Florida Senate Considering a Proposal to Count Coding as a Foreign Language

In early March 2016, the Florida Senate voted to approve a proposal that would allow classes that offered coding and programming to count as foreign language credits for graduation. This is exciting news!

I don’t know if it passed the Florida House and if the Governor enacted the proposed legislation or not. Democratic Senator Jeremy Ring, former Yahoo employee, was asked if coding is bilingual and Senator Ring indicated that he felt it definitely was.

The article went on to state,

It’s interesting logic that some district officials might find hard to swallow. In a state like Florida, where Spanish is spoken heavily in many cities and towns, creating a system in which computer science and foreign languages compete in order to exist might not do students any favors.

Hopefully the legislation passes and other cities follow suit. Coding and programming is a language in itself and is becoming increasingly necessary for many jobs that today’s students will hold in the future. Having the coding knowledge and skills will definitely give some students an advantage by being able to demonstrate coding and programming skills.

Several cities, like Houston and Los Angeles, have plans to offer computer science to all students and want to include coding/programming as a requirement for graduation. It will be interesting to see how many other cities join forces with Houston and Los Angeles.

What are your thoughts? Please respond in the comments area as I would love to hear your thoughts on this issue.