other things, they said, it could sway schools to teach specific computer programming languages that certain companies needed, rather than broader problem-solving approaches that students might use throughout their lives.
“It gets very problematic when industry is deciding the content and direction of public education,” said Jane Margolis, a senior researcher at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angles.
The Idaho bill read, in part, “It is essential that efforts to increase computer science instruction, kindergarten through career, be driven by the needs of industry and be developed in partnership with industry.”
When a reporter apprised him of the bill’s language, Mr. Smith seemed taken aback, saying he had not endorsed it. “Broad public education should not be grounded first and foremost in the needs of any particular industry － or in the needs of industry as a whole,” he said.
Mr. Partovi noted that Code.org had opposed a “more extreme” coding bill in Florida that would have required students to obtain industry certification. It has also opposed bills that would allow coding courses to count toward foreign-language credits in high schools, he said. Still, Mr. Partovi added, “We do think that tech companies have a role to play.”
Together with local groups, Mr. Partovi said, Code.org and Microsoft have helped persuade 24 states to allow computer science to count toward math or science credits required for high school graduation. Along with groups like Black Girls Code, Girls Who Code and Latina Girls Code, Code.org has worked to make the subject accessible to a diverse group of students.
But the movement has also supported legislation that could give companies enormous sway in public schools, starting with kindergarten, with little public awareness.
Last year, Microsoft and Code.org helped push for a career-education bill in Idaho that education researchers warned could prioritize industry demands over students’ interests. Among other things, they said, it could sway schools to teach specific computer programming languages that certain companies needed, rather than broader problem-solving approaches that students might use throughout their lives.
“It gets very problematic when industry is deciding the content and direction of public education,” said Jane Margolis, a senior researcher at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angles.
The Idaho bill read, in part, “It is essential that efforts to increase computer science instruction, kindergarten through career, be driven by the needs of industry and be developed in partnership with industry.”
When a reporter apprised him of the bill’s language, Mr. Smith seemed taken aback, saying he had not endorsed it. “Broad public education should not be grounded first and foremost in the needs of any particular industry － or in the needs of industry as a whole,” he said.
Mr. Partovi noted that Code.org had opposed a “more extreme” coding bill in Florida that would have required students to obtain industry certification. It has also opposed bills that would allow coding courses to count toward foreign-language credits in high schools, he said. Still, Mr. Partovi added, “We do think that tech companies have a role to play.”
The Idaho law took effect last year. One of its first results was a new program, developed with Oracle, to train public-school teachers how to teach students JAVA, Oracle’s popular coding language. Other companies, including the chip maker Micron Technology, were invited to help develop computer science standards for Idaho schools.
“Some people will believe that industry is going to be driving our education system forward, and that is absolutely not the case,” said Angela Hemingway, executive director of the Idaho STEM Action Center, which oversees the state’s computer science education initiative. “They are collaborative partners.”
Certainly, many students across the country, and their parents, are clamoring for computer science. But what if some other subject － say, data science （which involves computing） － turns out to be more important and broadly applicable to students’ lives, careers and communities?
The clout behind computer science has all but obviated a wider debate about whether, to better prepare students, schools might introduce an array of new subjects. It has also overshadowed discussion about whether students would be better off if schools modified traditional math classes to increase the emphasis on fields like statistics.
Mr. Smith of Microsoft said that tech companies and philanthropists were simply trying to give voice to an overlooked subject.
“What we really need is a national conversation about the broad array of intellectual disciplines that will be fundamental to the future of American students,” Mr. Smith said. “It's a broad array, not a single subject.”
Mr. Partovi concurred. “We have a lot of debate in this country about how to teach,” he said, “and not enough debate about what to teach.”
“Some people will believe that industry is going to be driving our education system forward, and that is absolutely not the case,” said Angela Hemingway, executive director of the Idaho STEM Action Center, which oversees the state’s computer science education initiative. “They are collaborative partners.”
Certainly, many students across the country, and their parents, are clamoring for computer science. But what if some other subject － say, data science （which involves computing） － turns out to be more important and broadly applicable to students’ lives, careers and communities?
The clout behind computer science has all but obviated a wider debate about whether, to better prepare students, schools might introduce an array of new subjects. It has also overshadowed discussion about whether students would be better off if schools modified traditional math classes to increase the emphasis on fields like statistics.
Mr. Smith of Microsoft said that tech companies and philanthropists were simply trying to give voice to an overlooked subject.
“What we really need is a national conversation about the broad array of intellectual disciplines that will be fundamental to the future of American students,” Mr. Smith said. “It's a broad array, not a single subject.”
Mr. Partovi concurred. “We have a lot of debate in this country about how to teach,” he said, “and not enough debate about what to teach.”
