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Microsoft-Backed Think Tank: K-12 CS Education Cure For Sagging US Productivity
theodp writes: On May 6, notes think tank Brookings, the Department of Labor released labor productivity data showing that output per worker fell by 1.9 percent during the first quarter of 2015. But fear not — the Metropolitan Policy Program of [Microsoft-backed] Brookings says K-12 computer science education is the cure for what ails U.S. productivity: "So how can the United States reverse this trend? First, states, metropolitan areas, and school districts must recognize that basic digital literacy is no longer sufficient preparation for the 21st century workforce. Familiarity with higher-level skills such as coding will be critical as the role of technology continues to grow. The 60-plus school districts that have partnered with [Microsoft-backed] Code.org have already begun to move in this direction. By introducing students to computer science fundamentals early on, Code.org and its partner districts will help get more people on pathways to well-paying jobs in computer programming and other fields." Creating a national K-12 CS and tech immigration crisis was proposed as Microsoft introduced its 'two-pronged' National Talent Strategy to increase K-12 CS education and the number of H-1B visas at a Brookings event in 2012. While creating a K-12 CS crisis fell to Code.org, fanning the flames of a tech immigration crisis is the purvey of [Microsoft exec-backed] FWD.us, the PAC formed by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, which recently sent an email blast warning U.S. citizens they're in 'A Gigantic Global Talent War', adding that China and India citizens are "just laughing [at the US], saying it's so easy to pick from you guys... we just take all the talent."
It is pretty obvious to me that our country's productivity and economy in general will improve if we improve CS based education. But that is simply because increasing education in general will help our economy. There are very few ways a country can actually invest in its economy in the long term. Improving education. increasing funding of both private and public research, and improving infrastructure are the only ways that come to mind.
So while improving CS education is a great idea, I see no reason why it needs to be singled out.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
To encourage a kid to go into a CS is a mean thing to do. Congress will continue to fall over themselves ever expanding the H1B program. Companies will love them right when they get out of college, but they will not pay above a certain salary - the same way a fast food joint doesn't. Then when they reach 40 years old they will be thrown on the human waste pile for not having "current" skills or not willing to put in 80 hour weeks with Mountain Dew and Hot Pockets. Like all the other recent college graduates are or newly arrived H1Bs. Then they'll be lucky to get a $10/hour job at a call center or target.
If you love a kid, encourage them to become a plumber. if they want to do programming, it can be the hobby that they can do out of love for an open source project.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
is any level of western education going to make it cost-competitive to those at the distant ends of the ethernet cable? Better to help them improve their lifestyles such that they insource to western neighborhoods...
That's a shockingly insightful question for a /. FP! There's two separate issue here, if most of the good jobs in the future are something to do with automation (as seems likely).
How do we make life better here by ensuring we have our share of people who can code - at least code enough for some other technical specialty once everything it? We definitely need to make CS as much a core subject as math, Few people are professional mathematicians (the recent fad in "data science" notwithstanding), but for decades previous most of the good jobs required at least basic math, for cost-benefit analysis and so on. Now simple coding is the same way: it's becoming important to decision making across new professions every year.
Separately, is this all a race to the bottom? Million-dollar houses in Bangalore say no. The average price of a 3-bedroom house there is over $250k, has been for a while - more than many places in the US. It takes time for developing nations to develop, emerging economies to emerge, but it does happen. And it's terrific for the world that it does - we have no special moral right to a better standard of living than anyplace else where CS grads want a job, and it's not a zero-sum game. Until we reach the Singularity, we're not going to run out of tasks to automate.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Computer Science Programs aren't the cure for much of anything -- so stop trying to make them out to be. By doing so, you are DOING ACTUAL HARM to our already broken education system and to the students who will be subjected to these asinine policies.
You want to know what ails US productivity? Being raised by over-protective parents who are scared to death of being thrown in jail if they so much as let their children walk to school unattended, much less play outside on their own, who are given rewards and told how special they are for just showing up at the soccer match, are told to be busy little worker bees at school, to get good grades if they want to have a career, who then go to college, put themselves deep in debt to pay for that education and find that that MBA that they thought would make them just like Gordon Gekko and wealthy beyond belief has netted them a job as a "Sales Representative" at Comcast.
And after all that, they watch as the costs of rent and groceries keeps going up year after year. And that they are struggling to survive in a society that treats it's unemployed and homeless as pariahs. A society where the Local Governments are creating more and more Municipal Infractions with higher and higher fines to charge them with and even sending people to jail over non-payment of debts and/or subjecting them to predatory "payment programs" via private companies who manage to turn a $100 fine into a $1000 profit. A society where their very employers are charging higher and higher prices for goods and services locally, while they practically give away their products "emerging markets" all in the name of globalization -- while laying off their co-workers and either off-shoring operations or importing H1-B workers who live in a corporate squat house. A society where Martha Stewart is thrown in Camp Cupcake for acting on a stock tip given by a friend over dinner -- but where the DoJ chooses not to prosecute practically the entirety of Congress for Insider Trading for acting on the litany of illegal stock tips given by Lobbyists on a daily basis -- where that same Congress then passes a law legalizing Insider trading for them and them alone
And then it really sets in -- everything really hits home. They finally get a crystal clear understanding of what the term "wage slave" means. And that yes -- they are indeed a slave and it's no laughing matter or petty issue. Because you find you are an actual fucking slave. Tied down by shackles made of debt, credit ratings and the need to get by in a society that does not take care of it's own, were they are not equal under law, where the law is against them while giving a complete pass on the crimes of the wealthy and where it's "I got mine, go get yours you lazy slob" while the Corporations and Government work hand in hand to squeeze every last bit of money from the lower classes until there is nothing left but the ultra-wealthy and "the scum"
And that's where this Think Tank supports -- cracking the whip -- telling scary stories, making it us against them -- all in an effort to get kids to work harder, to give more, do more and to do it all for less.
So can you blame the current work force for languishing? For not giving a shit if the company that employs them is as successful as your Board and Shareholders wants it to be? And if this "Think Tank" gets it's way -- who will they blame when this next generation, not content to merely languish in apathy chooses to rise up and seek the blood of their oppressors? Because that is exactly where things are going. Because that is where society has always gone under similar conditions. Because that's where things always go when the greedy short sighted fucks finally take things too far
Brookings analyses have increasingly been up for sale. Not surprisingly it is taking up this pro-Microsoft, pro-Gates agenda after the Bill's foundation became their biggest contributor.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
MS and Zuck don't care. Their agenda is to saturate the market with qualified candidates, thereby commoditizing all computer work, be it programming, admin, or support roles. This drives down the price of employees. They won't be happy until you're working for minimum wage and no vacation, or just outright owning you as a slave.
Don't you find it... questionable that so much corporate welfare and education reform is solely to create widgets for Microsoft to use? Of all the education reforms I could think of, adding coding to a core curriculum that mismanages so many other things seems questionable, although I applaud Microsoft's benevolence with tax money they aren't paying.
Certainly biotechnology is also an expanding field for the future. Do American workers have a solid basing in science to fulfill those needs? Prostitution also seems to be a growing field. Are American workers ready to accept the challenges?
Maybe it would be nice to consult the general public about education reforms they would like to see, especially since they are the one's primarily paying for it. I'd personally like to see logic introduced into the core curriculum so maybe more voters would be able to call bullshit on initiatives like these.
It also gives people a solid basing to pursue coding if they wish.
Oh, in passing, has their been a study on CEO productivity recently? While it is wonderful that worker productivity is of such great importance to require furrowed brows over a 2% drop, my own think tank suggests that loss can more than be made up for by eliminating much of the corruption in business and government, so we won't have to endure further rounds of "nice economy you've got there. It would be a shame if something were to happen to it".