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Giving Every Student an Opportunity to Learn Through Computer Science for All

35 points by rectang 11y ago

acbart 11y ago
A lot of new funding is being made available through the NSF. Maybe now I can finally get a grant proposal accepted!
MaggieL 11y ago
Taking money from a state's citizens, then giving some of it back with strings attached isn't actually "helping" them do anything. It's telling them what to do and charging them for the privilege.
- ams6110 11y ago
  It's actually worse than that, it's a $4 billion forced donation to one of the president's favored constituencies.
rustynails 11y ago
This worries me, a lot. There has been a strong trend of sexism in education for a long time now. Reading between the lines, "Americans of all kinds – from the Spanish teacher in Queens who added programming to _her_ classes to the young _woman_ in New Orleans who worked with her Police Chief to learn code and share more data with the community – are getting involved to help young people learn these skills. And just today, states like Delaware and Hawaii, companies like Google and SalesForce, and organizations like Code.org have made commitments to help more of our kids learn these skills. " Code.org makes no bones that it prioritises girls on its homepage. Obama gave two examples of women. Why are we driving gender into learning? It shouldn't even enter the equation, unless our goal is to encourage one gender at the expense of another, like code.org does so brazenly. With failing grades for boys over the last two decades, you think we'd be horrified for young boys, but the campaign to discriminate against them is strong. Interestingly, there are very few articles willing to discuss why this non-subtle trend has occurred. It's usually explained that boys have become sexist or become slow learners in recent years. I found this article that seems to tackle the topic of "why" in an open and plausible way. https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/eliminating-feminist-teacher-bias-erases-boys-falling-grades-study-finds https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/eliminating-feminist-teach... One such quote of many, - In science and general knowledge, as in math skills, the data showed that kindergarten and first grade white boys’ grades “are lower by 0.11 and 0.06 standard deviations, even though their test scores are higher.” This disparity continues and grows through to the fifth grade, with white boys and girls being graded similarly, “but the disparity between their test performance and teacher assessment grows.” -
- thex10 11y ago
  If you have to read between the lines to squeeze out a weak example of discrimination then is it really discriminatory? I'm sure all the boys who get plenty of encouragement to pursue computers/tech elsewhere in their lives will not be deterred by a copywriter.
- brighteyes 11y ago
  On the one hand, yes, there is plenty of sexism against men. But on the other, I don't think this is an example of it. > Why are we driving gender into learning? In this case (not necessarily others) it is simple economics. There is much more growth opportunity among women than among men, because 1. There are lower levels of interest in CS in women, currently. If that can be changed, it's a massive potential population. 2. Girls have higher grades than men - they do better at school. So teaching CS in schools likely means girls will do well at it. Overall, if your goal is a maximal increase in the # of CS-trained people, focusing on women is rational to do. I would agree it's important to do this in a non-sexist way, and I think that's how this is being done, from what I've read.
pramodliv1 11y ago
One of the reasons why programmers and computer scientists love their job so much, relative to many other fields is that CS was not part of the school curriculum. I hope CS and programming is integrated into science and Math. I bet most students would love to solve real-world science problems instead of solving abstract puzzles. I wish I had exercises like: 1. Write a program to predict the trajectory of a free throw. 2. Collect Fitbit-like data from every student, find interesting correlations and perform qualitative analysis too. 3. Perform basic image processing tasks using matrix multiplications. Instead of: 1. Integrate sqrt(tan(x)) [IIT 94] (Yeah, Indian text books highlight questions from previous years' exams). 2. Memorize a bunch of chemical equations without understanding how they work. 3. Find the determinant of this ridiculous matrix using an arcane trick.
dudul 11y ago
Yep, got to drive tech salaries back down by drastically increasing the supply asap.
dang 11y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11001705 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11001705

35 points by rectang 11y ago

A lot of new funding is being made available through the NSF. Maybe now I can finally get a grant proposal accepted!

Taking money from a state's citizens, then giving some of it back with strings attached isn't actually "helping" them do anything. It's telling them what to do and charging them for the privilege.

ams6110 11y ago
It's actually worse than that, it's a $4 billion forced donation to one of the president's favored constituencies.

rustynails 11y ago

This worries me, a lot. There has been a strong trend of sexism in education for a long time now. Reading between the lines, "Americans of all kinds – from the Spanish teacher in Queens who added programming to _her_ classes to the young _woman_ in New Orleans who worked with her Police Chief to learn code and share more data with the community – are getting involved to help young people learn these skills. And just today, states like Delaware and Hawaii, companies like Google and SalesForce, and organizations like Code.org have made commitments to help more of our kids learn these skills. " Code.org makes no bones that it prioritises girls on its homepage. Obama gave two examples of women. Why are we driving gender into learning? It shouldn't even enter the equation, unless our goal is to encourage one gender at the expense of another, like code.org does so brazenly. With failing grades for boys over the last two decades, you think we'd be horrified for young boys, but the campaign to discriminate against them is strong. Interestingly, there are very few articles willing to discuss why this non-subtle trend has occurred. It's usually explained that boys have become sexist or become slow learners in recent years. I found this article that seems to tackle the topic of "why" in an open and plausible way. https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/eliminating-feminist-teacher-bias-erases-boys-falling-grades-study-finds https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/eliminating-feminist-teach... One such quote of many, - In science and general knowledge, as in math skills, the data showed that kindergarten and first grade white boys’ grades “are lower by 0.11 and 0.06 standard deviations, even though their test scores are higher.” This disparity continues and grows through to the fifth grade, with white boys and girls being graded similarly, “but the disparity between their test performance and teacher assessment grows.” -

thex10 11y ago
If you have to read between the lines to squeeze out a weak example of discrimination then is it really discriminatory? I'm sure all the boys who get plenty of encouragement to pursue computers/tech elsewhere in their lives will not be deterred by a copywriter.
brighteyes 11y ago
On the one hand, yes, there is plenty of sexism against men. But on the other, I don't think this is an example of it. > Why are we driving gender into learning? In this case (not necessarily others) it is simple economics. There is much more growth opportunity among women than among men, because 1. There are lower levels of interest in CS in women, currently. If that can be changed, it's a massive potential population. 2. Girls have higher grades than men - they do better at school. So teaching CS in schools likely means girls will do well at it. Overall, if your goal is a maximal increase in the # of CS-trained people, focusing on women is rational to do. I would agree it's important to do this in a non-sexist way, and I think that's how this is being done, from what I've read.

pramodliv1 11y ago

One of the reasons why programmers and computer scientists love their job so much, relative to many other fields is that CS was not part of the school curriculum. I hope CS and programming is integrated into science and Math. I bet most students would love to solve real-world science problems instead of solving abstract puzzles. I wish I had exercises like: 1. Write a program to predict the trajectory of a free throw. 2. Collect Fitbit-like data from every student, find interesting correlations and perform qualitative analysis too. 3. Perform basic image processing tasks using matrix multiplications. Instead of: 1. Integrate sqrt(tan(x)) [IIT 94] (Yeah, Indian text books highlight questions from previous years' exams). 2. Memorize a bunch of chemical equations without understanding how they work. 3. Find the determinant of this ridiculous matrix using an arcane trick.

dudul 11y ago

Yep, got to drive tech salaries back down by drastically increasing the supply asap.

dang 11y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11001705 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11001705