That's the Computer Science Teacher's Association to you.

Has it?

Well, that's a personal question. I think it has for me but I'm sure for other people, that jump the shark moment will be far off or never.

I'm ruminating on this now as a result of a recent change in their membership policy. Going from two tiers - one free and one costing $50 a year to a single tier $50 membership. If you're currently a member, you can elect not to pay the $50 and still keep access to a limited set of resources.

Alfred Thompson wrote a great blog post with his take on the change here.

When CSTA started it was free. Back then, there were far fewer computer science teachers and while I joined early on, I saw very few opportunities to get involved. That's not to say there weren't any or plenty, just none crossed my path. At one point I did try to reach out to their leadership but I found them dismissive. I got an email back seeming to indicate "well, you're at Stuyvesant so what you do doesn't count."

Anyway, in 2009 or so I had the opportunity to get more involved so I did. That led me to feeling that back then the CSTA existed for CSTA and they expected the membership to work for the benefit of the central organization.

Some time around 2018 or 2019, I felt that changed. To me, anyway, it seemed like the emphasis really turned around to support the teachers and local chapters. I applauded the change and many of the efforts.

That was around the same time that CSTA announced CSTA+ - the $50 membership. I immediately joined. Not for the extras that it provided but just to support the organization. I think a lot of other people joined for the same reasons.

Personally, I've never found the CSTA materials and resources useful. That's not an indictment of them. I haven't found anything on code.org useful either. That's probably because I came in to teaching with a strong CS background and had developed a robust High School CS program before CSTA ever existed - I was ahead of the curve. I wasn't happy then and still am disappointed when I see a lack of actual CS coming out of CSTA but in any event, I knew that the materials weren't for me, they were for newer teachers and teachers just coming to the subject.

For a while there, even though I wasn't really the audience, I felt I could get behind and support the CSTA.

Fast forward to today. Why to me has CSTA jumped the shark?

Some time in the last year, I decided that I wasn't happy with the direction of CSTA. I was particularly unhappy with the board of directors election process. I had applied to be on the slate. I assumed there would be some manner of open process - the membership would either vote or they'd cull down the candidates in some open and fair way and then vote on the final slate.

Nope.

I was told that the committee decided to go with other candidates for the election.

Is my opinion on this sour grapes? Maybe but I don't think so. When I read the candidate bios I left feeling that some candidates were equally or better qualified to be on the slate than I was but then, some, in my opinion brought much less to the table.

Had there been an open process that left me and others off the slate I would have been fine with it but I was left feeling that the committee that made the decision was massaging the slate so as to get the board of directors they wanted.

I was also unhappy with the tone and direction of CSTA for a variety of other reasons.

So that's when I decided to drop down from CSTA+ to CSTA free tier.

I still wanted to go to this years conference, however. When I went to register, I saw that the free tier registration was $50 more expensive, which was fine, and that those additional $50 would pay to put me back into CSTA+. Every time I think I'm out, they pull me back in!!!!! :-)

Then I started getting the emails about the new dues structure urging me to upgrade.

Weird. I though when I registered for the conference, that took care of the upgrade. Turns out, I won't be upgraded until the actual conference. Okay, weird and not a great look based on emails but that's fine.

So that's why the CSTA has jumped the shark for me but I wouldn't be surprised if this membership change makes them jump the shark for a much wider set of CS teachers.

Alfred, in his post already talked about the cost and how many CS teachers are also from other disciplines and those costs multiply across subjects.

The big one to me though is that CSTA central will only support local chapter events solely for paid CSTA members. I hope I'm understanding this one incorrectly but a big part of local meetings should be working to get more teachers involved. That means meetings with non CSTA members in the hopes of roping them in.

If CS was like math and had been around as a school subject area forever then saying "hey, pay $50 and then and only then can you go to the club meetings" might play a little better. Might but that's no certainty and we're nowhere near being close to ready for it.

I get that money might be tight but in my opinion, if the CSTA wants to be long term viable as a teachers organization (as opposed to a top down organization paid for by say the Googles of the world) then they have to support local efforts that bring in more teachers even if those local efforts are still working to get their legs under them.

I'm also curious as to what the messaging will be with conference registration. If they're smart, since there will only be on $50 tier it will be marketed as "come to our conference and get a free years membership."

So, will this positively or negatively affect membership? While I don't have any numbers, at least CSTA meeting numbers in New York City isn't particularly high and is largely dominated by teaching adjacent people. This always struck me as odd since New York City's CSForAll initiative has resulted in tons of schools offering CS but those teachers don't come out. Add a $50 membership fee and I don't expect the numbers to rise.

Of course, outside of New York City, things could be very different.

In any event, we'll see how many more CSTA conferences I attend but I don't see myself engaging much with CSTA other than that under the new proposed model with the CSTA going in its current direction.

It'll be interesting to see how membership and attitudes change moving forward.