Learn-to-Code Program For 10,000 Low-Income Girls

theodp writes: In a press release Tuesday, the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) announced it was teaming with Lifetime Partner Apple and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on its Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Commitment to engage 10,000 girls in learning computing concepts. "Currently, just 25 states and the District of Columbia allow computer science to count as a math or science graduation requirement," explained the press release. "Because boys get more informal opportunities for computing experience outside of school, this lack of formal computing education especially affects girls and many youth of color." HUD, the press release added, has joined the Commitment to Action to help extend the program's reach in partnership with public housing authorities nationwide and provide computing access to the 485,000 girls residing in public housing. "In this Information Age, opportunity is just a click on a keyboard away. HUD is proud to partner with NCWIT to provide talented girls with the skills and experiences they need to reach new heights and to achieve their dreams in the 21st century global economy," said HUD Secretary Julian Castro, who coincidentally is eyed as a potential running mate for Hillary Clinton, whose daughter Chelsea is the Clinton Foundation's point-person on computer science. Last year, Chelsea Clinton gave a keynote speech at the NCWIT Summit and appeared with now-U.S. CTO Megan Smith to help launch Google's $50 million girls-only Made With Code initiative.

Comments

Re:What about low-income boys?

[ArcadeMan]

Slashdot really needs a "Ironic" mod.

Re:Tangentially related: Race-based admissions

[ADRA]

It's not hard to figure at all. People with shitty family lives in school underperform regardless of their innate abilities. Black and Latino groups are some of the poorest racial groups, so it follows that on average, they'd test worse on enterance testing (given with a grain of salt).

Grand scheme though, 10,000 is a pretty small number given the millions of people currently in the field. Obviously the end number of individuals who make it to the professional world will be far less, but I'm glad to see there are some programs in place to help those that need the hand.

For myself, I started out with a lower-middle family, but my Dad was lucky enough to be in a union job where they contributed to childhood post-secondary savings programs enough so that when I ended up going to post-secondary, most of my bills were covered by the program, and a few scholarships/bursaries offered through the schools / donors. If I didn't have the small amount of savings my dad had saved for me, I'd very likely be doing a quite different job (and a far worse path) than I am now.

Re:No National Center for Men & Tech...?

[Viol8]

I don't know what university you went to , but I had quite a number of girls in my CS classes and none of them had a problem interacting with the guys or the other girls and they all passed fine. Seems to me you've dreamt up some anti geek, anti male BS to suit your agenda.

Re:What about low-income boys?

[gweihir]

Indeed. This program is sexist as hell.