This week, the Chamber announced its support for House Bill 2984 which falls in line with the Chamber’s mission to improve education by promoting workforce development education programs to cultivate a skilled workforce. The bill would add computer programming, coding, computational thinking, and cybersecurity to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) in kindergarten through 8th grade. The TEKS are the state standards for what students should know and be able to do. The Legislation passed the House by a vote of 132-9 and had a hearing before the Senate Education Committee on Thursday. With the technology sector continuing to grow in Frisco and nearly 37,000 open jobs in computer science in Texas alone – at a median salary of $91,000 – it is the belief of the Chamber that the state should encourage more students to take these courses at an early age. According to the data, less than 3% of Texas students took a computer science course in the 2015–2016 school year. If passed into law, the State Board of Education would be tasked with implementation of the new standards.
