BPC-AE: Equity in Computing Education Policies, Pathways, and Practices (ECEP 3)

We live in an increasingly technology-dependent world where computational literacy and an understanding of computing’s implications on individuals and society are vital to personal success, healthy and engaged communities, and to our nation’s economic competitiveness and security. The lack of diversity in K-12 computer science education, limits our nation’s ability to leverage the full range of expertise and creativity present in our classrooms and communities.

The Equity in Computing Education Policies, Pathways, and Practices (ECEP 3) Alliance will address the persistent problem of the lack of diversity in K-12 computer science education and computing pathways. As a result of ECEP support, state leaders will untangle the complex web of factors that produce inequitable outcomes for marginalized students, interrogate their own state data to identify specific student populations that have been excluded from computing pathways, investigate their state’s educational ecosystems and policies to determine the root causes of disparities in access and participation in computer science education, and promote equity-explicit policy changes to address systemic barriers to broadening participation in computing.

ECEP will help our nation to transform the exclusionary systems that lead to disparities in CS education for K-12 students, thus leading to a more diverse computing workforce and computationally literate citizenry. The ECEP team is led by the University of Texas at Austin, the Massachusetts Green high Performance Computing Center, Indiana University Bloomington, and University of California Irvine.

ECEP builds state-level capacity for systemic change, thus laying the foundation for improvements in equitable Capacity for, Access to, Participation in and Experiences (CAPE) of computer science education for students who have been excluded from computer science education (CSEd) pathways. ECEP’s mission, grounded in the collective impact model, is to change the deeply ingrained policies, pathways, and practices that perpetuate inequitable outcomes throughout the K-12 CSEd ecosystem.

ECEP has four primary goals: 1) ECEP will serve as a national hub for state leaders dedicated to collaboratively increasing the number and diversity of K-12 students in the pipeline to computing and computing-intensive degrees; 2) State leaders will leverage ECEP to develop, advocate for, implement, and share equity-explicit, state-initiated policies, pathways, and practices that promote broadening participation in computing (BPC); 3) Utilizing the CAPE framework, state teams will develop goals, common metrics, and data systems to track progress toward equitable K-12 CSEd; 4) State teams will implement strategies to increase capacity for and diverse student access to, participation in, and experiences of K-12 CSEd. In order to accomplish these goals ECEP will facilitate and nurture a robust learning community among state leaders through monthly virtual meetings, co-sponsorships to states that seed fund BPC interventions and research projects, coaching of state teams, and technical assistance for the creation of CS landscape reports, state CSEd summits, and other equity-explicit interventions that help states to advance their BPC goals.

ECEP also supports the national dissemination of equity-explicit professional development for K-12 teachers through its Scaling Inclusive Pedagogy project and its partnership with the Computer Science Teachers Association. A defining feature of ECEP is the Common Metrics Project, which will result in tools and protocols for consistent measurement CAPE outcomes.

ECEP’s research and coaching will support state leadership teams as they establish goals for BPC, evaluate the efficacy of their BPC initiatives, and track their progress longitudinally.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.