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Tech Takes Its K-12 CS Education and Immigration Crisis To the DNC (cnet.com)
theodp writes: In early 2013, Code.org and FWD.us coincidentally emerged after Microsoft suggested tech's agenda could be furthered by creating a crisis linking U.S. kids' lack of computer science savvy to tech's need for tech worker visas. Three years later, CNET's Marguerite Reardon reports that tech took its K-12 computer science and immigration crisis to the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, where representatives from Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon called for the federal government to invest in more STEM education and reform immigration policies -- recurring themes the industry hopes to influence in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. "We believe in the importance of high-skilled immigration coupled with investments in education," said Microsoft President Brad Smith, repeating the Microsoft National Talent Strategy. The mini-tech conference also received some coverage in the New Republic, where David Dayen argues that the DNC is one big corporate bride.
For all that verbiage, what I got out of it is that they just want to bring more H-1Bs into the US to bring down wages. STEM education is definitely nothing more than a PR stunt.
invest in more STEM education and reform immigration policies
Really means;
ensure we can get cheap labour from poor countries while making it look like there's another reason for it besides profit
How about a plan to let those companies temporarily (until their domestic replacements finish school) hire immigrant workers at tenfold cost of domestic workers, with the extra money invested in STEM education? That would fix the "crisis" long term and short term, right?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
(..) the DNC is one big corporate bride.
Okay, we already knew that correct spelling isn't a job requirement for /. editors.
But FAILing to do a simple copy & paste of an article's title? Hell, even some 6y olds can handle that...
Can't /. editors take themselves out of the process, or something? Just write up a couple of scripts to automate the 'editing' and be done with it?
Sorry, I'm an old fart and hence don't really always stay current with the neologisms, but since when are the Republicans big on political correctness? Or do they have some sort of problem with the word 'cause it gives the religious nuts a heart attack?
"Corporate Whore" is the correct term.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This is about Democrats and the richest Democrat-run silicon valley tech firms. Nothing Republican about it other than your apparent need to go hyper-partisan and drag in a different political party for a bit of a side-swipe attack.
Feel free to like/love/dislike/hate what these Democrat firms and the Democrat politicians are up to, but you're just being needlessly political if you drag in the Republicans, the Greens, the Libertarians, or hell, even the Communists or the NAZIs or some evil pro-cannibalism party from some remote jungle island where people worship a gigantic ape. Try just sticking to the facts.
... wouldn't that be just AWFUL. (sarcasm)
Bingo. H-1B's exist for one purpose: To provide indentured workers that can be treated as wage slaves and undercut american labor.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Exactly. So kill the indenture part, then they will work at about market price. Suddenly, hiring H1-Bs becomes way less economical, since you can't pay them artificially low wages.
IT is a shitty career choice, always has been and always will be. People who enter it all starry-eyed because "they love computers" ("loving" an unfeeling bunch of microcircuits ought to be reason enough to have people undergo mandatory psych treatment) and then become trapped in an endless hell of low-paying, "flexible" schedules and the like either grow wise enough to leave while they still can or they end up regretting it forever. I liked coding myself, but then I was a teenager and computers in the early 8-bit era were meant as tools to learn programming as well. I never became deluded into thinking it could be a career, however, and the coming of the world wide web pretty much destroyed the market. You can't compete with free and to get the software you want, you only need to google it up. People I know who insisted in staying with IT ended up making ends meet by moonlighting as "troubleshooters" but modern OSs, smartphones and tablets means they're not needed anymore. Anybody should have seen the writing on the wall when network specialists were reduced to wizard-follower status when the new Windows and MacOS made setting up an intranet easy as clicking on a mouse. And now developers cannot compete with their peers in developing nations, surprise surprise. All firms I know outsourced their IT and fired the whole staff within the last three years. It's dead. Get over it.
Maybe if those companies stopped hiding their money offshore and paid their taxes the gov could afford better STEM education?
Just a thought.
What skills are lacking in the first place? I would argue that it's not lack of 'tech' skills - there are many people who can read specs and often obtuse community posts and write software that meets some specs.
What is lacking is critical thinking, ability and desire to refine existing technologies (rather than reinvent things or try to come up with the next biggest thing), and failing to look at how everything is interconnected over the long term.
We don't need more computer science in schools, we need more critical thinking classes. I'd also say we need more classes in "how practice is different than theory" but that doesn't sound glamorous.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
The only "Immigration Crisis" I'm aware of, is the one where the government is failing to secure our borders, and failing to curb the flow of people immigrating illegally.
That won't make a meaningful difference, you'll still have companies crowding out American workers with much cheaper foreign labor. The best solution is to reverse the indeture. If a company REALLY claims that it's utterly impossible to find an American worker and they absolutely must bring someone in force them to pay that person a princely sum and killer benefits for a mandatory minimum period.
Make it so that bringing in an H-1B is outright painful. If they legitimately can't find an American worker they'll be willing to pay it.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
It's let about "wages" and more about lack of mobility. Being able to abuse a worker with long hours, bad schedules, and knowing they have very little recourse.
...against brown people and educating children. Seriously, theodp, no one wants your jerb. How about you think about the younger generation for a second? They need a future too.
That should be "one big corporate bribe", referring to the 2014 bill that allows a donor to contribute $800,000 to one political committee. Not that anyone can check, the DNC is refusing to name donors, in contravention of a court order. The DNC also decided to cancel all of their ethical fund-raising guidelines this year, even to the point that white-house aides were fund-raising for the DNC. A footnote describes how the ex-bureaucrats have left their corporate jobs for the day to support Ms Clinton being selected.
What probably didn't make the news was the speech by pro-government senator, Elizabeth Warren, criticizing corporate lobbying in the USA, which she blames for the disinvestment in the public good, deregulation of banks and industry, and policies that pushed practically all economic gains upward.
"The mini-tech conference also received some coverage in the New Republic, where David Dayen argues that the DNC is one big corporate bride"
What was said and what people think - "The mini-tech conference also received some coverage in the New Republic, where David Dayen argues that the DNC is one big corporate Bribe"
So we've got a candidate who's shown she is willing to break the law for big money donors. Now she is currently working with large corporate interests who are setting the message at the convention of more H1-B. I think the american tech economy is done for.
You glossed over parent's solution pretty quickly and did not explain why it would not make a "meaningful difference". There are two things going on here. First, there is the problem with H1-Bs and similar visas being strongly attached to an employer and requiring a somewhat painful process to transfer to another employer if he employee wants to change employers. This encumberment probably does depress H1-B wages.
But second, there is what most people here are actually bitching about but won't admit it: "dey tuk er jerbs". Removing thr encumbrance does not solve that problem, and in fact could make it worse, as the current limited number of employers who will bother with H1-B sponsorship might grow to include small business if it's less of a pain either initially to sponsor or afterwards to transfer.
If your beef truly is that H1-B wages are depressed due to inability to change employers, then of course the solution is to make it easy to change employers. Yet you said that wouldn't make much difference. Perhaps you are in the second group.
Improve STEM education - easy. Do it like they did before 'new math'.
It would require the reversal of 40 years of educational trends, and the removal of 'everyone wins'.
It would require the honest and objective evaluation of test results, lab work, and the iron boot down hard on cheating.
More hands-on work ( dissection of frogs, circuit boards, chemical reactions, maybe even some shop ) and less computer simulation.
At all levels, K-12 and university. And would take 20 years to show a payoff...
And I can hear the experts now: "But...But... it's not RIGHT!"
Sorry, a true education involves some failure, disappointment, and lots of see-it, show-it,and do-it.
Deal with it.
The thing is, I don't see a lack of supply. Whenever there is a job opening there are a bunch of candidates available. The problem is companies have poor understanding on what the techies do. They normally fail to understand that this is a professional occupation, with professional responsibilities and requires professional pay to get it correctly done.
You can get someone who can code for cheap from another country or right out of school. However they don't know how to ask the right questions or deal with ambiguous specifications. The organization usually needs at least 2 developers on a project. An experienced professional and someone who is learning.
The experience person really puts the ideas together. The lesser experience person does most of the leg work, so they can learn the ropes. This creates a project that is normally more maintainable and resistant to one person leaving. As well being able to provide what they need and not what they said.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The idea that there aren't enough Americans for those jobs, is complete bullshit. The program, and all the other programs like it, are corrupted top to bottom, and need to be eliminated - period.
Democrat's have controlled the White House for almost 8 years. Any real emphasis on education? Black students have a higher drop out rate now then when Obama took office. My wife a teacher is working in a district where their schools are literally falling apart. She begs grants to buy a few Chromebook's to use in her classroom. We spend more per student on education than many developed nations. Yet, we have so little to show for it. Facebook, Microsoft, Google are all clueless on what is happening in education. Along with Democrat's and Republican's who put on shows to get voters rather than substance to improve American's lives. Democrat's parade around illegal's and mothers of criminals rather than focusing on making honest American's better off. Seriously how desperate must they feel to attack Trump so viciously at the same time preach unity? I do not know of many American's who feel the US is improving, rather it's more in the reality of being in hospice waiting to totally collapse with the next recession.
Exactly. So kill the indenture part, then they will work at about market price. Suddenly, hiring H1-Bs becomes way less economical, since you can't pay them artificially low wages.
I'm sure you believe that, but it simply isn't the case. You are talking about companies with a seemingly suicidal PC tact. You really have to take a step back when seeing something like that and ask yourself "if this greedy megacorp is out for every dollar why would they take such a massively racist stance when it hurts their profit?"
The answer is actually pretty straightforward, as Warren Buffet said: "There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning."
They don't want middle-class people raising more upper-middle-class people because ultimately people don't go from rags to riches, financial security is made incrementally over generations and there isn't enough room at the top for everyone in a resource-constrained economy. More people who are well-off means more people who want more than what they have on a level that would lead to competition for the upper class. The simplest way for them to avoid this issue is to push the narrative that white males are bad because most of their potential competition are white males.
They love helping the poor, the immigrants and so on - because people are very grateful to go from poor to middle class while being oblivious to the nature of wealth. That isn't to say the children of those poor-to-middle-class people won't suffer the same fate as the current middle class, they will if left unchecked.
TL;DR: the elite keep the poor and middle classes in a state of perpetual reflux to avoid competition, the only way to avoid it from where we are is to cut down on immigration because it's ultimately a balancing act of how many resources there are vs how many people want them.
Make the H-1B min wage 80k-150K + COL + X2 OT pay at 60-80+ hours a week. That will fix it.
If companies want to save money by hiring foreign workers, let them hire foreign workers in foreign countries and pay foreign employees' wages and foreign governments' taxes in foreign money. Don't have the stomach for it? Pay market rates for local labor.
Part of an International Baccalaureate degree includes a class whose goal is to teach critical thinking. It's pretty successful at that goal http://apo.org.au/resource/critical-thinking-skills-international-baccalaureates-theory-knowledge-subject
And that's a bloody high school course!
The problem is companies have poor understanding on what the techies do
That's a large part of it. Upper management listens to the offshore companies telling them how much experience their people have in the area. Labor rates are cheap and there are tax advantages to contractors vs. employees. But when the contractors show up and start asking questions which make it obvious that they have no experience at all it's too late. I've seen it happen multiple times.
I think this implies they think that the folks there 1) will win and 2) will give them money (cough cough) --- I mean support their just and noble cause with fair and well considered legislation. It doesn't matter which campaign manager/contributor gets to what level of salary in what companies, does it?
I think it's fair to say that a STEM degrees are not easy to get.
So why bother getting one, if you are just going to have your job offshored, or get replaced by a visa worker?
If you really want more STEM workers: stop sending the message that are you going to stomp the crap out of them.
Hold on a second. A corporation is saying it can not find skilled local workers, so why the fuck do they not train some. So when anyone, has to go for that training, they have to take on a massive debt to pay for the skill corporations want to exploit. So why the fuck do the corporations get that skill for fucking free. Why are not the corporations paying for training, why are those cheap arse bastards, demanding that the government pays, or the individual pays. Whilst those self same corporations refuse to pay for training and to top it all off, what to pay lower wages to those individuals who pay for that training and in addition those self same corporations cheap on their taxes by offshoring profits in tax havens. The should take the D out of DNC and just have changed it to the CNC the Corporate National Convention.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
You are exactly right - MOD PARENT UP.
In fact the ultimate goal is much more insidious. Currently, the global median household income is at $9,733, and the goal is to level wages in ALL countries to the same place. Ultimately, some country's income will rise (where the multinational corporations are building factories and offices right now), but in most countries of the West is must be significantly be reduced. Note that's household income, which in many cases is two earners per household.
Workers wages are, in fact, the ONLY commodity price that is being depressed right now. All others (food, energy, housing, etc.) is on the rise. You can argue by how much by citing ShadowStats vs. the US BLS, but you still see the same trend.
Interesting the globalist party (a.k.a. the Democrats) continue to push this agenda. The symbolism during the convention was really in-your-face. More bridges, less borders, more flow, faster equalization of wages. While the elites continue to amass wealth and ignore countries (the wealthy don't NEED countries - their wealth provides them ultimate mobility, influence, and protection).
They don't really need the middle class at all. Sure, they are using them right now as a cash cow to keep the funds flowing, but ultimately they are more trouble than they are worth. Better to reduce them to nothing and get as quickly as possible to a 2-class system. With the cost of living increasing and wages being "globally equalized" as quickly as possible, soon that's what they will have. The important thing to do now is to demonize the nationalists as racist, xenophobic, uneducated neanderthals clinging to sky-fairy religions, to avoid things like voting for a Brexit and electing nationalists like Trump.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I fully trust Hillary to carefully balance the needs of American workers and the talent shortage. As she will be the first female to become president there is no way else for it to be reported.
Can we just GIVE UP on 2016 and move on to 2017 now?!!
Davie Bowie, dead.
Alan Rickman, dead.
Glen Frey, dead.
George Kennedy, dead.
Abe Vigoda, dead. (verified)
Muhammad Ali, dead.
Umberto Eco, dead.
Harper Lee, dead.
Garry Marshal, dead.
Amber Rayne, dead.
Keith Emerson, dead.
Rob Ford, dead.
Patty Duke, dead.
Chyna, dead.
Prince, dead.
Kimbo Slice, dead.
Alvin Toffler, dead.
It's almost like our beloved celebrities know what a shitstorm's coming and are checking out while the gettin's good.
We've go an Olympics hosted in a cesspit of corruption, poverty and zika.
We've got an interminable US presidential campaign. With the two least-liked candidates (by their OWN parties) in living history.
Man, FUCK 2016.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Communism is a religion. It is now the state religion of the U.S. In order to achieve economic growth under a religious system, more immigrants must be pumped into the system.
Here's the deal with Training. You have a choice when training your employees. You can train American workers, and when they are fully trained, they leave for greener pastures OR you can train H1B visa holders, and they can't leave, without having to go home.
Economically speaking, the ONLY real choice is to hire H1B workers, and train them, because they can't leave. This is only ONE of many reasons why H1B rules favors Corporations and hurt workers. This is also why Government should NOT be messing with the economy at all, and let the market forces work things out. Artificial rules create artificial supply and demand problems, interrupting normal economic activity.
In the meantime, the American Worker is being screwed by both DNC and GOP politicians who are selling out to the highest bidder. And you think this is good for America because "the Republicans are worse" or "The Democrats are worse" binary logic. Whoever is in power is worse.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Exactly, that why the government should abolish H1B Visas.
Here's the deal with Training. You have a choice when training your employees. You can train American workers, and when they are fully trained, they leave for greener pastures OR you can train H1B visa holders, and they can't leave, without having to go home.
If you treat your work force properly they will be less inclined to leave for "greener pastures" unless it represents an upward career movement. By hiring and training new workers, the corporations could pay a reduced wage, say 75%-80%, during the training period to cover training costs. At the end of the one -year training period their wages are at 100% for the position. Even if the new hire has to sign a two-year or three-year contract of employment it is a net benefit for both parties,
All of that is true, except when Government interferes with consensual agreements, in the name of "protecting" one party or another. Unfortunately, those with power end up with unlimited amount of "protection" and those without have none. The battle ground for power is where the fight actually resides, and the "average" person has no power.
And therein is one of the big reasons why I am a Libertarian. Group Power is tyranny. Liberty is for one and for all, or it is for none.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I definitely fully agree. The whole thing is a scam and the democratic party is as corrupt as any other, totally infatuated with enriching itself, and basically doesnt care about the country one bit.
The idea that there is an IT worker shortage is a documented lie and that this is a fact. You have Tech giants who have billions and want billions more who want cheap low wage labor to increase their profit margin. The main way the democrats get elected is promising more welfare giveaways and free college. They may give lip service to jobs but as with anything its all verbiage designed to dupe an ignorant public who is supposed to believe the lies.
The fact is college debt issue would be far less critical if 1) STUPID and incompetent, greedy colleges and their staff would stop letting people take useless degrees such as Art History and Sociology and steer people into STEM programs 2) we would stop giving our jobs away to foreign aliens and thus depriving our own citizens of the jobs that they were promised when they began to study for their degree.
The fact is instead of blaming the police for crime it would be better if we had apprenticeship programs and better STEM career paths in inner cities and stop promoting policies that cause a deterioration of the family. What happens is these aimless youth without fathers or guidance go into gangs and through peer pressure and acceptance in the gang and the financial rewards, they have to attack innocent victims, and kill that part of them that tells them its wrong. Instead, the same little elite club that includes tech giants promoted through TV just a moral vacuum without good moral values and does little or nothing to promote traditional values which are proven adn documented to reduce crime.
Lets say if there was a shortage of workers, hypothetically, you could hit two birds with one stone, fixing the social and economic disaster in inner cities and poor community by getting Americans into the jobs that we have. This would give you a supply of labor while fixing the countries crime problem. All the DNC seems to know how to do is scapegoat the police and promise more welfare programs, while at the same time they are in bed with media giants which are actually a part of the social collapse and disarray in the US such as the high divorce rates, through the decline of moral examplar and positive images in the media.
The fact is the DNC would rather continue to let the inner cities in the US go to hell, because they want this, and instead bring in foreign aliens into the country to both steal jobs that should be for American Citizens and also drive down wages. The DNC knows that the inner city welfare population will vote for the DNC, because its who gives them welfare, not realizing the DNC gives them welfare. And the foreign alien votes DNC because the DNC helps them steal jobs from American citizens. So its a win win for the DNC, but horrible for the country. You end up having policies that continue to neglect inner cities and the poverty in the USA, so a bunch of greedy fascistic evil bastard Tech Giants can greedily bring in cheap foreign labor instead of investing in their own country.
Another evil aspect of the H1B is the fact it keeps third world countries poor while making the USA a third world country because of wage suppression. This is because it drains third world countries of the very high intellect high skilled workers those countries need to develop those countries technologically.
Also add on to all of this that the Tech Giants are born out of a culture in many parts of the country which sort of has a chip on its shoulder against America because of all of the indoctrination about how terrible the USA is, and apparently they have taken it very seriously, wanting to wreck and ruin the country. Thats why I saw H1B visas are punishment in order tp punish americans, even though most Americans dont have anything to do with slavery, as Ben Carson said, no one alive today is a slave or a slaveholder. Yet the grudge is there, and
STEM jobs are the new minimum wage shit service jobs.
Tell me again why I'd want to get over my head in debt for the privilege of working a minimum wage shit service job?
It is still about wages. Even the STEM education stuff is about wages in the long run. After all, the more students who know how to program, the more competition for programming jobs will be when they enter the workforce. And therefore the lower wages can be, because of that competition.
Support bacteria. Its the only culture some people have.
C|N>K
And you know why? The people who are good get hired.
Our company has hired a number of Indians the past couple of years - all very competent people. Thing is, we didn't hire them under the Canadian equivalent of the H-1B program (Temporary Foreign Worker). We hired them under standard work permits for eventual immigration into Canada as a full Canadian citizen (we're sponsoring them).
Yes, they can technically leave and find another job, but then they lose our sponsorship and will need to find a new sponsor (and restart the immigration process - it takes a few years).
They're all very competent people - and it's not like we aren't trying to hire people (everyone we hired came through internal employee referrals, and we still have listings online for jobs).
So we're effectively skimming the best of the best out of India - which makes you wonder what we're leaving behind. We're not advertising jobs in India (only within Canada seeking Canadians first), but the people we hire are people who know each other and are extremely knowledgeable, intelligent, smart, and competent. And yes, we have to pay regular Canadian salary because they are living here and thus have to pay regular housing costs.
So yeah. We've been hiring the best away. Which leaves the question of who's left. If you offshore, you realize that other companies have hired away and are retaining the best.
"We believe in the importance of high-skilled immigration coupled with investments in education,"
meaning
"We want low-income worker slaves that we control 24x7"
You can't train CS. Ever see the damning stats related to CS and programming in general? 80% failure rate in the first two semester for people who WANT to get into CS or programming. Then another 20% drop out along the way, and of the remaining 16% who applied, 50% of them only pass because of a strong will, but are otherwise horrible. Of the remaining 8% who have even the slightest knack, their skills are distributed on a power curve, leaving 80% of them below average.
We don't need a strong push for more people in CS, we need to find better ways to help support those that would be good in CS to get into it and afford it.
This is also why Government should NOT be messing with the economy at all, and let the market forces work things out. Artificial rules create artificial supply and demand problems, interrupting normal economic activity.
The very existence of a government is going to "mess" with the economy. What would be a neutral position on immigration? Can economic activity be reduced to natural rules?
Why is this wrong?
This is also why Government should NOT be messing with the economy at all, and let the market forces work things out. Artificial rules create artificial supply and demand problems, interrupting normal economic activity.
The very existence of a government is going to "mess" with the economy. What would be a neutral position on immigration?
A neutral policy on immigration would include eliminating the H1B visa program.
It's simply a way for businesses to artificially depress the cost of labor.
Nice try, Shill "John Smith". The GAO--you know, Congress' non-partisan investigative arm--reported that a full 50% of entry level--yes, entry level--jobs went to H-1B visa holders, not to candidates with high skills. That's a myth pushed by the big tech companies. They just want cheap labor, at the expense of US citizens.
Restricted choice means lower wage. That's the basic law of a market economy.
As to the "they took our jobs" sentiment, it's really a murky matter. Jobs are not some permanent, god given spots under the sun. They are created by people, and it's hard to say how adding more workforce interacts with job creation.
Then there is a time factor. People want things to be done right now, or better - yesterday. But immediate benefits today do not necessarily mean benefits in the long run.
Would a neutral policy towards immigration allow unlimited immigration? Would there be limits by country? If immigration is limited, how do we decide who gets in?
I fully believe that statistic, if you look at the jobs being advertised nearly all of them are looking to fill a "senior" level position, the entry level positions are already filled by H-1Bs.