What if I told you that I know how to increase the future earnings of Oregon students by 8%?

A recent study from the University of Maryland shows a cause-and-effect relationship between taking a computer science course in high school and future earnings. The study shows that students who took a computer science course earn 8% more money than other students. Furthermore, the effect is greater for classically underrepresented communities. Females showed a 10% increase in earnings, students from lower socioeconomic status showed a 14% increase, and Black students showed a 12% increase.

Here's how Maryland did it.

Maryland "has rapidly expanded CS course offerings over the last decade. A 2018 law further requires all Maryland high schools to offer at least one “high-quality” CS course aligned with rigorous K-12 CS standards. These “high-quality” courses include foundational courses such as Computer Science Essentials, AP courses such as AP Computer Science Principles, and more specialized programming courses. They are also closely aligned with Code.org’s definition of “foundational” CS courses."

Last year, researchers at the University of Maryland analyzed the impact of these measures by looking at the "rich longitudinal data from the Maryland Longitudinal Data System (MLDS) Center". Their "study is among the first that offers causal evidence on how access to these “high-quality” CS courses in high school affects" future earnings.

In short, the state of Maryland recognized the importance of computer science education and took steps to provide more of it to their students. And now, they're reaping objectively measureable benefits.

Let's do a thought experiment to translate Maryland's experiences to Oregon. With respect to computer science education, Oregon is starting from almost ground zero. Last year, Code.org published their 2023 report on the state of computer science education. This report ranks each state on the number of policies that they implement that support computer science education. Maryland ranks near the top, implementing 9 of the 10 recommended policies, while Oregon is dead last among the 50 states, implementing only 1 of 10 policies. So it's conservative to estimate that we'll get a similar benefit from increased spending on computer science education.

The average annual salary in Oregon is $70,000, for which people pay an average of $13,290 in state taxes. If that salary were increased by 8% to $75,600, the tax would be $15,012, an increase of $1,722 in tax revenue. Since there are around 2.2 million Oregon taxpayers, the net increase to the state's revenue would be about $3.8 billion. Admittedly, these calculations assume that every student takes a course in computer science. But if only 1 of 50 students takes a computer science course, the Oregon revenue increase is still $76M.

According to the Oregon plan for computer science education, the annual cost to fully fund the plan, including teachers salaries, would be $25M.

People, we cannot afford not to spend the money on computer science education.

We've already taken significant steps towards improving computer science education. In 2023, we published our first plan for computer science education. The experts at the Oregon Department of Education (ODE), led by Andrew Cronk, are currently working on Oregon's first standards for computer science education.

But we still have a long way to go to get to where Maryland is:

Oregon dedicates no money to training computer science teachers
If someone wants to become a computer science teacher, there's no pathway to get certified in computer science education
There are no statewide requirements that schools teach computer science
There's no statewide policy to allow computer science to count towards a core graduation requirement
There's no statewide policy to allow computer science to satisfy a college admission requirement

Our next step we must take is to pass the legislation we need to support computer science education. Such legislation should:

Require computer science learning opportunities be available to all public school students K-12.
Fund and authorize permanent positions to support computer science education at ODE
Establish computer science as a content area
Allocate stable, long-term funding for computer science education
Give control of that funding to the computer science education experts at ODE

The first step to creating this legislation is to create a legislative concept. And the deadline for creating such a concept is September 27th, 12 days from now!

If you support computer science education, please let your representative and senator know. Act today!