1.     Identify a meaningful result that could be a meaningful objective for a collective impact initiative in your community

Result Statement

The goal of the collective impact initiative in Maryland is the establishment of the Maryland Center for Computing Education (MCCE).  By creating this backbone organization, we may better coordinate and build upon current success in expanding access to computer science education.  Maryland has a systemic approach engaging all stakeholders from pre-school educators through university and business partners (P-20W), to implement a shared vision of Computer Science for All.  The MCCE will provide long-term scalable support for CS education through; Pre-K through high school CS standards and curriculum, teacher preparation and professional development, community building, diversity outreach, and policy development.  Specific goals include:

• All schools offer computing related content throughout K-12 education;
• All high schools offer a series of computer science courses leading to college-ready standards;
• Increasing access to out-of-school activities related to computer science (baseline to be established);
• Increasing the percentage of students completing CS and Advanced CS courses;
• Establishing new teacher certification options and programs to increase the number of CS teachers;
• Increasing teacher access to high quality, nationally-developed CS resources and training.

2.     Describe briefly your context and community to justify why achieving this result would make a difference (an impact)

Maryland is home to six million people, 24 school systems, 16 community colleges, and 36 colleges and universities.  Leading industries include many STEM companies and governmental agencies, such as NIH, NASA, and the NSA.  A high percentage of employees are working in the STEM-related sectors of Aerospace, Medicine, Biomedical Sciences, and a range of Computer Science, Cybersecurity and Information Systems careers.  Career opportunities for Maryland students and adult career-changers are expanding at a higher rate than the number of graduates with the knowledge and skills needed to take advantage of these opportunities.  

Maryland has a long history of state-level collaboration across the P-20 educational system and with establishing meaningful business and industry partnerships.  We have worked to expand computing education at all levels, with significant engagement of business and community partners.  While we have made progress in increasing participation in computer science courses and programs, we face many challenges in terms of equity, quality and in going to scale given the need.  Establishing a backbone organization to address these challenges in a collective impact approach will lead to the desired outcomes.