Julie Samuels

Mayoral control of the NYC public schools is set to expire on June 30, after a one-year extension granted by the state legislature last year. For more than a decade, mayoral control has been critical for the improvement of NYC schools in general and for the development of new citywide initiatives like Computer Science for All. Tech:NYC and CSNYC, along with leaders of the city's tech industry, have written a letter to the leadership of New York State urging an extension. The Daily News covered it here.

As we wrote in the letter:

[W]e must create a pipeline right here in New York City’s public schools that gives our 1.1 million students—fewer than five percent of whom currently have access to computer science education—the opportunity to learn the skills that will put them on a path to college and career success in a technical field.

The good news is the tide has started to turn. In September 2015, Mayor de Blasio announced Computer Science for All (CS4All), a 10-year, $80 million public-private partnership to offer computer science to every student and every school in the city. This is an unprecedented effort to expand a new content area inside urban schools, and it will train nearly 5,000 teachers across all grade levels, K-12.

You can read the full letter here or access the PDF here.