Clinton Foundation: Kids' Lack of CS Savvy Threatens the US Economy

theodp writes: As the press digs for details on Clinton Foundation donations, including a reported $26+ million from Microsoft and Bill Gates, it's probably worth noting the interest the Clintons have developed in computer science and the role they have played — and continue to play — in the national K-12 CS and tech immigration crisis that materialized after Microsoft proposed creating such a crisis to advance its 'two-pronged' National Talent Strategy, which aims to increase K-12 CS education and the number of H-1B visas. Next thing you know, Bill is the face of CS at the launch of Code.org. Then Hillary uses the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) conference to launch a Facebook, Microsoft, and Google initiative to boost the ranks of female and students of color in CS, and starts decrying woeful CS enrollment. Not to be left out, Chelsea keynotes the NCWIT Summit and launches Google's $50M girls-only Made With Code initiative with now-U.S. CTO Megan Smith. And last December, the Clinton Foundation touted its initiatives to engage middle school girls in CS, revamp the nation's AP CS program, and retrain out-of-work Americans as coders. At next month's CGI America 2015, the conference will kick off with a Beer Bust that CGI says "will also provide an opportunity to learn about Tech Girls Rock, a CGI Commitment to Action launched by CA Technologies in partnership with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America that helps girls discover an interest in tech-related educational opportunities and careers." On the following days, CGI sessions will discuss tech's need for a strong and diverse talent pipeline for computer and information technology jobs, which it says is threatened by "the persistent poor performance of American students in science, technology, engineering, and math," presenting "serious implications for the long-term competitiveness of the U.S. economy." So what's the long-term solution? Expanding CS education, of course!

Comments

You know what would REALLY motivate kids?

[AntronArgaiv]

The possibility of a good paying job in software development when they graduate college. Maybe even with the company paying off their student loans for them.

Instead of the chance to compete against low-balling H1B applicants...

Re:You know what would REALLY motivate kids?

[NotDrWho]

The irony is that most of these programs to "promote STEM education in the U.S." are just thinly-veiled attempts to *INCREASE* H1B visas.

the Clinton Foundation, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, etc. have no damned intention of education Americans in STEM. They just want more ammo so they can go to Congress and scream for more legalized slavery.

Re:You know what would REALLY motivate kids?

[Richard Dick Head]

These folks are informed by complaints from location-specific shortages from large corps like Microsoft and Facebook. Does any sane person really want to move to Silicon Valley, where your "generous salary" is effectively peanuts thanks to insane housing and services costs, and thanks to hokey startups job security is a joke? And there are zero decent women to date? Or how about Redmond, another overpriced sausage fest? Really, who wants to live in these places?

I'll tell you who...folks from overseas who don't know the area and can get suckered into moving there!

If you've ever lived in any tech heavy area, you get to know it sucks, you get out and you never go back again. Overpriced everything, the girls who like nerds are picked over or non-existent. If you bring your wife be prepared to face an increasingly demanding attitude and possibly divorce as she eyeballs the legions of available nerds who got lucky on an IPO and have fatter wallets, who are throwing themselves at her incessantly.

People who come from overseas learn these things too and GTFO. So when your entire workforce is really motivated to leave because no one likes suffering the buying power of a feudal serf, yes a perceived shortage is understandable. But completely manufactured by the culture of the companies themselves, and BS when you consider the entire market. The idea of the "tech hub" town needs to die in a fire. Their existence lowers the standard of living for practically everyone.

Re:You know what would REALLY motivate kids?

[phantomfive]

Bernie Sanders........who says, "no single financial institution should have holdings so extensive that its failure would send the world economy into crisis. If an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist."

I can sure support him on that. Paul Volcker says the same thing. Reading through his Wikipedia entry, I don't agree with him on everything, but he seems like a clear-minded and decent guy.

Re:You know what would REALLY motivate kids?

[Archangel Michael]

If an institution is too big to fail, then Politics was involved in getting it there, and politics will be involved in keeping it there.

As a Libertarian, I'm okay with failure, for the sole reason that failure is what fuels innovation.

That being said, Bernie is an interesting cat. He is a true socialist, who believes government has the ability to manage and shape the economy without unintended consequences. My experience is that most of the economic problems are due to (caused by) government interference, and not allowing the natural forces to work themselves out. Sometimes the lions eat the gazelles, sometimes the bugs eat the lions.

Joke heard today

[Marxist Hacker 42]

-Women aren't in tech because the STEM world is misogynistic
-I'll bet you are a women's studies major
-Yes I am, what has that got to do with it?
-Why didn't you study STEM?

Amazing

[DoofusOfDeath]

I've got a PhD in CS, and I grew up with the U.S. education system of the 1970's and 80's. I had playground time, and little formalized national testing. I'll bet few of the Turing award winners or ACM Fellows were educated in the manner advocated by today's politicians and Plutocrats.

If they're so eager to make good computer scientists, one might ask if they're willing to reproduce the educational environments of those luminaries.

There are plenty of coders

[ITRambo]

One of the problems is that American corporations are both lazy and greedy. Too cheap and lazy to train local intelligent educated coders in their unique coding operating procedures. So, they lobby to hire foreigners that will keep costs down. Oddly, the foreigners also need training. So, claiming that American't aren't suited is a bold faced lie. They simply want to keep costs down and screw you if you are a qualified American software engineer that has a B+ average and is willing to work hard. Someday, you might become great at what you do and want more money or leave the firm. Hiring H1B applicants keeps costs down and reduces churn, which wouldn't be bad if the cheapskates paid appropriately in the first place and were honest about their hiring needs. Western education is excellent. As a side note, it seems that the Clinton's no longer feel your pain. They help cause it now.

Re:It's not CS, it's critical thinking

[CanHasDIY]

I know you just want to dig at creationists, but keep in mind - since "scientific consensus" is considered an alternative to hard evidence, the problem is just as bad on the other end of the spectrum.

Worse, really - at least creationists don't pretend to have scientific backing when they're making shit up.

All of this focus on girls

[MikeRT]

It says all you need to know about the culture of the political class that encouraging middle class girls to pursue STEM jobs is higher on their list than ensuring that boys in the inner city and the sticks are getting educational opportunities anywhere near what is accessible, but often avoided, by middle class girls. Maybe Tyrone in the hood would love to make a solid salary working with computers as a sys admin or developer? Jim Bob in bumblefuck, Nowheresville might like to have choices beyond working as a low skilled worker or working minimum wage retail.

Reminds me of a joke about a SJW approved version of Game of Thrones. Sansa Stark starts a social media campaign to highlight the difficulty of being a high lord's daughter and spends most of her day on Twitter telling peasant boys to check their privilege. That is, more or less, where are now with "equality" in America. We let the privileged put on the airs of being proletarian because heaven forbid we tell them to shut up and use their privilege for the good of society and the less fortunate.

Does anyone really know what CS means?

[LaurenCates]

I'm not talking about the Slashdot crowd. I'm talking to the politicians pushing the ludicrous idea that "not enough" kids learn CS/STEM and the nodding heads in the audience that think the problem isn't so nuanced that all "winning the future" is really going to take is pushing enough kids to do things that they weren't interested in doing to start with.

Outside of that, I'm regretfully not terribly surprised that the logical conclusion of pushing the misbegotten idea that kids need computer science (despite everyone in the conversation not knowing what it means) hasn't made its way to the mainstream press: that is, flooding the employment pool with applicants to drive down salaries, for positions that aren't filled with H1Bs anyway. It's funny how none of these talking heads talk about THAT part.

Nope, it's always about how sexy these jobs are; spoken by people who have at most done little more coding than the obligatory "Hello World" script. Except, no, they really, really aren't. In the immortal words of Jonathan Coulton, in a song about this very topic: "This job fulfilling in creative way/such a load of crap."

It can be long, grueling, and irritating. It's filled with demands for certification by people who barely understand how to use Outlook. And it's a career that requires lifelong learning. Which, for the record, I find nothing wrong with, BUT if you have a life-plan that doesn't involve any severe paradigm shifts and long hours of self-teaching (fuck's sake, half the languages people use now weren't even a thing fifteen years ago), then CS, coding, or whatever the hell non-techie types are calling is isn't sexy or fun. And the people who make the big bucks doing this ARE the kind of people that are willing to put up with all the long and grueling stuff that comes with the turf.

I don't blame anyone for the life choices they make. I just get pissed when I hear politicians make a career field out to be sexier than it actually is, and trying to turn people into miserable worker-bots.