The Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) this week approved the state’s first-ever academic content standards for computer science. The new standards, which will be implemented for the 2025-2026 school year, are designed to ensure graduates apply analytical and critical thinking skills to realworld situations, demonstrate digital literacy and digital citizenship skills, and utilize technology skills as employable citizens to meet present and future workforce needs.
“The value of computer science education in developing students’ analytical skills cannot be overstated,” said BESE President Ronnie Morris. “Every day, each of us interact with an everincreasing number of computing systems that impact how we live and work, and the importance of digital literacy will only increase in the years ahead. The standards BESE adopted today will apply at every grade level, so every student benefits. We are particularly excited about mapping these standards to the core curriculum so students can appreciate the practical application.”
The standards are organized into five core concepts from the Louisiana Computer Science Framework, which include computing skills, networks and the internet, data and analysis, algorithms and programming, and impacts of computing. The framework assists teachers in structuring student learning, providing cohesion to the components that make up computer science educational programs, and is adaptable to varying teaching styles and specific computer science content topics..