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Obama Calls For $4B 'Computer Science For All' Program For K-12 Schools (washingtonpost.com)
Etherwalk writes: President Obama plans to announce a four billion dollar computer science initiative for K-12 schools, where fewer than 15 percent of American high schools offer Advanced Placement (i.e. college 101) Computer Science courses. This is still very much open to negotiation with Congress, because it is part of a budget request from the President. So write your Congressman if you support it. The $4 billion would be doled out over a period of three years to any state that applies for the funds and has a well-designed plan to expand access to computer science courses, especially for girls and minorities.
Do kids not take Home Ec anymore? I took it. I still cook and sew to this day. But by all means, shoot down programming for everyone. The rest of the world is leaving the US behind. Let's help them do it faster.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
Think Tanks: How a Bill [Gates Agenda] Becomes a Law: In 2012, the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings hosted a forum on STEM education and immigration reforms, where fabricating a crisis was discussed as a strategy to succeed with Microsoft's agenda after earlier lobbying attempts by Bill Gates and Microsoft had failed. "So, Brad [Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith]," asked the Brookings Institution's Darrell West at the event, "you're the only [one] who mentioned this topic of making the problem bigger. So, we galvanize action by really producing a crisis, I take it?" "Yeah," Smith replied (video). And, with the help of nonprofit organizations like Code.org and FWD.us that were founded shortly thereafter, a national K-12 CS and tech immigration crisis was indeed created.
Microsoft supports White House initiative to expand access to computer science: " Microsoft is one of many companies in the tech sector that is committed to this effort [said Microsoft President Brad Smith]. In addition to our business initiatives, those of us who are involved in philanthropy, including such groups as Code.org, will do more. The private sector and philanthropy cannot fill this gap without public funding. And if we're going to accelerate progress as a nation, we need federal funding. That's why today's proposal is so important. It can provide the accelerant to help more states and school districts progress more quickly."
Do kids not take Home Ec anymore?
No, they don't. That wasn't offered for much of the 90's (at least in San Diego, CA) and whatever was left was dismantled in the 2000's.
There's a Regional Occupation Program that still provides a path for shop/trades, but I don't believe that's resulted in Home Ec coming back.
Besides, nowadays it'd probably be considered sexist somehow, no matter what the gender ration was.
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