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Senate Passes 'No Microsoft National Talent Strategy Goal Left Behind Act'
theodp writes: Microsoft is applauding the Senate's passage of the Every Child Achieves Act, a rewrite of the No Child Left Behind Act, saying the move will improve access to K-12 STEM learning nationwide. The legislation elevates Computer Science to a "core academic subject", opening the door to a number of funding opportunities. The major overhaul of the U.S. K-12 education system, adds Microsoft on the Issues, also "advances some of the goals outlined in Microsoft's National Talent Strategy," its "two-pronged" plan to increase K-12 CS education and tech immigration. Perhaps Microsoft is tackling the latter goal in under-the-radar White House visits with the leaders of Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us PAC, like this one, attended by Microsoft's William "It's Our Way Or the Canadian Highway" Kamela and FWD.us President Joe "Save Us From Just-Sort-of-OK US Workers" Green.
Although I believe kids should be exposed to STEM courses, forcing them into STEM fields where there is no interest is a recipe for disaster. Better to let kids dictate where their interest lies.
Also, this is more of the corporate drive to lower wages in STEM fields no different than them wanting more H1B slave labor. More people in a field than there are available jobs means the corporation can dictate wages and get concessions on benefits that they would not otherwise be able to command.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
They can't claim that they're starved for labor when they're terminating it left right and center... then importing labor that has to be trained by the people they're firing.
My attitude on the whole H1B visa thing is that you need to require that they pay them... lets say 20 percent more than the going rate for domestic labor of the same kind.
If they NEED the labor then they'll pay the 20 percent. If this is just about money then suddenly their insatiable interest in H1B will vanish.
Highly skilled and high demand labor will still get imported and that's good. That's great. And the 20 percent in that context won't matter.
But the importing of entry level techs?... that should stop.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
As long as they don't equate programming/coding with computer science. Coding is likely to be obsolete in a few years - replaced by deep learning systems as those systems increase in capability, and so the last thing we should do is steer kids away from math and toward coding. Computer science - as opposed to coding - is timeless and will continue to evolve - and dramatically change, with a greater emphasis on how to create and use machine learning systems. But somehow I doubt that public schools will understand these issues.
The first goal of K-12 education should be to teach critical thinking skills. Kids need to learn to think logically and to understand the meaning of a critical path. The second goal should be to teach English and communication skills. Third comes history and civics, the knowledge to become a functioning citizen. Fourth would be a basic grounding in math and science.
IF
the schools manage to do all those things and still have money and class time left over.... fine....
THEN
it makes sense to focus on computer science as a "core academic subject".
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
For those confused by Theodp's typical rant on K-12 CS, FWD.us, Code.org, Microsoft, Bill and Melinda Gates, Zuckerburg, which the Slashdot editors have the poor judgement of posting, this link provides a summary of the new public school education bill that is set to replace the unpopular "No Child Left Behind" bill from the Bush administration.
Note that TFS self-referentially links to previous Theodp rants on Slashdot for reference (!) C'mon, Samzenpus.
Here is the relevant section about CS:
Redefining Core Subjects
One note of interest, is that the ECAA expands the definition of 'core academic subjects' which has historically included English, reading or language arts, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, arts, history, and geography. The updated definition now includes computer science, music, and physical education, and any other subject as determined by the state or local educational agency. This can be interpreted as a victory by those who have claimed that NCLB has precipitated the narrowing of curriculum leading to the elimination of the arts in some schools.
Note that music and phys ed were also added as "core academic subjects", along with computer science. States are also given the option of adding to the list of core subjects. Somehow I didn't see that in Theodp's summary, but he probably left it out so he'd have more room to add some more acronyms of organizations that vigilent Slashdotters need to oppose.
The lesson here: If you take Theodp's summary at face value and don't bother to do your own googling/ducking for the facts, Theodp will take you for a ride.
It's sure a win-win for corporations who want more H1-Bs to displace US workers.
"Every Child Achieves" is an even WORSE name for an education bill than "no child left behind". Please tell me it's just a name. Please tell me it's not some sort of "everyone's a winner" bullshit that undermines education even more than it already is.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
My attitude on the whole H1B visa thing is that you need to require that they pay them... lets say 20 percent more than the going rate for domestic labor of the same kind.
In particular, employers of H1Bs are not required to contribute to SOME of the social programs they aren't eleigble for. Part of any H1B reform should be a requirement that they pay them at LEAST as much more as the difference in government fees saves them. Otherwise there is a strong financial incentive to use H1Bs in preference to citizens.
(An additional complication is that the employers often put the H1Bs to work on things above their official job title and its resulting pay scale.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
For goodness sake, not another of theodp's anti-CS education posts! Please Slashdot, end the madness and stop posting this drivel. We seem to be getting a few of them per week, and most of them are nothing but snide insinuations and misrepresentations.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
School districts are run by the local school board, with oversight by the state. The Federal government has no role to play here.
I really don't want to sound like an H-1B apologist, but I do understand at least partially where companies are coming from. This comes from being on both the worker side of the fence and the "influencing hiring decisions" side, as well as about 20 years' experience in IT. Some people end up doing incredibly well at a job despite the first impression they give, and others really disappoint after a great first impression.
I do think they're going about this "fix" the wrong way, but I can understand why a company would be reluctant to pull someone off the street that they didn't know already in today's hiring environment and just sort of hope they work out. In my experience, the problem is that there are lots of domestic talented people out there who just can't sell themselves to hiring managers. Either they can't write a resume to save their lives, or they interview very poorly. Conversely, the extroverted schmoozers and posers interview incredibly well, especially in front of the management making the hiring decisions. These guys end up getting the jobs, not performing as expected, and we get the "we can't find any domestic talent" meme. The other two strikes against domestic hires are the perceived wage premium, although it usually takes way more in consulting dollars to clean up offshored or H-1B messes, and the fact that there is the offshoring/outsourcing safety valve that allows companies to ignore the first problem (inability to identify and keep talented people.) Bring the wild west of "expert IT recruiters" in and it's a huge mess.
Techies would never even consider unionizing, but I think a professional guild is a way to combat this. Standardize training, and find a way to equitably weed out the empty suits from the really talented who just don't interview well. The problem is that the H-1B or outsourcing route has to be closed off enough to give domestic hiring a shot at working.
I have very limited experience with the local public schools in upstate New York, but I get the distinct impression that teachers mostly operate under the assumption that all kids are as dumb as the dumbest kids. I have a PhD in computer engineering, and my wife has two graduate degrees herself (law, information science). We were also in gifted classes in high school, and she was the valedictorian of her school. We're told we're smart, and it seems likely that our kids are pretty smart too. But it's hard for me to see where the curricula here accomodate any kind of range of intelligence among the students. When I try to ask about this sort of thing, there's this subtle resistance where you can tell they're thinking that all parents think their kids are the smartest, but really they're all just dumb as rocks, so the idea of anyone getting ahead makes no sense.
I hope I'm misinterpreting all of this.