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Code.org: Give Us More H-1B Visas Or the Kids Get Hurt

Posted by Soulskill on from the send-in-S.W.A.T. dept.

theodp writes "Fresh off their wildly-hyped Hour of Code, Code.org headed to Washington last Thursday where H-1B visas were prescribed as the cure for U.S. kids' STEM ills. 'The availability of computer science to all kids is an issue that warrants immediate and aggressive action,' Code.org told Congress. "Comprehensive immigration reform efforts that tie H-1B visa fees to a new STEM education fund,' suggested Code.org co-founder Hadi Partovi, is 'among the policies that we feel can be changed to support the teaching and learning of more computer science in K-12 schools. We hope you can be allies in our endeavors on Capitol Hill.' Also testifying with Partovi was inventor and US FIRST founder Dean Kamen, who also pitched the benefits of H-1B visas (PDF). 'We strongly encourage Congress to pass legislation that directs H-1B visa fees to enable underserved inner-city and rural schools to participate in FIRST,' Kamen testified. 'Specifically, these fees should support efforts to enable underserved inner-city and rural schools to participate in FIRST.'"

11 of 271 comments (clear)

  1. Train the kids in valuable skills by Gothmolly · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Like asking if you want fries, or how to fill out forms to receive government cheese.
    Train what you have, fix what you have, rather than importing more of the problem. It's like selling a product at a loss, but making up the profit on volume.
    Dean Kamen is a cool rich guy, and like most rich guys, can afford to advocate things that don't impact him.

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    1. Re:Train the kids in valuable skills by TWiTfan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Training them to get government cheese would probably be more useful than teaching them programming. At least then it wouldn't get their hopes up that there are actual jobs awaiting them at the end. It's my experience that most advertised IT jobs these days are just mirage jobs. They're posted for legal reasons and so that tech companies can run to Congress and say "Look at all these jobs we can't fill! We need more H1-B visas!" But if you actually waste your time trying to GET one of those jobs, you'll find that they're as fake and inaccessible as a closed movie set.

      And even the jobs that ARE real have their wages kept artificially low by all the H1B's. And god help you trying to get anything these days in programming if you're over 35 (only hip kids can code, I guess).

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    2. Re:Train the kids in valuable skills by w1kL3f · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There's a lot of ageism now in the software engineering sector. I'm over 40, first began programming BASIC and C in the 1980s, and have kept current: I now program in Python and JavaScript. Does the latter matter to employers? Not that I see. I'm unemployed and can barely get an interview or a meeting, let alone get hired after they see that I have a couple of strands of grey hair (I still have all my hair, though). Doesn't matter how I dress, or if I wear a hoodie and chucks. I'm old, and apparently that means I'm worthless in this market.

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  2. They're not even trying... by Karmashock · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... to make sense anymore.

    They might as well say "Wombat refuges must be funded so as to secure America's future in space exploration.

    The whole thing is a non sequitur.

    Visas have nothing what so ever to do with the academic success of American kids. Nothing.

    Aliens could come bubble out of the 10th dimension and seal the US off in a pocket universe... and guess what... they could still get a decent education. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE!?! Because immigration has nothing to do with education. The US could be utterly isolated and yet have a fantastic education system.

    Example? Look at Japan... notice how their education system is terrible because they don't have really permissive immigration policies.

    Oh wait, their education system is great despite having pretty tight immigration.

    Stupidity. Anyone that honestly gets suckered into such arguments should get the word "moron" tattooed on their forehead. Just for efficient identification.

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    1. Re:They're not even trying... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's worse than a non-sequitur:

      Let's play EC101 for a second here:

      1. Not enough students are persuing 'STEM' education.

      2. Hypothesis: 'STEM' education needs to be improved, to improve retention and attraction and/or the rewards of pursuing 'STEM' education need to be more visible, greater, or both.

      3. Ergo, we should issue more H-1B visas in order to lower the real wages for workers in 'STEM' fields and thus incentivize more students to study the (even if rewarding, quite challenging) 'STEM' subjects!

      A non-sequitur would be downright sensible by comparison. At least disconnected statements tend to not be internally contradictory...

      If you are having difficulty recruiting students for a subject, why would you possibly want to reduce the rewards for studying a subject? That's the opposite of what you want to do. Now, admittedly, some non-STEM students or STEM-abandoning students are motivated more by shitty teaching or other similar factors than they are by future job prospects; but unless you want to abandon basically all theories of human motivation underlying vaguely capitalist economies, you have to admit that expected payoff is sort of a major factor in whether to stick with hard math or go and do something else.

      This one strikes me as similar to the (also surprisingly common and equally absurd; but self-interested) "We can't attract enough good talent, also wages are too high!" whining from employers. Hey, dumbass, supply curves, no? If you can't attract good talent, how can you also be paying too much? Unless your work environment is brutally fucked on various social levels, if you were overpaying, talent would be knocking down the door to come join you...

    2. Re:They're not even trying... by Sarten-X · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Stop reading Slashdot headlines.

      It sounds like Code.org is pushing to have H-1B visa fees earmarked for education programs, rather than just going to general funds.

      I skimmed through TFAs (poorly-organized as they were), and I didn't see anything implying they want more H-1Bs. Rather, the most I saw was implying that there could be an increase in H-1Bs, so it would make sense if that increase also increased STEM funding so we don't need H-1Bs in the future.

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    3. Re:They're not even trying... by rmdingler · · Score: 5, Insightful
      As painfully obvious as is the logic, it's a way to present a distasteful, wage-lowering piece of immigration reform in a positive light.

      Your Congressional representative can always use a positive spin to sign something favorable to large campaign contributors.

      For the children.

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    4. Re:They're not even trying... by theodp · · Score: 5, Informative

      From the link to Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us PAC: "Modifications to the guest worker program must also include an increase in the number of H-1B visas". Many of Code.org's backers are also FWD.us backers.

  3. All because they don't want to pay people by Thantik · · Score: 5, Insightful

    what they're worth. Flood the market with H1Bs, so they can tank the amount paid because then there is lots of competition. STEM education is there, the people are there, the (large) businesses simply don't want to pay them the $100k+ they deserve. They want a large pool of $20k/yr workers.

    1. Re:All because they don't want to pay people by dkleinsc · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Also because they don't want to train people to work in technology. There is legitimately a shortage of tech people in the US, and one potential response would be to increase wages until the right candidates are motivated to apply, but another potential response would be to take not-quite-ideal candidates and provide the necessary on-the-job training that would make them suitable employees.

      And I'm not even talking about being willing to hire Java guys to write C#, although that's in play too. For example, a guy who spent 15 years keeping an assembly-line humming and has been unemployed for 5 years now might well be somebody who could help keep a network cruising along. You'd have your senior-level network admin start him off as a cabling monkey, then teach him what he's plugging things into, and as he gained experience he'd eventually get familiar with the monitoring tools and be able to recognize and respond to common problems. This kind of hire might never reach the top-notch skillset of your senior network admin, but he could be an effective and inexpensive junior-level employee. You could pretty easily dream up similarly effective training programs for desktop support technicians.

      These kind of programs were exactly what the major corporations were doing in the 1950's, because there was such a shortage of available workers after WWII that they would basically hire anybody with a high school diploma and no demonstrable idiocy, and then train them for whatever the corporation needed to them to do. They provided good wages, benefits, and a career track for people who did their jobs well. This was an investment, but it worked well, and you ended up with people who were fiercely loyal to the company and proud to be a part of it.

      H1Bs are basically stopping those kind of market corrections from happening - they both prevent the IT guys from getting paid what they're worth, and prevent non-IT people who want to get into IT from making the move.

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  4. Re:but, but, racism and diversity is strength! by hairyfeet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why is this not modded up? The only ones that believe in free trade and multiculturalism anymore are the 1%ers and politically correct, the rest of us can plainly see the only "trade' is the importing of slaves and the exporting of misery.

    In my own area not only is the local college shutting down the programming courses (because only a fool would go 60K+ in debt to compete with someone who paid peanuts for theirs in India) but construction USED to be a good job for those that weren't able to go to college, now? you can go by any job site and yell "immigra!" and watch them scatter like deer. oh and if they take a header from a scaffold YOU PAY for their medical bills as they are dropped off by the nearest ER with a "tough luck Paco".

    I've been all over the flyover states and have seen first hand what "free trade" has gotten us, its gotten us abandoned factories, boarded up buildings, and for many areas the only "jobs" are applying for government handouts and flipping burgers. To quote George Carlin "You know why they call it The American Dream? because you have to be asleep to believe in it"

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