Senate Draft of No Child Left Behind Act Draft Makes CS a 'Core' Subject

theodp (442580) writes "If at first you don't succeed, lobby, lobby again. That's a lesson to be learned from Microsoft and Google, who in 2010 launched advocacy coalition Computing in the Core, which aimed "to strengthen K-12 computer science education and ensure that computer science is one of the core academic subjects that prepares students for jobs in our digital society." In 2013, Computing in the Core "merged" with Code.org, a new nonprofit led by the next door neighbor of Microsoft's General Counsel and funded by wealthy tech execs and their companies. When Code.org 'taught President Obama to code' in a widely-publicized White House event last December, visitor records indicate that Google, Microsoft, and Code.org execs had a sitdown immediately afterwards with the head of the NSF, and a Microsoft lobbyist in attendance returned to the White House the next day with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and General Counsel Brad Smith (who also sits on Code.org's Board) in tow. Looks like all of that hard work may finally pay off. Education Week reports that computer science has been quietly added to the list of disciplines defined as 'core academic subjects' in the Senate draft of the rewritten No Child Left Behind Act, a status that opens the doors to a number of funding opportunities. After expressing concern that his teenage daughters hadn't taken to coding the way he'd like, President Obama added, "I think they got started a little bit late. Part of what you want to do is introduce this with the ABCs and the colors." So, don't be too surprised if your little ones are soon focusing on the four R's — reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic, and Rapunzel — in school!"

Comments

Double tassel ...

[gstoddart]

So, is there anything which has overcome the double tassel distribution which programming has always had?

For literally decades, it's been "these people get it, these people don't" with very little in the middle.

Have we fixed this? Have we found way to teach it which prevent this? Have we even explained it?

Otherwise this is fairly meaningless drivel which is little more intelligent than "Children should be 3% taller for each of the next 10 years".

I've know really smart mathematicians who couldn't be made to understand computer programming. And, likewise, I've known some awesome CS people who struggled with math.

So what makes us think your average school children will be any different?

As usual, I worry when Microsoft and Google are telling us what the future should be. Because it's all about the future as they want it to be and as it benefits them.

As long as Microsoft and Google are so reliant on H1B workers, educating American kids to code is a pointless exercise.

Re:Double tassel ...

[moeinvt]

"Look at how many coders Amerikan schools are creating and they don't meet our needs."

Bollocks. They don't meet your need for people who will work long hours for crap pay and few benefits.

Advertise a job with decent salary and benefits and you'll be able to find all of the American coders you want.

Re:Double tassel ...

[Phreakiture]

And then they become very different things understood by different people in completely different ways.

Here's a perfect example:

a = a * 2

Now, getting past the substitute of * for X as an indicator of a multiplication operation, most CS-types will interpret this as a command to double the value of a while a math-type would instead view this as a statement of fact (within the scope of the problem) and infer from this (probably without even thinking about it) that a is zero because no other value satisfies the formula.

When I started playing with computers at an age of nine or ten, (this would have been an Apple ][ back in 1980), my Mom saw me key in a statement that said A = A + 1 and immediately objected, insisting that you could not do that . . . and she isn't even good at math.

So yes, I agree, it is a related, but different, kind of thinking, and should be a separate subject.

Re:Double tassel ...

[FlyHelicopters]

You couldn't get me to move there with even the current high end of the pay scale but I might be convinced if I was paid enough to acquire what I have now in the Midwest

^ This, a thousand times this....

I used to live in CA, many years ago...

Was paid well enough, about $75k, then I moved to Texas and bought a house... Holy crap...

In LA, $300k wouldn't buy you much of anything (mid 2000s), but in 2006 I bought a 3,800sqft house in one of the best school districts in Texas, for under $300k that was only 5 years old (built 2001).

That house would be, what.... $2 million in a nice part of town in a 95% ranked school in LA?

---

You'd have to pay me 2/3 of a million dollars to move to LA, really, you would... that is what it would take to simply replace what I have here.

Let private sector fund their own needs

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck Microsoft and fuck google. Why should they expect the public to fund a specialized skill set that makes them money.

If they truely cared about CS literacy, they could institute and EASILY fund their own programs. Maybe they should consider doing on the job training? For example. They could create 9 month job opportunities (commonly called interships or co ops) and train people to code during that time. The ones that clearly have the mindset for programming can get hired on as full time employees, and the others have gained some valuable work experience.

i don't like this

[Ward, Darrin]

the more people that understand computers, the less i'll be able to exploit them and steal their data and infect their computers.