EppsNet Archive: Incentives

Teaching Computer Science: Incentives (or Lack Thereof)

 

According to this article on TechCrunch, “Every California high school must establish computer science courses as part of its core curriculum.” From the same article: “Most California teachers have little or no training to teach computer science.” Do you see the problem there? I’ve been a programmer for many years . . . I’d be glad to teach computer science to students, teachers or anyone who wants to learn it if there were even a modest incentive to do so. Which there isn’t. One way to measure how much people want something is how much they’re willing to pay for it. There’s no shortage of people talking about teaching programming and computer science, which is free (the talking, that is), but without the incentives ($$$) very little is going to actually happen. Read more →

Most of Economics

 

Most of economics can be summarized in four words: “People respond to incentives.” The rest is commentary. — Steven Landsburg, The Armchair Economist Read more →