Google: Teach Girls Coding, Get $2,500; Teach Boys, Get $0

theodp (442580) writes "'Public school teachers,' reads the headline at Khan Academy (KA), 'introduce your students to coding and earn $1000 or more for your classroom!' Read the fine print, however, and you'll see that the Google-bankrolled offer is likely to ensure that girls, not boys, are going to be their Computer Science teachers' pets. 'Google wants public high school students, especially girls, to discover the magic of coding,' KA explains to teachers. 'You'll receive a $100 DonorsChoose.org gift code for every female student who completes the [JS 101: Drawing & Animation] course. When 4 or more female students complete it, we'll email you an additional $500 gift code as a thank-you for helping your students learn to code.' While 'one teacher cannot have more than 20 of the $100 gift codes activated on their DonorsChoose.org projects,' adds KA, 'if the teacher has more than 20 female students complete the curriculum, s/he will still be sent gift codes, and the teacher can use the additional gift codes on another teacher's DonorsChoose.org project.' So, is girls-are-golden-boys-are-worthless funding for teachers' projects incongruent with Khan Academy's other initiatives, such as its exclusive partnership with CollegeBoard to eliminate inequality among students studying for the SAT?"

Comments

Re:Discrimination of girls is bad and unethical

[LWATCDR]

So a program that would pay basketball programs for having more white players would be okay? How about one for straight male fashion designers?
Sorry but this is discrimination in the form of incentives. I would rather see money spent on putting good tech teachers and technology in low performing schools so you help everyone in an area to have greater opportunities. I agree that teachers need to provide the same opportunities to everyone but putting a bounty on one group will by it's very nature cause that group to get preferential treatment.
I often wonder if the the cultural issues are more the women not going into tech at an early age vs men. Hopefully people like Jerry Ellsworth and Marissa Mayer cand help turn that around.