#290 – Computer Science in K–12 Education, with Kris Beck

If you are listening to the podcast with your instructional team or would like to explore this topic more deeply, here are guiding questions to prompt your reflection:

• What do you know about computer science?
• What CS opportunities do your students have?
• How might CS opportunities be provided to all students?
• What is the value of CS education in a K–12 system?
• What policy changes might encourage more CS exposure and development for K–12 students?

• Computer Science Teachers Association (official website)
• Code.org (official website)
• Amazon Future Engineer (official website)
• CS First (Google)
• Scratch (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

#290 – Computer Science in K–12 Education, with Kris Beck

AVID Open Access

42 Min

Keywords

STEM education, computer science, K-12 education, problem-solving dispositions, technology skills, equity, graduation requirement, teacher training, community engagement, family nights, digital citizenship, media literacy, future-ready skills, diverse learners, policy direction.

Transcript

Kris Beck 0:00
We want all of our students to be STEM-powered. The tech changes. It’s about the kind of thinking, problem-solving, that students learn how to do with technology.

Rena Clark 0:15
The topic for today’s podcast is computer science in K12 education with Kris Beck. Unpacking Education is brought to you by avid.org. AVID believes no student should fall through the gap. To learn more about AVID, visit their website at avid.org. Welcome to Unpacking Education, the podcast where we explore current issues and best practices in education. I’m Rena Clark.

Paul Beckermann 0:47
I’m Paul Beckermann.

Winston Benjamin 0:48
And I’m Winston Benjamin. We are educators.

Paul Beckermann 0:52
And we’re here to share insights and actionable strategies.

Transition Music with Rena’s Children 0:56
Education is our passport to the future.

Rena Clark 1:02
Our quote for today is from the STEM page of the Chicago Public Schools website. The site states, “Every day, in every CPS STEM classroom, all STEM-powered students will activate and grow the problem-solving dispositions in explorations of natural and social phenomena, computational challenges, and design scenarios.” A little bit of a mouthful, Paul, but there’s a lot, I think, to glean from that.

Paul Beckermann 1:32
Oh my goodness, it’s such a well-crafted statement. Because if you really kind of break it down—I love “every day.” “All students,” and not just all students, but “all STEM-powered students.” What an empowering way to describe that. And then, “problem-solving,” I have never really heard it described this way, but it’s as a “disposition.” I mean, that makes it something that is just inherently in you that we need to cultivate, which I thought was really cool. And then things like “phenomenon” and “challenges” and “scenarios.” I mean, what student wouldn’t be engaged in something like that? So, I just think there’s so much power packed in this little statement, even though it was a mouthful, Rena, I get that.

Rena Clark 2:15
Yeah, it’s just so important to cultivate that disposition, and I’m lucky; I have—all three of my kiddos have gone through, and they’re in a STEM school, but I especially think of, like, my daughter, and just from being in that environment and kind of their mission about incorporating STEM into all they do, the way that she approaches problems or thinks about things, it really is phenomena-based. It’s just so differently than the way I was really even allowed to approach problems in elementary school. So I think just starting with creating an environment where that is encouraged is so important. So I’m excited to talk to our guest today.

Paul Beckermann 2:52
Absolutely.

Rena Clark 2:54
So I really would like to welcome Kris Beck. She is the director of computer science for Chicago Public Schools. And, Kris, can you just share a little bit about yourself and your journey in education?

Kris Beck 3:06
Sure, I’m really happy to be here today. I did not start out in education; I was a career changer. I was in a tech field, and the benefit that gave me was seeing how fast technology changes and understanding deeply that our students will need to have those skills and those dispositions that you were just talking about. Because that’s the world they’re going to graduate from our system into; they are going to have to change what they do over and over again, because the technology changes so fast. So that background helped me when I made a transition into education, where I became a science and math and computer science teacher. And the reason I wanted to do that is because I really did see that technology provided all of these opportunities for our students. And the place that we felt, that I felt I saw was the weakest was that area that really I loved, which was the whole STEM fields. And so I became a teacher and then, over time, started working on the central teams and became the director of computer science.

Paul Beckermann 4:30
That’s awesome. So Chicago Public Schools, what kinds of things are you doing there in the area of computer science and STEM?

Kris Beck 4:38
We’re doing a lot. But it’s never enough, right? So, we’re doing a lot but it’s never enough. The computer science team, we support computer science from pre-K through 12th grade. We have about 488 elementary schools, 100 high schools, so we have a very big system, not the biggest, but we have a large system. And I think we’re still the only large urban district that has a graduation requirement in computer science in high school. And the reason we did that was because it was a way we could really measure equity, right? We wanted to, we had a motto, CS for All. And it’s hard to measure “for all” if you don’t have a good metric. And the metric we decided to go for was a graduation requirement, where we knew that every single student that came out of our system had exposure in computer science. So we’ve had that since 2020. The class that graduated in 2020 had to have computer science, and we’ve had it ever since. And now we’re working on really growing additional opportunities in the high school space. And we’re growing as many opportunities as possible in the elementary school space, including out-of-school time, where there’s a lot of enrichment, and finding ways to include everybody in this world of computer science and STEM, that whole point you read off of our website, we want all of our students to be STEM-powered.

Rena Clark 6:31
I love that. And that is, that’s a big school district, I was thinking.

Paul Beckermann 6:36
That is huge. I thought we were pretty, we’re the seventh largest in Minnesota, and we have three high schools. [Laughs]

Rena Clark 6:45
We’re like in the middle, and, again, three high schools. So 100, we’re under 90 in elementary, so that’s impressive, to kind of think of the systemic things that you must be working on. And so when we’re thinking about that, we talk about computer science, and you alluded to this earlier, when you talk about just providing the skills for students to be ready for this, the depth, the changes that are happening in technology so quickly. So what are some of those future-ready skills that you are really targeting? And then how are you helping students in the Chicago Public School system really develop those skills beyond just coding and computer science?

Kris Beck 7:23
Yeah, that’s a super—that’s a really good question. It’s one thing that we tell folks all the time is, it’s not really about the tech. The tech changes. It’s about the kind of thinking, problem-solving, that students learn how to do with technology. When do I use a computer to help me solve a problem? When is that not appropriate? How do I use a computer to help me think with, you know, problem-solve or design a solution? So those are the kinds of skills we want to teach. And that sounds pretty abstract, because people will say, “Well, really, what does that mean?” And one of the things that, like some of our corporate partners and different folks share with us all the time is, it’s important for people to realize every single company now is a tech company. So students who come out of high school, students who we teach now are going to be doing jobs where we don’t know what tech skills they’re going to need to know or what the tools are going to be when they get out of school, even in 5 years with AI and everything changing so quickly. We’re not really, I wouldn’t be ready to venture a guaranteed guess on what exact tools will they have to use in their work life or in college or wherever they go beyond our school. So the skill sets really have to be being comfortable with technology, not being afraid of technology, being able to be creative with technology and use it in a way that they either follow their passions and do something with it that way or that they get comfortable with being problem-solvers and using the tech to help them. And that’s a challenge, I think. That’s a challenge for school districts. It’s a challenge for teachers. But it’s really quite fun if you start kind of framing things that way because it gives people lots of freedom to be innovative, and to use their imaginations, and to do things that I think people often don’t think technology is, which is a very creative field.

Paul Beckermann 10:09
And an innovation never goes out of style. Right? I mean, that’s going to be relevant no matter what you do whenever you do it.

Kris Beck 10:18
Right.

Paul Beckermann 10:19
I love that you said that every company is now a tech company, because it’s kind of true. I mean, it’s integrated everywhere.

Kris Beck 10:28
Yep.

Paul Beckermann 10:28
Everywhere. So in your journey toward, you know, these skills for students and integration in your district, what are some of the successes that you’ve seen? Any stories stand out to you in particular?

Kris Beck 10:43
Yeah, well, one is that we were able to put in a graduation requirement in 2016, and actually—So, okay, here’s some background on this. This is why this is such a big deal. In the state of Illinois, we do not have any pre-service programs that graduate computer science teachers. The University of Illinois is trying to put one in now. But that means we put a graduation requirement in for 100 high schools without having a pool of teachers that we could go to and say, “Well, okay, we have these teachers here. Now we’re gonna do this.” So really what we had to do to make that work is we had to train up teachers from different disciplines, different content areas, different backgrounds, to be excited, comfortable, and ready to teach computer science in our schools. And so I think one of the biggest success stories that we have is that we not only did that, but we have developed, we’ve trained hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of teachers. I’m trying to, like about 350 or 400 in high school, and we’ve probably trained 300 or 400 at the elementary school level, who feel that they belong in this space now, particularly in the high school space where they are computer science teachers. And so that was a huge success. But we couldn’t have done it without research partners, without a lot of support to help us get to that place.

Paul Beckermann 12:38
That’s really impressive. It’s almost like you have your own CS academy right within the Chicago schools, right?

Rena Clark 12:43
Yeah, it’s the grow-your-own, correct?

Paul Beckermann 12:46
Yeah, exactly.

Kris Beck 12:47
It really was. Yeah.

Rena Clark 12:51
Yeah. And I know that’s, it’s interesting to hear, that’s kind of a little bit of my story, was, I was elementary, and then I was teaching sixth grade, and I kind of fell into it and fell in love and then really learned so much from my students and eventually got on board and learned a lot. Now I’m supporting 30 elementary teachers this year teaching computer science, and we’re kind of trying to grow our own in our district. And that’s our starting point. So it just keeps recycling itself. So that’s pretty impressive. And I know that I face many challenges. So I’m just curious, there’s great things happening, but what are some of the challenges you’ve experienced? And how are you working to over overcome these? Because I’m definitely hoping that I can learn something from you.

Kris Beck 13:38
We—challenges are abundant. So, you know, one of the biggest challenges, I would say, is the work we do in elementary schools. And it’s not because there’s . . . There’s plenty of desire, right? People all want their kids to have access to this. We are training teachers, and teachers tend to get very excited when given the opportunity to learn and have some time and do it in a safe space. Part of our challenge is, we don’t have policy. And that’s huge, because what it means is in a school day, that’s packed with all sorts of needs, right? Post-COVID, where lots of schools, districts, folks are worried about the learning loss that students have had, there’s a lot of reasons people kind of stop and say, “Well, I don’t know that we have time for computer science in the school day,” or “Is this—We have so many other demands on us. Can we really do this right now?” And without having state or district policy, it’s one of the things that gets pushed off the plate or off the table. And it’s not because, again, it’s not because people don’t want to, it’s not because of any of those reasons. And so we’re constantly trying to find the ways to help schools, help teachers, help principals. Recognize that they can do this, and it’s not going to hurt, you know, it’s not going to be a detriment to their students; it’ll be a benefit. So we’re constantly trying to find the ways. At the same time, we’re trying to put things in place that are prepared to create policy, so that when we build that capacity in the district, we can go before our school board and say, it’s, we’ve got it ready, the plan is here, we just have to, we just have to sort of pull the trigger, we’re ready to go. So it’s, that’s a huge thing.

Rena Clark 16:07
And I’m just curious, because I literally doing some of this work right now. So this is so time—it’s perfect. So I’m really trying to shine a light on the positive. So I’m just curious, what are some of the things maybe you’ve done to really highlight those positive things? Because I do have the teachers, I have about 30 in this cohort, and the responses I’m getting from them, like the comments from them, like my kids love this. They’re excited, they’re engaged. So how are you spreading the good news to kind of promote it?

Kris Beck 16:38
That’s, you know, that’s really, really important. And we’ve done a couple of different things. At a school level, or at a small, like, at a grade level, team level, right, one of the things we’ve done is we’ve asked our teachers who are in our cohorts to share with their fellow teachers a couple of things. Do they have some data they can share that shows the engagement? Or do they have, like, a video they can share? Or is there a way that they can just talk or invite somebody over to their classroom, to see how they’re doing whatever it is that they’re doing, and what impact that’s having on students. At a school level, we’ve really promoted and worked with schools to do family computer science nights. And that’s to help the stakeholders in the school, really, and the parents, and the community, and the kind of the larger group that’s around a school, really start to understand that, Oh, this is for all the students, right? Everybody can do this. And it’s fun; it’s engaging. We get the middle school students to be the ambassadors to help the parents, we make the parents code. If it’s a Scratch night, they have to code something in Scratch, and then we let them present and showcase. But the students themselves are the ones that walk around and help the parents do it. And that had profound effects. I was at one one night where there was a grandfather who had brought the kids, and he had never touched a keyboard before. Like, he had never typed on a keyboard, had never been on a computer. And he animated his name. And just the excitement, and the joy, and his grandkids seeing him do that, it just, those kinds of things can change what even principals and teachers think is possible when they’re in the room when these things happen. And then we do showcases at a district level. So like this weekend, we held a showcase for robotics, our first LEGO League robotics, and we had about 37 schools come, middle school and high school teams. And we have about 100 teams, but like 37 came, it was a huge—hundreds of kids, families. We videoed things. And we had the elementary and high school kids doing activities together. But the thing that, I think the thing that those showcases can do is, we invite district leadership or those decision makers in to see, and they walk around and go, “[Gasps] This should be an all of our schools.” Right? And it’s because it’s really hard if you’ve never seen it, if you’re not involved with it, it’s not—I don’t think we can assume that people know what it looks like. And so we’re very much about self-promotion but not about, like, us. It’s like, look at what our students can do if we provide them with the opportunities. And when you show people what that is, often, you get a lot of buy-in. People will be like, “Oh, I didn’t know we could do this. Okay, this, this should be all over the place. Let’s try to make this happen more.

Paul Beckermann 18:07
I’m kind of curious, because Chicago is such a big factor in the state and you have so many schools, have you seen any of that leadership kind of rub off on area districts or state leaders that are taking notice and maybe looking to do some more statewide policy? Or have you seen any impacts like that?

Kris Beck 20:51
So, yeah, we’re kind of the big gorilla in the state in that sense, which is good and bad, right? It’s sort of, sometimes it’s, “Well, Chicago has all of these resources,” or “Chicago can do it for these reasons.” And we’re really trying to help spread our learning, our understanding, the research we’ve done, the lessons we’ve learned with organizations that are trying to do this in the state. Our state is trying to become a, develop a statewide plan for computer science education. And so we’re working with that group to try to help do what we can to push things forward in that way. But we have a very—probably like your state too, you said Minnesota—we have a state that’s very lopsided with Chicago, and a big urban center. And then a state that, once you get outside of Chicago in the suburbs, tends to be very rural. And so—

Paul Beckermann 22:01
Yep, it’s similar.

Rena Clark 22:02
And Washington! Yeah, they’re similar.

Kris Beck 22:06
Yeah. And so . . . so they’re unique challenges. So I think we have to be sensitive to, the same kinds of challenges we face will not be solved the same way, or, it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. But we certainly can help that process.

Paul Beckermann 22:28
You want to talk a little bit more about that, what you call the contrast between the large and the small? Because I think our listeners all across the country are going to relate to that, you know. You’ve got, like you said, different opportunities but yet different challenges in a really large district. And then, similar, they have different disadvantages and advantages out in the smaller rural . . . how do you see that taking shape?

Kris Beck 22:53
I, you know, I think the thing that’s the same, no matter where you come from, is engaging your stakeholders, whoever they are, right? So, you know, our stakeholders, it’s one set of, you know—or, it’s a lot of people, but it’s like, we have different conditions and different groups of people that we have to work with, but the same applies to any school or any district, any place. The first thing you have to do is talk to the people that are in your district, the opinion makers, the families, the parents, the students. You have to talk to all those groups and learn what they think, what they believe, what they want to see, the opportunities they’d like to have. And I think that you have to engage them in the process. I don’t see any shortcuts around that. I can tell you an interesting story that could illustrate how that—one of the ways I learned it in Chicago, which is certainly different than what other groups are going to experience, but to me it’s it’s such an example, we had a big celebrity. Chance the Rapper, before COVID, gave 10 CPS elementary schools a grant to start computer science programs. And he picked schools that were Black and Latinx, who did not have a history of STEM or CS and were in neighborhoods that people would not associate with STEM and CS and kind of those sorts of opportunities. So kind of looking at our students who are furthest from opportunity and giving grants to those schools. And everybody, everybody was like, “Yay, this is so exciting; Chance recognized our school; he gave us this grant. And there was a big, big to-do; people were super excited. A month went by; two months went by. And none of those schools had spent any of the money and didn’t have any programming that they were moving forward with. And so we kind of went, “This is a problem, you know, what do we do here? What’s going on?” And we realized that just resources, just money, wasn’t enough to make computer science happen in these places, because the community and the stakeholders didn’t know what it meant. They didn’t know what it would look like, or what they should do, or how they should start. And so that’s when we had our first family community nights. We said, “Well, let’s see; we have to bring the community in, to see, to talk, to learn, to tell us what they think.” And we told each school that that was the first thing they had to do was they had to set up and do this. And it was that experience of bringing their families—the families and the teachers interacted, the larger community. And that laid the basis to start to build programming on that. But you, it was completely imperative that we brought the community forward and the stakeholders into the process. And I think any district, whether you’re small, big, rural, urban, I think we all share that in common, that our families want what’s best for their kids. And if they don’t have experience with it, it’s our job as the educators to provide them with that experience so that they can understand the value and the necessity for why they need this. And I really think it’s an equity issue. Like in Chicago, we sort of said, it’s a civil rights issue for our students; that the tech world tends to be very White male, and if our students, if our Black and Brown and young women are not a part of the tech world, then the solutions that tech world is going to be creating will not be representative of the whole population. And I could say the same thing for rural areas, right? That that tech tends to be in urban areas and that if our students from rural areas are not given access to computer science education, and this sort of technology, and all that that brings, those opportunities, they’re going to be left out. And we see what happens when we set those inequities up in our country. It’s not a pretty thing. Sorry, didn’t mean to get all political.

Paul Beckermann 28:14
No, I love that, looking at it as a civil rights issue. I mean that’s, there you go.

Rena Clark 28:18
I agree wholeheartedly. I’m just taking in your wise, wise words.

Kris Beck 28:23
Oh. [Laughs] I’ve learned the lessons the hard way, believe me. [Laughs]

Rena Clark 28:28
And I think we—

Kris Beck 28:28
Lots of mistakes.

Rena Clark 28:28
—continue to fail forward and learn from those lessons. And I appreciate you’re not, it’s not telling families what they need but allowing them to experience, which I think is very different. So providing those opportunities is great. Okay, I think we’re, kind of one more question. You’ve talked a lot about what you’ve done or are doing, but what do you see—and we know we’re not trying to predict what technologies are coming—but what do you see on the horizon and kind of what areas do you think are going to be really key to focus in on moving forward?

Kris Beck 29:04
So, the thing that—the thing that is making my heart, that is making me the happiest right now, right? The thing that’s just warming my heart in the midst of, you know, working in a big bureaucracy and having lots of things go wrong all the time is, is we took a step back and tried to look at who wasn’t included in our CS for All vision, right? Like, our vision is every single student needs to be included. And one group that we really recognized is not always included in CS education are our diverse learners. And in CPS, that’s 17% of our students have IEPs, and of those 17%, 90% of those students are Black or Brown. So it means there’s a lot of intersectionality between students who are far from opportunities, right? They have different kinds of advantages and disadvantages, but we really wanted to think about, what does that mean if our diverse learners are not always included in a CS classroom? So we’ve been doing a lot of work recently to try to change that. We’re working with researchers; we’re working with a woman, Maya Israel, at the University of Florida; we’re building lending libraries with robotic devices that make it equitable for schools that can afford those devices so that their teachers still have access. So we’re trying to work on this access question, and really examining who doesn’t have access, and that’s a, that’s a problem of a more mature program, because we’ve got a graduation requirement, we’ve got all these things, so that’s one of those, wouldn’t be the first place that a district that starting a program. For the thing that we’re working on that lots of districts would be facing is, especially in our elementary school space, we are never going to be able to grow ourselves out of, like, having enough teachers to supply every elementary school with a computer science teacher. There’s too many schools, there’s not enough money, there’s just, it’s not going to happen. So one thing we’re really working on is, can we get all of our teachers, no matter their content area, and train them so they’re just comfortable and confident using the tools of computer science? So students can start—at least, you know, in other content areas are starting to use computer science tools in an authentic way. And the real key to that are teachers who are creative, who are wonderful, who will provide these opportunities for students if we invest in them and make sure that we give them the tools they need to understand this. Because most of our teachers—like, all of our teachers—came out of education programs without having any computer science methods classes. I mean, they don’t exist yet. Still they don’t exist. It’s terrible. So those are a couple of the really big things we’re doing, is we’re looking at students who are the furthest and haven’t been included, and we’re looking at, how do we bring our teachers into this world where they themselves are getting—that we’re investing in them in understanding the tools that they need.

Rena Clark 33:00
Well, we appreciate you. And I think that actually leads us into our next segment, because, what are maybe some tools we can provide for some of our listeners or the educators out there to help them get a foot in?

Transition Music with Rena’s Children 33:15
Check it out, check it out. Check it out, check it out. What’s in the toolkit? What, what’s in the toolkit? What is in the toolkit? Check it out.

Rena Clark 33:25
So, why don’t you go ahead and start, Paul, and then I’ll jump in.

Paul Beckermann 33:29
I just think we got to start somewhere, it can be small, but if teachers can just take a little dip in there, because it’s, once you see it, it’s so exciting, you know? But teachers and families, like you mentioned, just don’t know what it is until you see it. So even something like starting with Hour of Code, from code.org. I mean, there’s tons of stuff out there, and it’s very accessible. On avidopenaccess.org we actually have some grab-and-go lessons. A lot of them are for the younger grades; they’re very simple places to start. There’s even some cardboard engineering kinds of things that teach some of the CS problem-solving skills, but even before they touch the computer device. So, gotta start somewhere.

Rena Clark 34:14
Gotta start somewhere. I appreciate—Hey, and if you’re looking for, you know, gifts for baby showers or small children, there are a lot of amazing little computer science books now you can get. Just saying, if you’re gonna start somewhere small.

Paul Beckermann 34:29
You can see all the gadgets Rena has in her house too; she’s got some cool gadgets.

Rena Clark 34:33
And I always think it’s a little bit like that analogy of like when you’re getting in the pool, and you just dip your toe in, and then you slowly get in, and then eventually you just dive, right? You get to that point where you’re kind of at your stomach and you dive in. And that’s been my experience with CS; that’s kind of how I entered, so I understand. There’s so many resources out there. So just find something you’re comfortable with. And I always learn best through playing and trying it on with students, but I also appreciate, if you go to the CSTA, the Computer Science Teachers Association, you might have a local chapter, and then if you just look at the national, if you go to their website, there’s a ton of resources in there, and you can sign up for their newsletter and everything else. And I find that really helpful just to stay connected. Kris, do you have anything to add to our toolkit?

Kris Beck 35:24
Sure, like, CSTA I think is a great one; that one’s gonna send you in all kinds of directions. But, you know, there are all sorts of things that are free and that people can look at that will give them ideas and thoughts. One, we have worked with both AVID and Amazon. So, Amazon Future Engineers has a lot of free curriculum, a lot of resources. They even have on their website kind of like virtual field trips for students to learn about CS careers so that students could get an idea of why would they even learn this, right? Google has CS First. And those resources are all free. And they have videos so that it helps a teacher learn alongside their students. The Scratch Foundation has a zillion resources on their site. So, the Scratch Foundation has a lot of things, including, I think they still have it on their site, a whole family resource guide. So, how could you create a family night at your school, that kind of thing. So, there’s probably more resources that are being created that are free, that are available now, than a teacher would know what to do with. So I agree with the sticking your toe in, find a teacher partner, find a friend and do it together. Like that’s, I mean, that’s one of the biggest things I would say, is find a teacher friend and do it together. Because then you have each other, you can support each other.

Rena Clark 37:10
Yeah, that’s a fun—and then I just want to add in, I know for AVID, if you are going to be going to Summer Institute at all, one of our Communities of Practice that you can go into is called Develop Critical Thinking: Computer Science Across Disciplines, and it’s meant for teachers kind of new, and we have it both in elementary and secondary. So it’s something to think about if you are an AVID school going to Summer Institute.

Paul Beckermann 37:35
Alright, let’s hop into our next segment, which is our one thing.

Transition Music with Rena’s Children 37:39
It’s time for that one thing.

Paul Beckermann 37:52
All right, Rena, what’s your one thing today?

Rena Clark 37:56
There’s so many things. I’m trying to look at just one. I just love this idea, you mentioned it earlier, that every company is a tech company, and really reiterating and thinking about problem-solving and how can I use technology to help me, and, Kris, you stated, like, when is using tech appropriate? When is it not? And that, some of those digital citizenship media literacy skills, and I think that’s more and more important, especially as we have more of this generative AI, and just thinking through those options. And, yeah, I have a lot going on in my head right now. I’m really excited to get stakeholders in. I was, like, highlighting that, invite stakeholders in to see some of our showcases coming up. So thanks for that advice.

Paul Beckermann 38:46
Very cool. And I’m kind of along the same line, Rena, you know, the CS for All thing, if it truly is CS for all, which I think it should be because I believe this is an equity issue, this is . . . everybody deserves this opportunity. I think you’re right, Kris, we need some kind of a policy direction that can help drive the actions of the districts because without that policy, then the money doesn’t follow, and the emphasis doesn’t follow, and the attention doesn’t follow. Because if it becomes policy, then we measure it, and what we measure we value. And if we value it, it gets done. So, you know, I think if we can go in that direction, because I think we’re still working toward that in Minnesota too; we don’t have a statewide firm direction. I know there’s work on that going on, but we need something a little more solid. How about you, Kris, what’s your one thing?

Kris Beck 39:38
My one thing today is that it’s really exciting to talk to people, like, we have three different states here, Illinois, Minnesota, and Washington. And that we’re all trying to do this work. And that’s, that’s such a big advance from where things were even just, you know, 5 or 10 years ago, right, that this is the big—this is the big push to give our students these opportunities. So, I don’t know, I just I think it’s, we’re in a very positive place, even though there’s lots of work to do, that it’s . . . I don’t know, I just, I’m very hopeful.

Rena Clark 40:20
Well, I’m hopeful as well. And I’ve just really enjoyed speaking with you. And for me personally, it’s perfect timing. So thank you. And I just, I want to say thank you again to Kris Beck. And hopefully we’ll have you back, maybe in another year or two, and we’ll see what’s happening.

Kris Beck 40:39
That would be great. I’d love it.

Rena Clark 40:43
Thanks so much. Thanks for listening to Unpacking Education.

Winston Benjamin 40:50
We invite you to visit us at avidopenaccess.org, where you can discover resources to support student agency, equity, and academic tenacity to create a classroom for future-ready learners.

Paul Beckermann 41:05
We’ll be back here next Wednesday for a fresh episode of Unpacking Education.

Rena Clark 41:09
And remember, go forth and be awesome.

Winston Benjamin 41:13
Thank you for all you do.

Paul Beckermann 41:14
You make a difference.