Lessons From California on Expanding Computer Science Education and Empowering Teachers

From the phones in our pockets to the systems that serve as backbones for our businesses, computing is ubiquitous in American society. And as artificial intelligence rapidly grows and permeates our social and work activities, technology will likely continue to expand its influence in our lives. To navigate this increasingly digital world, we all need the knowledge and skills to understand how these tools operate and to become savvy users-and even designers-of them.

Computer science (CS) education in public schools is the most effective way to cultivate these knowledge and skills in a systematic and widespread way. While computer science has been part of the high school curriculum in some schools for decades, it's typically offered as an elective and available to only a small percentage of students.

The most recent analysis from code.org finds that 60% of U.S. public high schools offer foundational computer science and merely 6% of high school students are enrolled in these classes. Meanwhile, despite serving as the epicenter of technological innovation and the home to such companies as Apple, Google, and Meta, participation levels in California lag behind national averages. Across state and local contexts, disparities in access persist among schools and student groups.

One of the key obstacles that prevents computer science from taking hold at the K-12 level is a shortage of educators with the substantive knowledge and confidence to teach computer science courses. This is true not only for the teachers of standalone computer science classes-the kind we typically see at the high school level-but also for teachers of younger learners and of other content areas.

A recent $15 million investment in the State of California sought to address this challenge. The Educator Workforce Investment Grant in Computer Science (EWIG) funneled resources and established an infrastructure for a series of workshops known as Seasons of CS that aimed to prepare teachers and administrators to deliver CS instruction to their students.

Key Takeaways from the EWIG Evaluation

AIR's evaluation of EWIG reveals several key takeaways:

1. Summer of CS reached hundreds of educators, including many who had never before taught computer science.

The most intense form of professional learning offered through the EWIG program was a series of multiday workshops offered over the summer, many of which included follow-up engagements throughout the subsequent school year. In 2024 and 2025, Summer of CS attracted more than 1,000 participants, nearly half of whom had no prior experience teaching computer science. This pool of educators closely matched the racial and gender composition of California's teaching population.

2. Participants in Summer of CS reported increases in their confidence to teach computer science and beliefs about who can be successful.

Surveys administered to participants at the beginning and end of the Summer of CS workshops in 2024 and 2025 reveal increases in self-reported confidence to teach in alignment with California computer science standards, assess students' learning and performance in computer science, and articulate to administrators why computer science is important. Forthcoming analyses reveal that although these confidence levels dropped off in the year after their workshop, overall growth in confidence from pre-workshop levels persisted.

Similarly, participants reported increases in agreement with statements like "All students can understand concepts underlying computer processes" and "All students can master the skills taught in computer science." As with confidence, forthcoming analyses reveal that this growth persisted a year after workshop conclusion, despite a slight decrease from post-workshop levels.

3. Workshop participants delivered computer science instruction when they returned to their classrooms.

It is encouraging to see changes in self-efficacy at the conclusion of a workshop, but a key measure of success for a professional learning initiative is whether subsequent student learning opportunities improve. Nearly two-thirds of Summer of CS participants from 2023 and 2024 reported that they taught computer science at least weekly in the 2024-2025 school year. The average number of hours of instructional time for these participants ranged from 87 at the elementary level to 241 at the high school level.

The primary format of computer science of instruction was integration of content into another subject area. More than half of survey respondents reported teaching in this way overall, including nearly three-quarters of teachers at the elementary level.

Expanding Computer Science Education Still Faces Notable Obstacles

These findings provide positive evidence about the value of EWIG-supported activities, but capacity building by itself can't effectively expand computer science education. EWIG-supported learning opportunities concluded in 2025, with no signs of continued state funding to support their sustainability. Meanwhile, factors like instructional materials, planning time, and administrator support require a systemic commitment to computer science; participant perspectives suggest that these are currently insufficient to meet the need across the state.

As California and other states like it explore opportunities to improve learning in computer science, they can build on promising models like Seasons of CS as part of a comprehensive approach that addresses the full range of factors needed for computer science to take hold.