
Giving Every Student an Opportunity to Learn Through Computer Science for All - rectang
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/01/30/weekly-address-giving-every-student-opportunity-learn-through-computer
======
dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11001705](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11001705)

------
pramodliv1
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.

------
MaggieL
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
It's actually worse than that, it's a $4 billion forced donation to one of the
president's favored constituencies.

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

------
rustynails
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-
teach...](https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/eliminating-feminist-teacher-bias-
erases-boys-falling-grades-study-finds)

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
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.

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

