[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 186 (Tuesday, December 6, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H8138-H8139]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    COMPUTER SCIENCE EDUCATION WEEK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Colorado (Mr. Polis) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POLIS. Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak in support of 
Computer Science Education Week, which started this past Sunday, 
December 4, 2011, and runs through Saturday, December 10. This week-
long celebration of the teaching and learning of computer science is a 
call to share information and host activities that will elevate 
computer science education for students at all levels.
  In my district in Colorado, the computing achievements of 20 young 
women will be celebrated at an awards event for the Colorado affiliate 
of the Aspirations in Computing Award on the campus of the University 
of Colorado at Boulder.
  On Friday, representatives of Computer Science Education Week and the 
Computer Science Teachers Association will be honored at the White 
House as Champions of Change, which is part of President Obama's 
Winning the Future initiative.
  Today in Harlem, New York, a company is launching a new national 
initiative, Tech Girls Rock, in collaboration with the Boys and Girls 
Clubs of America. On Thursday, 200 third-graders will learn hands-on 
programing and Web site development at Techie Club. I'm marking this 
occasion by talking to you about computer science education and urging 
all my colleagues in the House to support legislation I introduced 
earlier this year, the Computer Science Education Act, H.R. 3014.
  Computing and information technology is transforming our world--

[[Page H8139]]

driving innovation, driving job creation, leading to entirely new 
multimillion-dollar industries, and transforming how we live and work 
for the better.
  Computer science education prepares students for the jobs of the 
future by engaging and preparing them for careers in high-paying 
occupations. But our education system is not currently producing enough 
graduates in computing sciences and IT fields to meet the growing needs 
of the industry. In fact, the current pipeline of computing graduates 
will only fill 52 percent of the projected jobs. The other 48 percent 
will either have to be filled elsewhere in the world or go unfilled.
  If the U.S. is to continue to discover and develop the innovations 
that have created new industries and transformed others, we need to 
ensure a healthy computer science workforce that's skilled and large 
enough to meet our growing needs. Women and many minority groups are 
currently underrepresented among computing and IT professionals as well 
as students, depriving the Nation of a potential skilled workforce and 
of the innovation that results from diverse teams.
  If we don't address the issues causing too few students to take 
computer science education classes in kindergarten through 12th grade, 
as well as college, our pipeline and our Nation's future will be 
compromised. That's why I've introduced the Computer Science Education 
Act, which will help ensure that American students not only use 
technology, but also learn the computing skills to invent technology 
needed to grow and drive our economy. I look forward to working with my 
colleagues to include this piece of legislation in the Elementary and 
Secondary Education Act reauthorization.
  Computer Science Education Week was established in 2009 by the 
Computing in the Core Coalition to honor Grace Murray Hopper, a pioneer 
in computer science who engineered a new programing language and 
developed standards for computer systems to lay the foundation for many 
advances in computer science from the late 1940s through the 1970s. The 
U.S. House of Representatives has recognized Computer Science Education 
Week in the second week of December over the past 2 years.
  Computer Science Education Week is a collaborative activity of 
Computing in the Core, a nonpartisan advocacy coalition. Its core 
partners are: the Association for Computing Machinery, Microsoft, 
Google, Computer Science Teachers Association, the National Center for 
Women and Information Technology--which is based in my district in 
Colorado--IEEE Computer Society, the Computing Research Association, 
the College Board, and many, many others.
  I encourage my colleagues to join me in acknowledging the importance 
of computer science for our future by recognizing Computer Science 
Education Week this week.

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