Florida May Let Students Get Foreign-Language Credit for Computer Coding: Ed Week
By Catherine Gewertz, 12/9/15
The Florida legislature is considering a policy change that's stirred up controversy in a few other places that have embraced it: allowing students to earn foreign language credit by taking computer coding classes.
The proposal still has a long way to go in the state legislature. But last week it cleared the state Senate education committee, according to the Miami Herald.
Senate Bill 468 would require high schools to provide coding classes for students, a provision that has some lawmakers worried about the cost of ensuring that schools have enough computers, and prepared teachers, to carry out the law.
But it would allow students to earn credits toward their foreign-language requirement by taking coding instead of, say, Spanish or Chinese. And it would require Florida's public colleges and universities to recognize the coding courses as foreign language classes.
Jeremy Ring, the former Yahoo executive-turned-Democratic-lawmaker who proposed the legislation, said it is an attempt to "recognize the reality of the world and give our kids a leg up" in an increasingly global world, where computer coding is yet another language that's valuable for students to know.