As Arkansas leads the nation in computer science education, the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) is committed to ensuring the state’s Computer Science Initiative is successful. From building teacher capacity to implementing rigorous academic standards, ADE is dedicated to the students and educators in Arkansas. ADE will continue to be fully committed to ensuring state-wide advancement of Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s vision for computer science education, cross agency cooperation, and local industry growth and Arkansas’s ACT 187 of 2015, which requires all Arkansas Public High Schools to offer at least one high-quality computer science course. Gov. Hutchinson’s vision is coming to fruition, in part, through the development and adoption of K-12 computer science standards and high-school courses in addition to the strategic use of a two-year million state Computer Science funding allocation. In the first year of the #ARKidsCanCode initiative, ADE granted in excess of .6 million directly to schools and approximately .4 million to Educational Service Cooperatives, STEM centers, universities, and other organizations to directly support students, teachers, and schools. For the 2016-17 school year, ADE will focus on continuing to promote and grow opportunities for computer science teacher training, industry engagement, community awareness, and increasing student enrollment to be more representative of the state’s racial, gender, and socio-economic demographics. In the future, ADE will continue to demonstrate its commitment to the Computer Science for All initiative through progressive and innovative implementation programs and support.
