Code.org: More Money For CS Instructors Who Teach More Girls 381
theodp writes "The same cast of billionaire characters — Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Eric Schmidt — is backing FWD.us, which is lobbying Congress for more visas to 'meet our workforce needs,' as well as Code.org, which aims to popularize Computer Science education in the U.S. to address a projected CS job shortfall. In laying out the two-pronged strategy for the Senate, Microsoft General Counsel and Code.org Board member Brad Smith argued that providing more kids with a STEM education — particularly CS — was 'an issue of critical importance to our country.' But with its K-8 learn-to-code program which calls for teachers to receive 25% less money if fewer than 40% of their CS students are girls, Smith's Code.org is sending the message that training too many boys isn't an acceptable solution to the nation's CS crisis. 'When 10 or more students complete the course,' explains Code.org, "you will receive a $750 DonorsChoose.org gift code. If 40% or more of your participating students are female, you'll receive an additional $250, for a total gift of $1,000 in DonorsChoose.org funding!" The $1+ million Code.org-DonorsChoose CS education partnership appears to draw inspiration from a $5 million Google-DoonorsChoose STEM education partnership which includes nebulous conditions that disqualify schools from AP STEM funding if projected participation by female students in AP STEM programs is deemed insufficient. So, are Zuckerberg, Gates, Ballmer, and Schmidt walking-the-gender-diversity-talk at their own companies? Not according to the NY Times, which just reported that women still account for only about 25% of all employees at Code.org supporters Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. By the way, while not mentioning these specific programs, CNET reports that Slashdot owner Dice supports the STEM efforts of Code.org and Donors Choose."
Horse, meet water (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no "shortfall". (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no "shortfall" of coders. There's just a glut of employers who want just-in-time employees cheap. Ones they can lay off at any time. Ones they don't have to send to training classes.
Women went into IT in the late 1990s, when it looked like a good career choice. Now it isn't, so they don't.
How can those incentives help? (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, I too really want to see more females working in the tech industry. I think it's one of the more female friendly work environments around, especially since the experience can be so tailored to your interests.
That said, I don't see how those incentives are healthy or really help anything. I don't think everyone would enjoy or be good at coding; so incentives that make instructors coerce people into entering a programming class mean fewer spots for people who would enjoy and benefit from the class.
Instead we need to focus on efforts that get females to seek out classes like this (efforts like AppCampForGirls) , not get instructors to lure females into the class...
Re:Horse, meet water (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There is no "shortfall". (Score:2, Insightful)
I work for a company who would love to hire good coders. They pay well, hire permanently, and have no problem sending people to a few training courses.
All employees have to work on a 4 month contract first though, as a sort of test. The vast majority are useless, as is evident during that trial phase. We have no trouble finding resumes, but have significant trouble finding good coders.
The shortfall isn't in occupation, it's in talent. At least my own job security is good.
Teaching programmer? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know a single competent programmer that started programming because someone taught them how. They started programming because they wanted to.
Manipulating teachers isn't going change that outcome.
Great idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Penalize teachers for things they can't control. How do you as a teacher ensure that at least 40% of your students are girls? Throw out some boys that are interested in programming?
Re:Other Fields? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, and let's not forget to fine mechanics schools that fail to recruit "enough" females and cosmetology schools that fail to recruit 'enough' males as well.
For that matter why not just make it law that whenever people gather, for any reason, at any place, at any time, there must be exact parity between the genders.
What does this do? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are you posting as anonymous? (Score:5, Insightful)
If the place is so great then name it.
... and ...
Talent usually falls along a bell curve. And half the programmers out there will be worse than the other half of the programmers out there.
If you're having trouble finding the good programmers then you either aren't advertising the job openings enough or there is some problem with the pay/environment/project that causes the better programmers to choose other employment.
Hypocrites (Score:5, Insightful)
It's easy for these assholes to talk, they were the extremely lucky ones in a winner-take-all industry which often metes out its rewards in absurd and haphazard ways.
You really want to make this world a fairer place: how about paying all your employees a decent wage, and maybe even take a cut from your ridiculously high comps? Then you might be providing an actual reason for more people to get into coding, including the ones with vaginas.
Re:Businesses can't hire people who don't exist. (Score:2, Insightful)
Better question: what benefit do you get from having a 50% female work force? Does your code magically become better if an equal share of it is written by a woman? No. Good coders write good code. Gender has nothing to do with it, and I'm sick of seeing these efforts to artificially shift the demographics of a work force purely to meet some political agenda.
Re:There is no "shortfall". (Score:5, Insightful)
I work for a company who would love to hire good coders. They pay well, hire permanently, and have no problem sending people to a few training courses.
All employees have to work on a 4 month contract first though, as a sort of test. The vast majority are useless, as is evident during that trial phase. We have no trouble finding resumes, but have significant trouble finding good coders.
The shortfall isn't in occupation, it's in talent. At least my own job security is good.
Maybe your 4 month contract requirement is weeding out the good coders that don't want to give up a full-time job for a 4 month test that may leave them without a job if they don't live up to some hard to quantify metric of "good enough". And apparently most people fail your test and end up out on the street after the 4 months.
A full time job is no guarantee of future employment, of course, but I doubt I'd be willing to take a contract job that "might" turn into a full time job in 4 months.
Re:Other Fields? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no "reverse discrimination", only discrimination.
Re:There is no "shortfall". (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:There is no "shortfall". (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly right, they've decided that they should be able to pay their software engineers slightly above what McDonald's workers make. So they looked at McDonald's workers and determined they could be paid so little because there are so many of them... viola, we needs lots and lots of coders so there is more competition in the workforce and we can therefore pay them less. I don't know any company that's having trouble finding programers, but I know LOTS of programers that can't find jobs. The idea that this is some sort of noble cause they're fighting to help anyone but them selves is a joke.
Useless sexist assholes (Score:5, Insightful)
Sexist assholes hard at work. Ignore the skilled and dedicated boys, we're trying to something something who the fuck knows.
Useless morons. I guess we can write off code.org as being anything but shitsacks.
Re:Horse, meet water (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There is no "shortfall". (Score:5, Insightful)
Too bad I don't have mod points. That's exactly the case.
Think about EVERYTHING that a good programmer has with an average employer.
Paycheck
Medical
Dental
Vacation
And so forth.
Is the 4 month contract paying so much to offset the other disadvantages? Primarily VACATION. Because 4 months means that Christmas and such will happen if the contract starts from September through December. Which puts the ending from December through March. That's HALF the year right there.
And if the programmer has kids then summer vacation is an issue as well.
Hey, just give up on your family for 4 months while we "evaluate" you.
And hope that you and your family are very healthy during those 4 months because health insurance is expensive.
So what the "testing" is really doing is selecting for younger coders without experience who are willing to take on such contracts to build up their resumes.
Madoff, Gates, Ballmer, Zuckerberg, Schmidt (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. Agree 100%.
ALL OF US need to *call our congressman* and explain the above statement and demand they ignore FWD.US's policy suggestions.
Just look at the people...Gates and Ballmer? These guys are awful...they are horrible examples for businesspeople & have destructive notions of how society works. Zuckerberg demonstrates some competence but still his business philosophy is just as horrible and abusive as M$'s...then of course there's Eric fucking Schmidt...he who said on Colbert that only people who do bad things worry about privacy.
These people are the bad guys. Their ideas as always crafted strategically to maximize their personal profits...
FWD.US is for corporate profit by hiring cheap overseas labor...its not about hiring US workers
Re:Other Fields? (Score:5, Insightful)
So will the same apply to nursing teachers if not enough male students enroll?
Know what? Most Janitors are men. Hey, Coal miners too. We should mandate 50% men and women in all fields of employ. You wanted to be a councelor? Sorry, we need more women coal miners. You wanted to be a programmer? Sorry, we need more male hair dressers.
TFA is bullshit. Equality isn't 50% men vs 50% women. Equality is equal opportunity, and proportional representation. If 30% of applicants are female, and 50% of accepted applicants are female, then that's not equality it's sexism. If you have the opportunity to do something -- Be a coal miner or hair dresser or romance novelist or computer programmer, etc -- and you decide NOT to do it, then we shouldn't force you to do it. It's a fact that humans are sexually dimorphic: Men have penises, women have vaginae and breasts and bear children. It's moronic to think that human brains are somehow immune to being affected by those same genes that make our bodies so different. In fact, we've observed differences in male and female brains. Neither one is better than the other. We should offer them the same set of choices -- The same opportunities; However, we shouldn't be surprised when the genders have preferences for or against different jobs. Men and women are different. Anyone who thinks otherwise can, and should, go fuck themselves.
IT and CS are kind of shitty jobs right now -- Those same fucks who are pushing for more female applicants regardless of if they want to enroll? Yeah, they're also the ones putting ads in the newspaper and turning down any qualified applicant for any reason they can only to say they meet the requirements so they can fill the jobs with the lower paid H1B visa employees they're lobbying for having more of. Penalize teachers because girls are being smart enough not to sign up for that shite? Fuck you Zuck and the elites you rode in on.
Re:There is no "shortfall". (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe your 4 month contract requirement is weeding out the good coders that don't want to give up a full-time job for a 4 month test that may leave them without a job if they don't live up to some hard to quantify metric of "good enough". And apparently most people fail your test and end up out on the street after the 4 months.
These types of "test periods" are often just a disguise for temporary work, they don't actually plan on ever keeping anyone on permanently. They disguise it like this so the people think that if they do a really good job they'll have a better chance... but they don't. It's a good way to get a lot of productivity out of a temp worker, and a lot of more naive coders will contribute some of their best work.
Then you kick them down the road, you don't have to pay out expensive benefits, retirement, severance, etc. and can brag about how you only hire permanent, full-time positions.
Most good coders avoid such shops like the plague- it's just screaming "take advantage of me".
Re:Businesses can't hire people who don't exist. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Businesses can't hire people who don't exist. (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you miss the part about training more? It's pretty much the whole summary.
There is a very odd misconception in the world today. That is the idea, that all you have to do is plug in someone, anyone, into a job slot, and the results are the same.
It certainly isn't. The question that needs asked, is do an equal amount of young women even want to become programmers?
I have participated in many "Take your sons and daughters to work" days, and have been in on the efforts to get young women interested in tech fields and engineering.
These are the daughters of tech people and engineers, so you would expect there to be some interest.
Haven't found much at all. The young ladies prefer fields like lawyers, MBA's, and medical fields. This is a sampling of hundreds.
So we are left with perhaps forcing young ladies into tech fields?
Re:There is no "shortfall". (Score:4, Insightful)
False dilemma. Our education system can suck on average and still produce plenty of competent engineers. The US has a very stratified education system; there's the school systems in poor areas which produce illiterates, and the school systems in wealthy areas which have pretty decent results.
I agree, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
I totally agree with what you are saying. Transitioning from C to C++ and Java was not that hard. Transitioning from Java to Objective-C was not that hard. Many of the concepts are fundamental as you say...
And yet I think there are not that many people who would enjoy or tolerate the work it takes to learn how to express the concepts you know in new languages. Those that can though, I think are the most valuable ones because they are in general thinking at a more abstract level. So it means there is some stability, but only if you have a certain temperament.