Tech’s Diversity Problem Is Apparent as Early as High School

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Computer science stands out from other math and science courses in high schools in its lack of diversity, according to test data, and the situation has worsened over time. Credit Sally Ryan for The New York Times

In three states, not a single girl took the Advanced Placement exam in computer science last year. In eight states, no Hispanic students took it. And in 11 states, no black students took the test.

The data — compiled by Barbara Ericson, director of computing outreach at Georgia Tech’s College of Computing — illustrates just how deeply the tech industry’s lack of diversity reaches. It also shows how rapidly the United States is falling behind in educating young people for computing jobs, which are growing more than twice as fast as the average for all occupations.

“It matters because we don’t have enough people studying computer science in the United States to fill the projected number of jobs in the field,” Ms. Ericson said in an interview.

A.P. courses are college-level courses offered during high school, and passing A.P. exams helps high school students get into college and can earn them college credit.

Computer science stands out from other math and science courses in its lack of diversity. Over all, just 18.5 percent of students who took the A.P. exam in computer science were girls, while nearly half of calculus test takers were girls and more than half of biology test takers were girls, Ms. Ericson said.

Even in California, where it would seem that more children would be exposed to adults working in computer science, just 22 percent of test takers were girls, 1.5 percent were black and 8 percent were Hispanic.

The A.P. data also shows how the situation in computer science has worsened over time. In Wyoming, for instance, no high school student of any race or gender took the test, while 35 students took the test there in 2001.

In conversations about the lack of diversity in tech, people in the industry often say that the problems start in childhood, long before engineers enter the job market, in which women, blacks and Hispanics are underrepresented, according to the Census Bureau.

Though in fact the field is winnowed at many steps along the way, the A.P. data shows that the diversity problems start in high school and earlier.

Ms. Ericson said the lack of diversity is an issue of access. Only 2,200 high schools in the United States offer A.P. computer science courses, and they are more likely to be offered in schools in wealthier communities.

“The tech field is not representative, and underrepresented minorities often don’t have access to computing,” Ms. Ericson said. And even when they do, stereotypes about computer scientists “often keep them from taking the courses.”

In no state were more than 29 percent of test takers girls (the highest number was in Tennessee, where nearly half the test takers came from a single all-girls school). The state with the highest percentage of black test takers was Maryland, with 10 percent, though 29 percent of the state’s population is black. The state with the highest percentage of Hispanic test takers was Texas, with 19 percent, though 38 percent of the state is Hispanic.

Ms. Ericson would like a computing course to become a national requirement in high school, so all students would get access to the field. In the meantime, she said, several states, including Georgia, have succeeded in getting computer science to count as a math or science credit for high school graduation, which encourages students to take it.

By the end of the A.P. course, high school students should be able to design computer programs and develop algorithms to solve problems, code fluently and recognize the social and ethical implications of computer science at a college level, according to the College Board.