Mr. Zamansky. (Photo: Google+.)

Spend much time listening to Silicon Alley types talk about their fair city, and it won't be before you hear someone issue a lament on behalf of the children—specifically, the quality of the math and science education they're getting. Indeed, teaching tech skills in the public schools is among the most popular political proposals that the New York Tech Meetup suggested last month, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg's vision for New York as a center of innovation is rarely far off from a new plan to offer a 21st century education.

The latest: Mayor Michael Bloomberg named the 20 middle and high schools that will host the city's Software Engineering Pilot program, which will provide classes in "computer programming, embedded electronics, web design and programming, e-textiles, robotics, and mobile computing" beginning in September. Meanwhile, Union Square Venture's Fred Wilson broke news on his blog that the TEALS program—which recruits software engineers to volunteer their time teaching computer science in the schools—is coming to New York.

One person who was less than full-throated in his optimism for the two plans: Mike Zamansky, a Stuyvesant High School computer science teacher who has been lobbying for more rigorous computer science training in the city's public schools for the better part of the last decade.

"The TEALS program is very well-meaning," Mr. Zamansky told Betabeat. "But they're not building the core capacity of teachers. It's wonderful to get engineers in the classroom, but can they teach? I think the cooler endgame would be having teachers that know technology." The SEP program, meanwhile, sounded good on paper to Mr. Zamansky, but left him wondering if the city would be able to adequately train teachers to lead students through the new curricula. "You need experienced teachers who have technology backgrounds," Mr. Zamansky said. (Well, yes, but where do you find them?)

Mr. Zamansky has long hoped to expand his school's computer science throughout the city; meanwhile, he's launched a program called CSTUY in hopes of reaching students outside the Stuyvesant community.

Earlier this month, Betabeat sat among 50 or so Stuyvesant students in a back corner of TechStars' East Village offices and listened as Stuyvesant alumni described their careers in technology. The meeting was limited to Stuyvesant students, due to issues with insurance coverage, but Mr. Zamansky told Betabeat that future offerings—which he hopes will include mini-courses on web design and system administration—will be more open.

Next month, CSTUY is bringing together Stuyvesant alumni at companies such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter with current students at Foursquare's offices—an event which he hopes will be open to Brooklyn Tech students to attend.

"I don't want it to be just Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Tech," he said. "I want it to be students from across the city."

As guest columnist Sarah Kunst wrote on Betabeat, women need to get into the pipeline in order to get to the top. This idea, often raised during debates over the gender ratio in tech, makes Stuyvesant High School an interesting case study. All students at Stuyvesant are required to take a year of computer science. As it turns out, the advanced computer science classes skew mostly male anyway. But for a year, boys and girls get exposed to computer programming together.

We asked Mike Zamansky, the head of the computer science program, to share some stories from his female students. They did us one better. Eight students sent in first-hand accounts of what it's like to learn computer programming as a teenage girl.

Check out these stories of learning computer science as a high school girl. Special thanks to student Ellie Abrams, who coordinated the project.

Mr. Zamansky. (Google+)

All students at Stuyvesant High School are required to take an introductory computer science course during sophomore year. Mike Zamansky, the coordinator of Stuyvesant's bleeding-edge computer science program and a consultant on the city's new high school tech campus, cold-emailed experts at Google and the University of California, Berkeley while writing it. "It's a very well-designed course," he told Betabeat by phone this morning. "We know not every one is going to be a computer scientist. But how can you give an overview and inspire the ones that should go into tech, to go into tech, and at the same time give other kids—the 80 percent of the kids, let's say, who are not meant to go into tech—something valuable?"

The exhaustive design of the intro class is just one example of how Mr. Zamansky has been building one of the country's most rigorious high school computer science programs for the past 15 years. Although the program is still the "illegitimate child of the math department," as Mr. Zamansky put it, there are seven teachers, three of whom teach a full CS courseload, and more than 270 students.

But the program is bumping into obstacles at the high school, where he has limited resources, he said. Recently the program had to cut one of its senior level courses from three sections to two, and there are regularly more kids interested in the program than can be accommodated, he said.

So Mr. Zamansky decided to get the alumni involved.

Stuy computer science students have gone on to companies like IBM, Google, Facebook and Microsoft as well as startups like Foursquare, Twitter and Hype Machine; one graduate called it the "Stuy mafia." And the alumni remember Mr. Zamansky, or "Z," quite well. "Took every comp sci class he was offering at the time!" Benny Wong, the cofounder of TechStars graduate TimeHop, wrote in an email.

Next week, Mr. Wong will join about 80 graduates working in tech and about 100 Stuyvesant high school students enrolled in CS for an Alumni Student Open House. The students and alums will gather at the swanky new offices of Foursquare, where they will enjoy pizza, soda and conversation. "The alums will be mixing with the students, talking to them about the neat things they do, how they got there," Mr. Zamansky said. "I just want people to make connections."

Mr. Zamansky hopes the event will inspire kids to go into tech and bolster their chances at landing an internship. Last year, Mr. Zamansky was able to place about 20 students in internships at tech companies. Most of the internship connections are informal, but he's arranged a partnership with Morgan Stanley for funneling young talent into internships.

Want to see what Z and his kids are doing in class? Just check his blog, C'est la Z. Most recently: a field trip to NYU.