AB 1764, co-authored by Assemblywomen Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo, and Kristen Olsen, R-Modesto, passed out of the lower house late last month on a 78-0 vote with bipartisan support. This legislation would authorize the school board of a district that requires more than two math course credits for graduation “to award a pupil up to one mathematics course credit for successfully completing an approved computer science course, as provided.”

According to Amy Hirotaka, state policy and advocacy manager at the nonprofit Code.org: “Our lobbying effort has focused on the movement to make computer science count as a credit toward graduation requirements.” Code.org reached out on the issue to Gov. Jerry Brown earlier this month in a letter, signed by 28 education officials, nonprofits and top industry leaders, including salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff and Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey.

“We want to partner with the governor and the state moving forward on what’s the best path for California to help it become sort of a trailblazer in computer science,” said Amy Hirotaka.  “California is home to the computing revolution that transforms our lives and provides high-paying jobs. But 90 percent of our K-12 schools do not teach computer science.”

Should AB 1764 be enacted, there will be more room on the high school’s master schedule for rigorous Career Technical Education courses like the Computer Programming and Game Design course recently developed by Scott Myers, Business/CTE Department Chair at Lathrop High School.