As a community rich in computer science learning resources, we have a responsibility to provide universally accessible high-quality computer science and computational thinking programming and resources to learners of all ages across the greater Pittsburgh region. Remake Learning seeks to build on the many computer science assets in the Pittsburgh region and convey equitable access to high-quality computer science education as an economic development imperative.

Computer science has become a vital part of preparing learners to thrive in the 21st century. While this represents a huge opportunity to prepare today’s learners for the demands of tomorrow’s workforce, many students lack meaningful exposure to high-quality CS learning experiences. Nine out of ten schools don’t offer CS coursework and the US Department of Education reported that “girls represented only 22 percent and underrepresented minorities only 13 percent of the approximately 50,000 students who took the Advanced Placement Computer Science (AP-CS) exam nationally.”

In the Pittsburgh region specifically, not only do we know that STEM (particularly computer science) jobs are available and growing, we also know that a diverse pipeline of talent is not available. According to a study from the Allegheny Conference, in reference to the Pittsburgh region:

“The current workforce and future pipeline lack diversity: Diversity is a large local challenge; only 1% of the local IT workforce is African American compared to 7% nationally. At the college level, African American students are 50% less likely to be enrolled in Computer Science and other STEM majors than all other students. At the high school level, only 37 African American students in the entire state took the AP Computer Science exam.”

As a community rich in computer science learning resources, we have a responsibility to provide universally accessible high-quality computer science and computational thinking programming and resources to learners of all ages across the greater Pittsburgh region.