[skywhopper]

I'll only comment on the opening line and the research it points to about the failure rate in intro to Computer Science. The author of the codeup piece immediately jumps to the conclusion that it's an inability on the part of the failing students to be able to learn to program (a detail that the study linked doesn't comment on). However, my first reaction is that if the failure rate is higher than we want, it means we either (1) aren't teaching the class well; or (2) the students are coming in without proper preparation.

Many students coming into an intro to CS class are already programming whizzes, and then there are others who have no experience with programming at all. So, already the instructor is in an impossible situation. Do you bore the promising kids with the major head start, risking losing future good students? Or do you ramp the class up to their speed and risk losing the kids who didn't come in already knowing the material? Obviously, most departments and instructors will, wittingly or not, choose the latter.