Further: > We’ve long been interested in recruiting students who have some prior experience with information technology, such as an internship, an in-depth pr

Further: > We’ve long been interested in recruiting students who have some prior experience with information technology, such as an internship, an in-depth project, or participation in an after school or summer program. These are an indicator that a student might understand what we teach, has an interest in what we might teach, and has invested time in that interest. But what seems like an innocuous indicator, is actually racist. How would Black students around Washington state access any of these extracurricular activities? Another fantastic example of soft bigotry. Yes, Amy, how indeed would a Black student access one of these things? It's not like you can buy a complete computer for $25, or access reams of free information online, or in the library, or at local clubs, or in your "chronically underfunded" school which still somehow manages to have a computer lab. > nearly all after school programs that would develop Black students’ interest in computing are prohibitively expensive And yet if you look at the ranks of people who actually are talented within CS and IT, the vast majority of them have a large component of their education which is self-taught; these programs are wholly unnecessary to a person who actually finds a keen interest in their heart for this discipline. Back in the 80s, plenty of people learned this with far less access (more expensive computers, no Internet, having to survive off of library books and discarded PC Magazines and so forth). To pretend like it's inaccessible to Black youth today is to discredit them and to discredit the work of everyone who has contributed their time to making so much information, code, and content freely available. > All of these inequities are due to racial bias in public and private investments in K-12 CS education Asserted with no evidence. What can be asserted with evidence, of course, are a hundred years worth of psychometric research that indicates a critical IQ gap between population groups, that persists despite every effort in education; but this is the most uncomfortable truth of our day, despite having critical explanatory power that literally nothing Amy Ko says can even approach. > While most teachers may not see themselves as racist, I have heard high school CS teachers say “Well Black students don’t seem to be interested” or “My Black students don’t do as well in CS.” What if this is simply a true statement? What if these teachers are trying their honest, un-prejudiced, anti-racist best, and the result is the same? What do we do then, if we still want to be good people that aren't driven by hate, if we still want to give everyone a chance? What if it actually just _doesn't work_, Amy? Because it sure seems like it doesn't. > What do they experience in classes and the broader learning community? Many of our Black students have been quite clear to me that their experience is largely defined by who is in our community: mostly White and Asian students who’ve had a lifetime of privileged access to computers, to learning opportunities related to technology, to a social network that understands and values technology; and mostly White and Asian faculty (like myself), who’ve largely had the same privileges. Say privilege again. Each time you do, you deny the hard work that someone has done. The hard work of the parents and the grandparents of the people in her geographic area, the people who have been their before her family, who have paid taxes that helped to build and subsidize these schools for decades. Each time you say it, you deny the work of the actual students involved, who don't just cruise through their life absorbing everything for free; they too have had to study, have had to sacrifice other opportunities. Because there cannot be an infinite number of people in the school, Ko is essentially saying there are students there who should not be, students who should be removed in order to make room for others, on the basis of skin color, even despite their hard work and commitment. Astounding.