Slashdot Mirror
Top Silicon Valley Execs and Others Urge Congress To Fund K-12 Computer Science Education (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader shares a TechCrunch report:Some of the biggest names in tech and corporate America, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, have teamed up with governors and educators to ask Congress to provide $250 million in federal funding to school districts in order to give every single K-12 student in the nation an opportunity to learn how to code. On the legislative side, these tech CEOs are joined by governors from both sides, including California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) and Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson (R). Earlier this year, President Barack Obama called for more than $4 billion in funding for states, and $100 million for districts in order to bring computer science curricula to every single K-12 student in the country. What this group of CEOs, governors and educators is asking for today is different. They're saying that this issue can be addressed without growing the federal budget. The petition reads:Not only does computer science provide every student foundational knowledge, it also leads to the highest-paying, fastest-growing jobs in the U.S. economy. There are currently over 500,000 open computing jobs, in every sector, from manufacturing to banking, from agriculture to healthcare, but only 50,000 computer science graduates a year. Whether a student aspires to be a software engineer, or if she just wants a well-rounded education in today's changing world, access to computer science in school is an economic imperative for our nation to remain competitive. And with the growing threat of cyber warfare, this is even a critical matter of national security. Despite this growing need, targeted federal funding to carry out these efforts in classrooms is virtually non-existent. This bipartisan issue can be addressed without growing the federal budget.
Surely those assholes can scrape together a paltry $250 million dollars from their personal piggybank.
The individuals listed could personally pony up $250 million from petty cash. Why ask the government for funding?
Please train our future workforce with someone else's money.
Yours truly,
Rich Silicon Valley Companies
Aren't these the same companies that lay off US based workers in favor of H1-Bs? Why train more US workers just so they can be replaced before they can even start?
They arn't trying to give kids opportunities. They want to saturate the market, at the taxpayers expense, so that they can pay bottom dollar for what amounts to digital Factory Workers.
They want quality developers, but they don't want to pay for them. Yet they keep trying to get it both ways, which is why all these H1B-sucking temp companies are doing so well.
They want more people in the industry so they can flood the market with labor and lower the pay of their tech employees.
Close. They want to create the perception that more people are desperately needed in the industry so that they can have political cover to import more foreign workers on H1B visas, so they can flood the market with foreign labor and lower the pay of their tech employees.
Between "No child left behind" and no discipline allowed, there is simply no way to teach many students today. And because they are not removed from the classroom, the rest of the kids that still have a chance are prevented from learning. It does not matter what curriculum you pick. If they refuse simple instruction (like take this quiz) there is no hope.
From the article...This group of CEOs, governors and educators is...saying that this issue can be addressed without growing the federal budget..."We’ll use the money to train over 25,000 public school teachers to introduce computer science to students who would otherwise never have this opportunity.”
This group appears to claim that no additional money needs to be spent if we can use the existing teacher workforce to teach computer science. If that's the case, what will those teachers no longer teach? I mean, it's not like teachers are sitting around all day with nothing to do. Should we pull math teachers, and just teach less math? Or maybe the music teachers? We can always teach less music, and I'm sure music teachers will have no troubles learning how to code, right? And certainly these coders will be top quality, having been trained by the best math teachers and music teachers our country has to offer.
I wish government officials could realize one day that there's never an educational initiative that comes without a cost. Training costs money. People cost money. Computers cost money. Electricity costs money. Time costs money. So tell this group of CEOs, governors and educators not to put another single unfunded mandate onto the table until they fund the ones they've been mandating so far.
All these companies bitch for more H1-B visas and then wonder why there aren't any US CS grads lining up? Seriously this is the biggest two-faced bunch of bullshit to come out of Corporate America in awhile.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
There are currently over 500,000 open computing jobs
WHERE?!?!
You realize that coding is applicable to more than just a CS degree, right? I'm a mechanical engineer that ends up coding for 80% of my job. It's a tool to get a job done. We have a pretty decent shortage of engineers that can code. There are more jobs out there where coding lends itself to 'automate the boring things'.
Some of the biggest names in tech and corporate America, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, have teamed up with governors and educators to ask Congress to provide $250 million in federal funding to school districts in order to give every single K-12 student in the nation an opportunity to learn how to code.
Cash and cash equivalents on the balance sheet for US operations:
Apple $38 Billion
Facebook $18 Billion
Microsoft $105 Billion
Walmart $8 Billion
And they have the nerve to ask the taxpayers to pony up more for something they freely admit will benefit them? Here's an idea, they can fucking fund it themselves if they think it is so damn important. $250 million? Apple makes $70,000 in profit every 60 seconds. That means Apple could cover the entire amount with the profit they make in 2.5 days.
Instead of getting the Government to fund computer science education, how about we just require computer companies to pay competitive salary? It doesn't require any tax dollars, and it's just crazy enough to work.
The problem is, the past 30 years have taught MBA's that *they're* the ones who are supposed to get the $200k salary, and the computer engineer is the one who's supposed to have a Masters and 20 years of experience in a 3 year old language and work for $60k until their job gets outsourced to India.
The problem will largely go away once the computer geek's biggest problem is "Do I buy the BMW or the Mercedes", and the MBA's are crying themselves to sleep, praying they can pay their student loans off before they hit 40 and are too old to spreadsheet.
How many people realize that our education system has gone from the best in the world 100 years ago to 3rd rate today. Look at a test per grade in the 1900s and today, and see how "great" the takeover has been. Oh sure, it was gradual and planned to be gradual. Departments started pushing toward centralized testing and industrial education back in the 30s. Most schools were using Prussian education by the early 40s and Classical education was on the way out. The nail in the coffin however is when the Feds took over the schools completely. How many people realize that the Department of Education was founded in 1979? At which point schools have degraded immeasurably. Arts are mostly gone, which includes music. PhysEd is mostly gone, debate is mostly gone. English has become "best guess at intended" instead of grammatically correct, Math has gone from conceptual to task based half assed rote learning. Science has similarly become doing what passes a measure, not what teaches a kid. All of it has become "WHAT PASSES THE STANDARDIZED TEST!", and not remotely related to making intelligent people.
Making yet another standardized test process to avoid actually teaching does not fix the problems with education. It will simply mean that the few people left who try to find facts will also be left in the cold.
Oh sure, there are parents out there trying their damn best to fill in the gaps and school on their own despite paying taxes. We are also starting to see parents chastised for trying to teach anything that the Government did not approve the school to teach. Systems are out there already preventing parents from seeing what kids learn, all licensed to the few corporations who own Common Core of course.
Most teachers a few decades ago worked to better society. Today I talk to more teachers who work for a paycheck than who want a better society. Government audits have educators on very short leashes, and constant fear is not a good motivator. I'd say the world is going to hell, but I'm not quite convinced we are not already in hell.
Want to fix it? Okay, fire the Feds and State and hire educators who will revert our system to a Classical system of education. Change is scary, but what we have today was a change from a system that worked for a couple thousand years. Someone else can have the soap box now..
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.