Slashdot Mirror
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.
After all, everybody eats. Not everyone is a programmer.
I weep for those 4 billions. What good we could have done with it, how many ivory back scratcher could have been bought...
Don't get me wrong. I am all for teaching as many people as possible how to create code for computers. The problem is that very, very few people have the required mindset to do so. Yes, with current RAD tools pretty much anyone can create some kinda code that sorta works. Personally, I call this development "total job security for the foreseeable future".
Why?
Because I'm in Infosec.
The amount of cargo-cult programming is stunning already. And with kids who don't give half a shit about programming, this is going to get worse. Especially when you make those kids think they can when in fact they can't. Remember the old saying: Those who can do, those who can't teach. And now ponder what greatness will come out of this.
No. Sorry. Programming is something you have to want to do if you want to do it right. And let's be blunt here, code that's just plainly WRONG, we already have enough of.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It's just a few posts in on this topic, but it's interesting that nobody thinks this is a good idea. Don't get me wrong, I agree with all the posts, because computer programming cannot be shoved down anybody's throat and this $4B won't make everyone a programmer. Those that have the interest will find a way to satisfy that interest. Becoming a good computer programmer is much more than taking a class. It involves night after night of hacking on the keyboard and writing program after program until you're learnt enough that you're valuable. I'm afraid this money will just contribute to the ever-expanding list of people and crappy applications we're seeing on the app stores on our mobile devices. It was just interesting that such initiative would receive such backlash on a site like SD.
Is that a roll of dimes in your pocket or are you happy to see me?
... to just take that $4 billion, and cut a "bonus" check to every IT worker in America.
The problem isn't that women don't know how to program as well as men, it's that the field just isn't as attractive to them. Woman tend to value job stability over income, and it's hard to find that kind of stability in IT. IT requires a lot of brains, a lot of hard work, isn't very social, has a lot of guys with behavioral issues, and their job might get outsourced to India so the MBA middle manager can get his quarterly bonus and afford some more blow.
IT and the medical field require similar levels of intelligence and work, yet medical jobs don't often get outsourced to China, the demand for medical skills is relatively constant, and while there are behavioral issues, they usually fall along the Doogie Howser Dipshit Doc/Nurse axis rather than the male/female axis.
Do you want to attract women to IT? The best way to do it would be to change it in ways which also make it more attractive to men too: 40 hour work weeks, reasonable pay for the work/brainpower involved, job security, etc.
Works for Ben Carson!
If you want to fix public education... you have to fire the incompetent teachers.
No more tenure. No more rubber rooms. No more excuses.
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 education in America is deliberately broken with bullshit like common core, overtesting leading kids in the single-digits to lose sleep over school anxiety, and so on, this can only possibly be a handout to certain corporations which will be specially selected in a bullshit process. Obama's legacy is going to be crying crocodile tears about children in this country while blowing them up in other countries.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
How about teaching English, Math, Science and such first? US students are in many cases barely able to read and fail miserably at math. Let's get everyone up to a first world level before we worry about computer science for everyone. CS should be an elective.
I fully support this.
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."
" So write your Congressman if you support it. "
Also, write your Congressman if you don't support it.
While that's true, computer science is a good way to teach problem solving skills that are going to be useful no matter what you do.
I don't think they need to go too in depth. Just give the kids some guidance and turn them loose with Scratch or something similar where they can be creative. You're not going to turn everyone into a programmer, but you might get a few more kids interested who might otherwise not be.
While that's true, computer science is a good way to teach problem solving skills that are going to be useful no matter what you do.
I don't think they need to go too in depth. Just give the kids some guidance and turn them loose with Scratch or something similar where they can be creative. You're not going to turn everyone into a programmer, but you might get a few more kids interested who might otherwise not be.
Well, it's a good way to each *about* problem solving skills, but you don't need a computer to learn logic and reasoning any more than you need a calculator to learn math. It's fun, and good experience, even if they never take a CS class again, but it's not going to suddenly crank out more CS majors. Furthermore, in this day and age of budget constraints, it should seriously be considered whether class time should be taken up with something that could probably be easily done online from the comfort of home for those interested. (That's for CS, not for problem solving. Problem solving and reasoning still need class time.)
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
Do they mean coding (AP computer science)? The higher-level design stuff? System administration? Information security? The article mentioned AP Computer Science, so we'll be the world's leader in Java programming.
Also, the benefit might not be employment as a programmer per se, but simply using programs as part of one's day job..
Step 1) Take money from states' citizens under threat of violence.
Step 2) Only give it back if those states promise to use it in the manner demanded by the federal government.
And because the SCOTUS doesn't admit any limitations on the reasons or extent of federal taxation, the feds can get whatever they want via taxation.
and highly profitable for businesses. Teaching cooking is expensive (ovens, cooking supplies, etc) and only moderately profitable (I don't count Fast Food as "cooking").
The cynic in me wants to say this is just another way to depress tech wages so long as we're not shutting down the H1-B prog. The even more cynic in me says this is the only way Obama could get anyone to agree to fund education in this god-forsaken country after 30 years of tax cuts and tax havens for the 1%.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
they're making rank and file coders who can crank out VB apps. Anyone with a decent education can do that, and if you think otherwise you're just lying to yourself. Yes, the code won't be as pretty as yours, but it'll work (mostly). Plus thanks to all the extra competition for jobs those new programmers will work an extra 20 hours a week for free fixing the bugs their weaker skills create. What else can they do? There are no blue collar jobs in this country because white collar voters keep putting right-wing anti-tariff politicians in office....
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Basic science would be far, far better. For one thing, it would reduce the number of anti-vaxxers and chemtrails idiots.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Maybe 10 (binary) people at the dinner table would understand that joke.
So write your Congressman if you support it.
You should write your Congressman especially if you don't support it.
That is what Obama is. No matter how much good he would like to do for every day Americans, his way is blocked by those that would profit by his demise.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
THere are around 50 million students in the states... 4 Billion dollar initiative would bean about 80 per student. Doled out over three years is around 27 dollars per student. I'm sure that the money will be spread equally among all students. So a small school district like the one in which I work would receive about 27,000 dollars.
To teach programming as a k-12 prograpm will require new teachers as all the current teachers are aready teaching their subjects (6-12).
To teach programming as a K-12 program will either increase the school day's instructional time or decrease from current content.
What will primary teachers do? take a workshop-class on programming? Teachers are already overloaded.
In Illinois, teachers hired withing the last few years now have to teach until they are 67. I am one of the few (only?) in my district that could teach some coding... I actually use RPG Maker in my English classes to teach participatory narrative and scripting... I also help other teachers how to check their email and turn on their computers...
What I'm getting at is the educational system is broken for this kind of thing. THrowing 4 billion dollars to administrators is just going to increase the workload on an already overburdened teaching population.
And getting a programmer to come in and teach is not going to work. To get a programmer who has never had any training in teaching to teach a classroom full of twelve year old kids is going to be "interesting." And why would someone skilled in programming want to teach? It is totally not worth the pay cut... A deian programmer pay is $86K while Median teacher salary is $58K. Maybe I'm wrong. There may be a horde of programmers out there that would teach just for the love of working with children. I'm a teacher after all.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
We already have math for all, which is of course good. But we do not have AP calculus for all, or at least not in some enforced manner, which is also good and very practical. If states approach this in a sane and practical manner, this could be good. A comprehensive but still basic computer literacy would be good. But we can't teach skills that will be utterly obsolete by the time they graduate. Instead of teaching kids the basics in the form of WIndows 10, teach them fundamental concepts as viewed through the history of computing. Want girls to get interested in taking future optional programming courses? Teach them about Ada Lovelace and her legacy. But please don't dump programming on a bunch of kids, which some are trying. The teachers don't understand it and some of the methods are misleading.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
You cannot solve this problem by flooding schools with money.
This could be excellent if -
1. All the funds went to the public school sector (not private schools)
2. Ubuntu was the primary supported OS
3. Only Open Source Software was used in the program
However -
1. There are almost no qualified teachers
2. Apple and Microsoft will view this as the subsidy it is
3. Poor schools can't even provide a basic education today
Then again -
Anything makes more sense than spending 10 Billion a year on missile defense.
On the one hand, low-grade unskilled programming is a job that will be automated out of existence soon enough, so promoting this as "jobs for the new economy" strategy is misguided.
On the other hand, introducing things like "logic" and "arithmetic" and "logic + arithmetic" into the thinking of the average American cannot be a bad idea.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Bill Gates has been trying to unseat Apple grip on the education market for decades. You might as well read this as Gov't pays Microsoft $4B to put Windows into every school and a tablet in every home.
very, very few people have the required mindset to [create code]
While there's some truth to this, the self-congratulatory attitude that comes with it has ruined the entire field.
Prior to the 90's, programming was about solving problems, and a good solution was a simple solution. Then soccer moms entered the field and programmers didn't feel so special anymore. (Exaggerating only slightly) They responded by making everything as complex as possible, and turned from problem solving to learning minutiae, so that only autistic people want to do the job, and now they can call themselves specially suited...because they made it that way. Programmers are now so afraid of doing something their peers would disapprove of, for fear of not demonstrating the minutiae they've learned, that they won't design solutions for themselves. Now they have to have frameworks and use accepted buzzwords that someone else made up to describe techniques someone else created, and they saddle their employers with having to support soon-to-be-obsolete technology that they spend more time getting to work than if they had just solved the damned not-very-complex problem they were given.
26 years ago, I was 12 years old, sitting with my 9 year-old sister, on the carpet of our parents' bedroom, watching tvision via UHF -- how's that for dating myself?
A commercial came on, for what I do not recall, and as with nearly ALL commercials back then, it ended with a big giant telephone number. But unlike most, it had a small domain name beneath. I turned to my baby-sister and said "look sis', one day that domain name will be bigger than the telephone number".
A year later, I had started my web development business. Today, I'm happy, successful, completely self-taught, and all is good.
Obama's way too late. If school children today begin to learn to program, in twenty years from now, they'll be the perfect blue-collar drones that pick tomatoes today.
So you live in a country that's immigrating vast numbers of people from china and india, and you want to focus your children on programming 26 years too late.
Instead, why not notice that your country was built on manufacturing, and now you've got no one left to do the "unskilled" jobs, you know, the ones that no one knows how to do anymore. Like the brick-laying, that is probably the highest-paying job in the whole of the U.S.A. -- considering education costs of course. I think you're paying $80/hour for brick laying these days?
If you think that programming naturally leads to improved problem solving skills, you're psychotic. Just look at all the delayed, failed, and buggy software out there.
But that's a side point. You have to consider whether those people would have been even stupider if they weren't programming. Crossword puzzles increase mental agility (especially in the elderly) even when people suck at them.
Given that Scratch can be used through a web browser (which does allow kids to continue toying with it from home) you could probably get by with a few weeks of basic instruction in school which is enough to introduce the basic programming concepts and to pique the interest of some students enough that they'll stick with it and likely self-learn.
If they're going to throw $4 billion at something, I'd prefer a formal logic course. Introduce kids to basic logic, Boolean algebra, and simple set theory. It's different enough from the typical elementary mathematics that some kids who are otherwise math averse might not dislike it and it's also a great precursor to an eventual computer science course for those who are interested.
So give the kids crossword puzzles instead - that won't cost 4 billion bucks.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
What's the point of encouraging Americans to go into Computer Science when the government will just allow companies to replace them with cheap H1-B visa later? Teach Americans to be project managers, sorry "scrum masters", so that they can spend their time bossing around the H1-B visa labor and then trying to explain to middle management why the super cheap labor can't produce quality software.
It is more useful in more fields, and would be good for the democracy.
So we agree that farm laborers might not need to know how to program computers. Most people don't need that information, and it doesn't apply well to any other area of interest.
But there is something that can benefit everyone including future programmers.
Logic. Real logic, not that soft stuff mentioned to high school or jr college students. Real logic is a form of algebra and uses algebra type symbols to analyze constructs of language and reasoning. It may be offered as a class for philosophy majors in better universities, but there is no reason that a fifth grade boy or girl wouldn't love discovering things with it.
I have enjoyed it all my life as a means to confuse and devastate my enemies with statements of exquisite illogic against which there is no argument for the uninformed. Likewise it is good training for politicians who wish to appear to say things that voters want to hear. Logic is the only protection against manipulation by them or other evangelists. Which is probably why politicians want us to learn programming instead.
...omphaloskepsis often...
I wonder what Common Core programming will be like.
Even as a big supporter of CS in Education I can't see any value for the K-6 range. I think that CS should come before algebra, but it's pretty pointless to come before arithmetic. Middle school is the time to introduce CS/Programming to students.
if you buy beans and rice and eat only that (and a vit-b1 supplement) then yes. But other than that eating off dollar menus is, dollar per calorie, still cheaper. It'll kill you in your 40s, but then again if you're eating off dollar menus for a living you probably don't have much chances anyway. You could also try living off cheap bread you make yourself, but that _will_ kill you from malnutrition. Cheap flour is genuinely bad for you.
I've been eating clean and cooking my own means for about 3 months now here in Phoenix, Az. It's about $400/mo per person to do so. That sounds like a lot until you realize it's $4.44 cents a meal. I could switch to the beans/rice diet, but that's not exactly good for you either, you'll just (mostly) survive. Oh, and I'm running a caloric deficit because I'm losing weight and using Costco to buy things in bulk to hit that $4.44/meal (I'm not factoring in the Costco membership in that because the credit card rewards balance that out at the end of the year).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
That's what we were already doing.
A well-rounded education and encouraging curiosity
And how is teaching CS not providing a well-rounded education and not encouraging curiosity? There are stories after stories of people who became programmers who found programming to be the thing in their life which encouraged that curiosity more than anything else. Every article on how men 'stole' CS from women involves a quote where a woman who dropped out of CS talked about how there would be a group of students who weren't taking the courses as a class, but more it was their life. They lived, breathed and did practically nothing but learned the ins and outs of computers. And since they weren't as passionate about it, they self selected themselves out, thinking that something was wrong with them. CS definitely encourages curiosity.
We need better programmers, not more of them. Too many monkeys slinging stinky bits around. We need more doctors, nurses, and other health professionals.
Jesse Jackson and the other self-appointed civil rights leaders have begun to complain that the big tech companies do not hire many blacks or hispanics. Normally the Democrats would use this opportunity to shame and browbeat the industry into complying with the demands of the SJWs. Unfortunately, the tech companies donate large sums of money primarily to the Democrats and they have made it clear that they will not tolerate this sort of meddling in their operations. So Obama has decided instead to spend large sums of the taxpayers' money to "fix" the problem The tech companies get a pass on diversity just like they get a pass on paying taxes.
The most fun part of getting the first 8-bit home computers were the graphics functions. In just 10 lines of code, you could visualize all the trigonometric functions and then draw graphs. More advanced functions included calculating the date of Easter, and even the phase of the moon using code out of the Astronomy books.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Even as a big supporter of CS in Education I can't see any value for the K-6 range. I think that CS should come before algebra, but it's pretty pointless to come before arithmetic. Middle school is the time to introduce CS/Programming to students.
We had a computer in the corner in my 4th grade classroom. I wrote an IF dungeon game, albeit in BASIC. I had played with it at home before, but there were other kids who had never been exposed to it. As a class, we were working on things including speed multiplying and fractions.
It turns out you can have fun programming before 6th grade, even if it's really simple programming.
This has absolutely nothing to do with making a job environment more competitive for kids in the future. This is designed to increase tech labor supply so that wages can be kept down since it'll be a hiring managers market. There's obviously big money behind this, so thinking this is for the benefit of anyone other than the already wealthy - who cling tight to the belief that they stand to lose more profitability from higher wages - is just lying to yourself.
Saying that computer science is as important as reading, writing and arithmetic is ludicrous and an appeal to ignorance. It's hard to live if you can't read or write, it's pretty darn easy to live without knowing computer science. Did you see the article about Ford paying it's UAW workers a $9,300 bonus this year? How many of them do you think know computer science? Ford only made a $7bn profit, yet they can afford to pay out about half of that as profit sharing to employees? That makes just about every other company look like cheapskates in the process.
Any field can trigger curiosity. If that weren't the case, we'd still be living in trees and caves. Imagine how curious (and drunk) the first person to eat lobster had to be?
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Not everyone is sufficiently adept at math or intelligent enough to be a computer scientist. Why didn't the President just say, "Neurosurgery for All?" Then everyone could be a neurosurgeon.
I have never bought the bullshit response that some people just aren't capable of being adept at Math. Yes, it is true that some people are just naturally more gifted at Math and thinking in terms of logic and algorithm analysis. That being said, anyone can learn to be extremely good at Math. It takes hard work, practice, and perseverance. It would be more accurate to say that many people are too lazy and impatient to put in the work to be sufficiently adept at math and intelligent enough to be a computer scientist.
I love how you make the logical leap from buggy software to programming being essential a worthless endeavor in schools. Basic science is already covered in school through Chemistry, Biology, Physics, etc. Most of the anti-vaxxers are morons who probably spent too much time worrying about their cliches or about having fun and not spending their time actually learning in school. No amount of extra programs will make the lazy, unlazy.
Algebra and geometry is MUCH better at teaching problem solving skills. Basic word problems that the student solves teaches analysis (what is the problem), logic (how do I structure up a solution), and attention to detail (did I solve the problem correctly). Programming should come AFTER a solid foundation in logic, algebra and geometry (geometry because of the emphasis on equivalents and equalities/comparisons when looking at angles, polygons, etc).
Algebra and geometry are much better... so basically you didn't pay as much attention to your English classes as you did your Algebra and Geometry courses.
This will hurt a lot of nerd ego, but programming is not hard at all. It requires average intelligence and mediocre learning skills. Geeks like to make it appear complicated and hard in order to appear smarter but people in the know cannot help but smile.
Despite the snark, I sort of agree with you. Programming is not as hard as some people suspect. Which is why I think schools should have more CS-related courses. That being said, while the fundamental basics of programming are not that difficult, the challenges lie in areas like developing or modifying algorithms, thinking of new ways to solve problems with software, working within the constraints of embedded systems with limited processing and memory constraints, etc. Anyone can write a hello world program. And that's precisely why we should be pushing programming to be more mainstream. In my opinion, in 50-100 years being able to write code will be a mandatory skill. It won't be a specialized career field. It will be a skill required by most career fields.
True, any field can trigger curiosity; but the overwhelming number of anecdotes which exist around programming show a level of drive that certainly hasn't been seen at that level, or at those numbers before.
Then think of computers as a way of concretising the results of problem solving. Logo taught me a fair amount about geometry and parametrisation in mathematical descriptions. How do you know you've solved the basic word problem correctly? Only because the teacher tells you, and then you're thrown into the big argument about how what you did actually matches what the words say, and it's the teacher's interpretation of the problem that is wrong. Get something wrong in a computer-based task, and the mistake becomes quickly apparent -- if it doesn't draw a square, there's no arguing as to whether you've made a mistake or not.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Basic science is not covered all that well at the primary level, and too much of it is just optional at the secondary level. Solving a problem on a computer is much simpler than solving it in real life. On a computer, it compiles or it doesn't. I runs or it crashes. It gives valid or invalid results. In real life, you can have all your ducks in a row, but that doesn't mean your solution, no matter how good, how common-sense, will be accepted, or if it is, that it will work. The real world is not binary - it's messy, because you're dealing with people and the environment can change too quickly to respond (remember the tsunami that took out most hard disk production in Malaysia, causing a global shortage of hard drives? A major recession? A stock market crash? Competitor (or your boss) wiping your job out? No amount of playing around with computers in school is going to help them deal with this).
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
We don't need an overwhelming number of people who are curious about programming. And we don't need to set all those kids up to think that they are learning a useful skill, when the odds of them benefiting are lower than ever.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Programming is not as hard as some people suspect
Programming 101: Balancing your allowance
Programming in the real world: Managing the economy of a nation
Managing money isn't that hard, just make sure you don't spend more than you earn.
That's odd, because my sons go to a public school (in Alabama of all states, one of the states considered in the bottom half of the 50 US States) and he is only in 2nd grade now. He has already had some basic science instruction and he's not even completely adept at reading yet. I question the authenticity of your statement.
Given the sorry state of governance in this country, from the federal government to the smallest local civic associations, the money would certainly be better spent teaching something really boring, such as civics, history, or government. You got the best government money can buy baby.
Ben Carson is walking talking refutation of the concept that you have to be smart to be a brain surgeon.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.