Last week, 1,200 of my colleagues and I attended the 37th annual ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education -- sponsored by the ACM Special Interest Group in Computer Science Education, or SIGCSE -- in Houston, Texas. I have been attending SIGCSE for the past several years, both to disseminate my research in computer science education and to better understand the issues faced by computing educators.

Last week, the ACM Job Migration Task Force released a report on Globalization and the Offshoring of Software. The report did not explicitly discuss the impact of offshoring on women in developed countries who were already pursuing IT careers or were considering study for an IT career. Nevertheless, it is straightforward to see some of the implications of the report for these women.

I wanted to hear about "Saving the World with a CS Degree." I eagerly anticipated this talk because someone was going to tell undergraduates about the link between computing and helping people. A former student would describe his experiences with creating information technology to serve humanity. He had lived in several third world countries, worked to build a system that contributed to Tsunami reconstruction, and provided data entry skills and jobs to the formerly unemployed.

Several months ago I asked my friendly congressman whether he thought the middle of America's bell curve realizes that the U.S. ranks below average for 21 industrialized countries in math and science education.

He looked rather startled, so I went on: even when our advanced students are compared to those of 15 other countries, 11 countries outperform us and no country scores significantly below us.