
Detailed data on AP CS pass rates, race, and gender for 2013 - mahmoudimus
http://home.cc.gatech.edu/ice-gt/556
======
conroy
I think this analysis is flawed. Let's dive into one statistic.

    
    
        8 states had no Hispanic students take the exam: Alaska, Idaho, Kansas,
        Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wyoming.
    

Sounds pretty damning. These states are completely ignoring an entire
demographic!

First, Wyoming should not be on the list. They had zero students take AP CS.

For the other states, here are the total number of students that took AP CS in
2013.

    
    
        Alaska       21
        Idaho        47
        Kansas       47
        Mississippi   1
        Montana      11
        Nebraska     46
        North Dakota  2
    

It's obvious that North Dakota and Mississippi should also have been left off
the list as they had less than five students take the exam. We're now down to
five states. Let's look at the Hispanic population size in these states[1]

    
    
        Alaska       6.1%
        Idaho        11.0%
        Kansas       11.0%
        Montana      3.1%
        Nebraska     9.7%
    

With these percentages, we can calculate the expected number of Hispanic
students for each state.

    
    
        Alaska       1.28
        Idaho        5.17
        Kansas       5.17
        Montana      0.341
        Nebraska     4.462
    

So we can take take Montana and Alaska off the list. I could go further and
get the actual demographic breakdown per city for each included high school,
but I think the point is clear: AP CS enrollment for many states is too small
to draw accurate conclusions.

The real question we should be asking: Why are so few schools offering AP CS?

[1]
[http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/index.html](http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/index.html)

~~~
Steko
"I think this analysis is flawed."

I didn't see much in the way of analysis, just raw data and some highlights.

~~~
conroy
It's the highlights I take issue with.

~~~
Steko
They seem reasonable. It looks like you're making a big deal out of the idea
that some states expect near zero participation from certain groups but the
aggregate participation numbers seem pretty salient.

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cocoflunchy
The obsession with race in the US is really fascinating as foreigner.

Are there a lot of other countries where this kind of data is compiled? I feel
like I've never seen anything like it in France, but maybe I wasn't paying
attention.

~~~
scarmig
The United States has a history where over six million people were imported
from Africa and enslaved, who continued to be denied basic civil and voting
rights for a century after emancipation. And even today one of the strongest
predictors of socioeconomic class, voting patterns, health outcomes, urban-vs-
suburban-vs-rural residence, likelihood of committing or being victim of a
crime, and exposure to quality educational resources is socially- and self-
identified race. It's only natural that governments, businesses, and health
officials would be interested in statistics on it.

France's national pre-occupations are pretty different, I expect. I suspect a
closer analogy would be to the relations between French settlers and
indigenous Muslims in Algeria.

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capkutay
I believe this has more to do with CS in public schools versus race and gender
issues. I went to Palo Alto High School, got a college degree in CS, and was
not even aware my high school offered AP computer science until after I
graduated...

~~~
SiVal
Our local high school, about 20 minutes away from Palo Alto in another
affluent neighborhood, offers AP CS but doesn't have a teacher for it. That
means they are counted in the statistics of how many high schools offer it. If
you want it, you can take it online. I wonder how many kids bother to take it
that way.

The school has a terrific athletics program with great facilities but can't
come up with a CS teacher in a neighborhood where most of the parents work for
software companies.

~~~
Nicholas_C
It could be difficult to find a qualified person with a CS degree willing to
work for teacher's pay in and around Palo Alto. There are probably some pretty
high opportunity costs.

~~~
SiVal
It's unlikely to be about pay, since there are a lot of 50-something or
retired programmers around here who could teach Java in their sleep, would be
happy with teachers' hours, teachers' vacations, teachers' "delivery dates",
and teachers' pay, which is pretty good in this area, and are unlikely to be
hired by Google, Apple, Oracle, or a YC startup.

I think the more likely problem is the state requirements for public school
teachers, which would come down to about two years of political re-education
camp, which such programmers wouldn't put up with. The elite private schools
around here pay less than the public schools (yes, _less_ ) and yet they all
seem to have CS (and other subject) teachers. Their teachers tend to be quite
a bit older and have subject matter degrees and/or professional experience
rather than education degrees.

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brianpgordon
Here's a Google spreadsheet for those of us without an xlsx viewer installed:

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0ApVHgXTTTuMfdEF...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0ApVHgXTTTuMfdEFOaEM2MU5VaFhvSkl1Z1FSNG8yU2c&output=html)

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steveklabnik
Original title: "Zero women, African Americans, or Hispanics take AP CS Exam
in some states."

~~~
theorique
Why changed?

~~~
steveklabnik
HN often changes titles when the moderators feel that it's inaccurate or
flamebait-y.

In this case, I think it's the entire reason to read the article.

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incision
Curious stuff.

Looking at the sheets [0] for Maryland, where I live...

2007 Black - Pass Rate: 11.40%, Enrollment: 114, Percentage of Enrollment:
14.10%

2008 Black - Pass Rate: 36.48%, Enrollment: 74, Percentage of Enrollment:
8.26%

2009 Black - Pass Rate: 21.66%, Enrollment: 120, Percentage of Enrollment:
11.56%

2010 Black - Pass Rate: 17.89%, Enrollment: 190, Percentage of Enrollment:
14.05%

Things have evened out a bit since, but I'd love to know what if anything was
going on there? Changing teachers? Smaller class sizes?

0: [http://home.cc.gatech.edu/ice-
gt/uploads/556/DetailedStateIn...](http://home.cc.gatech.edu/ice-
gt/uploads/556/DetailedStateInfoAP-CS-A-2006-2013.xlsx)

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aneisf
For those who don't know much about the AP CS course, I found it really
awkward when I took it in high school. The exam involved a lot of writing
Java...in pencil. Not an experience I ever want to repeat.

~~~
jasonjei
Writing code on paper was a practice I initially resented when taking CS
courses at University. However, it made me a better programmer, because it
forced me to think about design and data structures first, then about the
code.

Let me be clear: I think it's a great way to test students as long as the
graders/instructors aren't overly anal about syntax or even API correctness. I
was lucky to have teachers who were okay with unbalanced parentheses, made-up
API functions, and in upper-division classes, pseudo code was even acceptable
(data structures). (However most CS classes will be biased towards imperative
programming over functional programming).

To use a cooking analogy, if you have to think about how you are cutting the
fish, you won't be able to think about how you are going to prepare or cook
the fish. Writing code on paper forced me to think about design first; that
is, it enabled me to think about what I was going to do with the fish.

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mynewwork
How many schools offer AP CS? I know in some areas of the midwest schools had
no AP courses and advanced students could take college courses for high school
credit.

~~~
Sparkky
year #schools

2008 1778

2009 1879

2010 2048

2011 1972

2012 2103

2013 2253

According to the spread sheet, this is the numbers per year of schools that
offered it nationally. (5A - 12B on Sheet1)

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vezzy-fnord
Who knew Tennessee was so progressive?

Of course percentages are ambiguous without a population size and other
factors.

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sheetjs
I remember there being two tests: A and AB. When did that change?

~~~
rickyc091
They made it one exam starting 2010.

~~~
angersock
Are they still using the fishies (Marine Biology Case Study)?

~~~
hmsimha
I still have nightmares involving aquafish.h

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angersock
Texas leading the way in diversity!

EDIT: Removed unflattering remark.

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ramsaysnuuhh
Number of Japanese trans-men in the 100-meter olympic dash: 0. I think I need
a million-dollar grant to raise awareness of this issue.

~~~
steveklabnik
I would hope that on Hacker News it could be recognized that computer science
has a bit of a higher position in society than the 100-meter Olympic dash.

Not to mention the relative sample sizes involved, or the methods by which
quality is determined.

Basically, this comparison is nonsensical.

~~~
ramsaysnuuhh
Fine, change "100-meter olympic dash" to "professional athlete in the USA".
Sample size is sufficient (NBA+NFL+NHL+MLB comprise of 3000+ players),
athletes hold a much higher position in society than computer scientists, and
quality is easy to determine (# of wins, points, rebounds, interceptions,
etc). Number of japanese trans-men in pro-sports in the US: 0, afaik. We need
to tackle this issue as a nation, immediately.

~~~
steveklabnik
Programming ability is not determined by biology, try again.

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Mizza
Wow. This is completely inexcusable.. what's happening in Mississippi?

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cjensen
The two people who took the test in Mississippi were white males.

Pro tip: look at the actual data. The sample sizes are way to small to attempt
to draw conclusions like these.

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vonmoltke
We don't know that the two people in Mississippi were white males, because as
the note at the top of the spreadsheet says, the College Board does not
release information for demographic groups with less than 5 members. That
means several of the statements made on the page are not provable using the
data provided because the sample sizes are too small.

Also, Wyoming should not even be mentioned. I find it somewhat dishonest to
talk about states that had no members of X demographic group take a test when
_nobody in the state took it_.

~~~
sliverstorm
It would be much more interesting to weight the numbers to state demographics.
Is anybody surprised that North Dakota or Montanna has low incidence of
African Americans taking the test? I hope not, considering they represent only
1.2% and 0.4% of the states, respectively.

