Mayor Bloomberg announced recently the opening of a high school for software engineering in New York. The school will be located in Union Square. The main driver behind this idea has been Mike Zemansky, a computer science teacher. According to Bloomberg this is part of a bigger strategy where New York will open new Career and Technical Education Schools in the next years.
Technology companies keep sprouting everywhere and searching for skilled experts. This development has also a huge impact on New York where the demand for technology skilled persons by far exceeds the number of technology-oriented students educated by schools. Due to that reason Mayor Bloomberg and Fred Wilson have joined their forces and influence to improve the situation.
According to Wilson, a VC and Principal of Union Square Ventures, the school …
will be open to all students as part of the high school admissions process in NYC. The City's goal (and mine too) is to open up opportunities for many more students than the small number of specialized schools can deliver. Hopefully the curriculum that is developed and teachers that are trained at the Academy will get rolled out into high schools all over the city in the coming years. The Gotham Gal and I have provided the initial financial support to hire a new schools team and recruit a top notch Principal. But we do not want to be front and center in this story. The team at the DOE and City Hall that has brought this school to life and the Advisory Board of educators and industry leaders (led by Evan Korth of NYU) should get way more credit for what has happened to date. And we will need more financial and industry support (as well as a fantastic Principal) to make this school a success. So if you would like to join us in this effort, please email me via the contact link at the bottom of this blog and let me know how you would like to help. This is an ambitious effort and we will need it.
According to Joel Spolsky, a board member for the new school,
the 400 to 500 students who enroll will also get a "rigorous" academic education that will prepare them for college. Still, Spolsky admits that "college is not for everyone--many of the best programmers I know were just not interested enough in a general four-year degree and went straight into jobs programming.
It is not difficult to anticipate that other regions might follow this approach if it turns out to be successful.
Readers, what is your take on this?
