Today, I’m sharing a number of investments that Google is making that will support equitable access to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education across the greater Los Angeles area. Google has three campuses and thousands of employees locally, and is committed to building sustainable equity, helping create economic opportunity and improving education in the cities and communities where we live and work.
Opportunity in the greater Los Angeles area is abundant, but due to structural inequalities, access to those opportunities is not equally available to all. For example, while 57% of schools in Los Angeles County offer some sort of computer science education class, schools serving high proportions of Black, Indigenous, Latino/Hispanic and Pacific Islander students are less likely to have access to computer science compared to schools serving a greater proportion of white and Asian students.
We’re working to address this gap and increase access by working alongside the education community to ensure every student receives the same opportunity to succeed in STEM fields like computer science.
Here are four ways Google is working to provide equitable computer science education opportunities for learners of all ages in the greater Los Angeles area.
1. Providing more access to computer science skills for high schoolers
In 2024, Google will be opening an after-school Code Next Lab for high schoolers in Inglewood, California, a city where 9 in 10 individuals identify as Black and/or Latinx. Google will be designing, building and opening the new facility, which is a free, immersive computer-science education program to develop the next generation of Black, Latinx and Indigenous tech leaders.