One of the most significant developments over the last fifty years has been the rise of data and the creation of a modern economy and society that rely on it. Every second of every day, the world creates enough data to fill 50 new Libraries of Congress.
For this reason, we believe that all students, not just those aiming for technical careers, will need basic data science skills to be successful. This means that they need to be able to explore and answer questions with data, to employ quantitative reasoning skills, and to use digital tools to work with data. Unfortunately, less than 1% of high school students in the U.S. currently have access to a data science course.
90% of business leaders cite data science skills as key to company success
Only 25% of workers feel confident in their data skills
We fund solutions that provide high-quality data science curricula and professional development programs for teachers to implement data science courses in their classrooms. We look for solutions that have an early track record of scale and that improve student outcomes. Our current grantees are CourseKata and Introduction to Data Science (IDS).
We fund research efforts to identify what is known about data science education today, to deepen our understanding of what works in data science instruction and assessment, and to develop an agenda to guide future research. Concord Consortium, ExcelinEd and Outlier Research & Evaluation are current grantees.
We fund field-building efforts that grow stakeholder awareness of the importance of data science education, advance state policies that encourage schools to adopt data science curricula, and allow innovators, academics, and funders to share promising solutions and learn from one another. Current grantees include Data Science for Everyone Coalition at RISC.