[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 1743-1744]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 SUPPORTING COMPUTER SCIENCE EDUCATION

  (Mr. KILMER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. KILMER. Mr. Speaker, last week Hadi Partovi, co-founder of 
Code.org, testified in the Science Committee that by 2020 there will be 
100,000 more computer science jobs in America than American students to 
fill them, and that women and minorities are underrepresented in these 
growing fields.
  I have got 24,002 reasons to care about this: there are 24,000 open 
computing jobs in my State right now, and I have two little girls who 
will be entering into a workforce that will rely on skills in 
computing.
  Right now, only 17 States accept computer science as a core math or 
science credit. That is why I support the Computer Science Education 
Act to fix this. According to an article in Education Week, in this 
last year in 11 States, not a single African American student took the 
AP computer science course; not a single Latino student in eight 
States, not a single female student in two States.
  If we are going to compete and ensure all students can make it in 
America, we have got to close the participation gap and provide these 
opportunities in every State. We have got to step it up.

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