Tech Leaders Launch Campaign To Make CS and AI a Graduation Requirement (csforall.org) 45
"Our future won't be handed to us," says the young narrator in a new ad from the nonprofit Code.org. "We will build it."
"But how can we when the education we need is still just an elective?" says another young voice...
The ad goes on to tout the power "to create with computer science and AI — the skills transforming every industry..." and ends by saying "This isn't radical. It's what education is supposed to do. Make computer science and AI a graduation requirement."
There's also a hard-hitting new web site, which urges people to sign a letter of support (already signed by executives from top tech companies including Microsoft, Dropbox, AMD, Meta, Blue Origin, and Palantir — and by Steve Ballmer, who is listed as the chairman of the L.A. Clippers basketball team).
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp says the letter ran in the New York Times, while this campaign will officially kick off Monday... Code.org teased the new Unlock8 campaign last month on social media as it celebrated a new Executive Order that makes K–12 AI literacy a U.S. priority, which it called a big win for CS & AI education, adding, "We've been building to this moment."
The move to make CS and AI a graduation requirement is a marked reversal of Code.org's early days, when it offered Congressional testimony on behalf of itself and tech-led Computing in the Core reassuring lawmakers that: "Making computer science courses 'count' would not require schools to offer computer science or students to study it; it would simply allow existing computer science courses to satisfy a requirement that already exists."
"But how can we when the education we need is still just an elective?" says another young voice...
The ad goes on to tout the power "to create with computer science and AI — the skills transforming every industry..." and ends by saying "This isn't radical. It's what education is supposed to do. Make computer science and AI a graduation requirement."
There's also a hard-hitting new web site, which urges people to sign a letter of support (already signed by executives from top tech companies including Microsoft, Dropbox, AMD, Meta, Blue Origin, and Palantir — and by Steve Ballmer, who is listed as the chairman of the L.A. Clippers basketball team).
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp says the letter ran in the New York Times, while this campaign will officially kick off Monday... Code.org teased the new Unlock8 campaign last month on social media as it celebrated a new Executive Order that makes K–12 AI literacy a U.S. priority, which it called a big win for CS & AI education, adding, "We've been building to this moment."
The move to make CS and AI a graduation requirement is a marked reversal of Code.org's early days, when it offered Congressional testimony on behalf of itself and tech-led Computing in the Core reassuring lawmakers that: "Making computer science courses 'count' would not require schools to offer computer science or students to study it; it would simply allow existing computer science courses to satisfy a requirement that already exists."
Our future is being taken from us (Score:5, Insightful)
Civics is useless (Score:3)
I was not taught about gerrymandering, voter suppression, the reason our Senate exists, why we have winner take off first past the post voting, what the southern strategy is, why Richard Nixon started the drug war,
I think you get the idea.
Any idiot can pick up enough civics to participate in politics with a 30-second Google search.
What we need to be teaching kids is how the ruling elite manipulate them and our political system and
Re: (Score:2)
Because we don't actually teach the nasty parts about it.
I was not taught about gerrymandering, voter suppression, the reason our Senate exists, why we have winner take off first past the post voting, what the southern strategy is, why Richard Nixon started the drug war, ...
You must have dropped out quite early then, because I learned what gerrymandering was in middle school, and all the rest of this by high school. Except maybe that third to last one, which left me making an assumption about what you're talking about because you used some pretty fucking clumsy-assed grammar, which I guess is expected given how early you dropped out.
If I had to make another guess, you're one of the original Wisconsin v Yoder kids. The timing is about right, after all.
Re: Civics is useless (Score:2)
Perhaps it would be more productive to engage in conversations and activities that strive to correct failures, than to blame the person for their education over which they had no control.
Re: (Score:2)
True, but he's trying to argue that schools need to teach what they're already teaching.
So I think you're missing my point (Score:2)
And I'm not letting the left wing off the hook if you happen to be one of those oh I didn't spoke for Donald Trump types. I watched the left wing spent 18 months screaming about ge
Re: (Score:2)
I doubt it. Everyone thinks what they learned was taught everywhere.
I never heard of the "great compromise", I had to look it up. I was taught, and the record shows, the Senate was seen as an elitist check on the popularly elected House. They were to be selected by the state legislatures. The "great compromise" settled the question of how many Senators each state would get.
Benjamin Franklin agreed that each state should have an equal vote in the Senate in all matters -- except those involving money. Over the Fourth of July holiday, delegates worked out a compromise plan that sidetracked Franklin's proposal.
As for gerrymandering, I suspect many Americans have no idea how it works or its implications. Most believe that somehow laws are passed
Re: (Score:2)
It's also not consistent.
Every field of science has reproducible outcomes. Except AI. Leaning about things that do not change and are not even in question, is what school should be for.
When it comes to History, it's written in blood and tears, we should learn about it, but we do not need to care about it. But when it comes to American history, there is this entire extra level of denialism which keeps the south pro-slavery, even though slavery is abolished. It's like the right wing morons like living in a "s
Oh no history is very well known & very consis (Score:2)
One of the things is members of the ruling class from back in the day weren't shy about how horrible they were. They didn't need to be because the filthy masses they were exploiting couldn't read so they could pretty much write whatever the fuck they want and not have to worry about it getting out in the open.
Hell honestly that kind of shit was going on right up until the '80s. Ronald Reagan's people talked about the ne
Re: Our future is being taken from us (Score:2)
This! I think ai should absolutely be a standard part of education, including recognizing when it is being used to target your emotional responses. The fact that so many people can't recognize the autocrat's playbook as it is so unsubtly followed is horrifying. The fact that it took this obvious instance for me to recognize so many previous instance is even more so. When I read old comments I made here in the 90s, the naivety is so embarrassing. My code from that time is less embarrassing, and that is sayin
The stupid... It burns (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should an all-round education be replaced with a requirement for a vocational training for something that was "hot" yesterday?
This is a recipe for a disaster as people unprepared to deal with future change and with no generic skills leave school expecting a bright future.
Because our schools aren't there (Score:2)
This is why we give kids so much homework even though we have tons of research that shows it's basically worthless. It's to sort them into the ones who can work long hours for little or no reward and the ones who can't.
Hell schools in America got their start as a way to condition children to bells because the Farm workers being brought into the cities during the industrial revolution would wander off from the assembly line because t
Re: (Score:2)
To make good citizens.
Your idea of a good citizen is somebody who buys into your 19th century thinking.
would wander off from the assembly line because the concept of endless work was completely insane to them.
That wasn't even a thing until the 19th century. US schools as we know them today, complete with school bells, started much earlier than that. It was largely with the Puritans who wanted their children to be able to learn how to read and interpret the bible without needing the clergy to interpret it for them, well over a century before the declaration of independence. Effectively a rebellion against Catholicism.
https://educatio [nationalgeographic.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Not only that, but CS and AI are techno-fluff compared to physics, biology, chemistry, and mathematics.
And the humanities in general are the nurseries for new ideas. We neglect them at our peril, producing vacant and shallow techno-gizmos.
Science and the humanities will erode into wastelands in the U.S. if Republicans get their way. Remember Republicans, the trick is to bang the rocks together (to reuse a Douglas Adams' phrase).
Bullshit (Score:3)
These same people don't know what a file system [futurism.com] is and don't understand how to create directories or sub-directories [pcgamer.com] to organize their documents.
If they can't understand this basic stuff, no way would I trust them to code.
Re: (Score:2)
That's just engineers being engineers. Makes me think of the used rocket parts sitting on my desk at work, and I don't even know how they got there, nor am I inclined to move them even though I don't do any work with rocket parts.
Hypocrisy as a new American Value (Score:3)
It's good for optics, and costs very little, and nobody will ever check to see if you follow thru.
You need to do this to stay off Teacher's Detention List.
Mommy, Daddy (Score:2)
Please sign the letter of support! I want to be a vibe coder when I grow up!
I know I'm cynical (Score:2)
Based on the companies behind code.org, cynical me tends to read between the lines on this two ways.
1. "We need lots more in-country people to go into computer- and AI-related fields - enough to drive the cost of those jobs down as far as possible."
2. "Despite our constantly beating the AI drum, most people don't seem to care about our AI products at all. Maybe we just need more headlines with AI in them..."
Re: I know I'm cynical (Score:2)
They also want schools to be forced to purchase their products. We should mandate that all K-12 software and education utilize only FOSS. Then see how much these companies clamor for CS in schools.
why do we need this (Score:2)
when the future is clearly meant to be families handing down jobs from generation to generation working in buggy whip factories or mining beautiful clean coal
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget about the millions of Americans who'll be putting those tiny screws into iPhones!
Truly the sorts of jobs Americans long for...
They're coming for your children (Score:2)
Microsoft, Meta, Palantir ... Not really companies I'd like to come near my children (if I had any). .. eh, not relevant perhaps except when you're reminded that it is owned by the same guy as is behind Amazon. Ditto.
Blue Origin?
They couldn't make adults use "AI". So they're trying to force it upon the next generation. That's despicable beyond belief.
Where do I sign the counter-list to protest against this?
And idea so dumb.... (Score:1)
This is an idea so dumb, it could have come from the Democrats or Trump. It's hard to tell anymore.
We need more of this (Score:2)
The automotive industry wants mandatory shop class.
The furniture industry wants mandatory woodworking class.
The chartered accountants want mandatory accounting class.
Every industry category should have their own mandatory class, and if you fail on 2 of the 173 exams, you're not graduating.
CS in schools is bullshit (Score:2)
Right now, most CS classes, the way they're taught in school, is absolute bullshit.
They teach the same 100ish ALREADY SOLVED PROBLEMS algorithms. Not how to think. Not how to problem solve. Not how to create original code. But only how to memorize the same HackerRank or whatever bullshit interview test the tech firms use.
NONE of that is used in the real world, because they're all already-solved problems wrapped up nicely into hardened libraries that have been battle-tested.
The people doing insanely awesome
Unlock 8 Video (Score:2)
Unlock 8: Make Computer Science and AI a Graduation Requirement [youtu.be]
Serious question (Score:2)
Scenario One: We further narrow education so that the bulk of it is effectively job training for careers in tech, and we pursue the unlimited growth of server farms for AI and social media, along with the resultant expansion of pervasive advertising, propaganda (sorry for that redundancy), and surveillance. As a side effect, we drastically increase greenhouse gas emissions and embrace a dystopian future.
Scenario Two: We re-tool the education system: allowing people to pursue their passions, and encouraging
pushers .. nothing but pushers. (Score:2)
Lowly pushers want their spot IN the schoolyard.
Our lives were perfect before you. We don't need everyoned to know that crap , in fact the less and less people will know about it but simply ignore it in their lives the better the world will be, We don't need our kids brainwashed to become the tech bro's slaves. They got enough as it is.
f*** them.
AI? (Score:2)
First, there is no AI, it's just today's marketing term everyone to espouse to bump their stocks, but we know that. So we need more CS skilled Americans? How about we start with all the CS proficient Americans who are OUT OF WORK DUE TO OUTSOURCING. There is as GLUT of CS skilled Americans, but there are few available jobs. When Google fires 5000 people in one week, are there 5000 jobs for them to take? Most have moved to different professions, paying much lower salaries. And the tech leaders know thi
I don't get it (Score:2)
Well if you read it from a point of view they are not just trying to train cheap workers.
Isn't the point of AI at least LLMs so it can understand humans, why would you need to train people to use AI?
Now if you want to train everyone to be able to create AI then sure you need training, but why on earth would you need that in a society?
Who is going to fund that? (Score:3)
Maybe if we stopped bringing in H-1Bs and other indentured visas to suppress wages, more people would be interested in pursuing this. But if I had to give guidance to a high school student who knew he didn't want college, I'd push him to HVAC, electrician or plumbing training. You can't outsource that, and we don't offer visas to pollute the job market and there's a definite shortage around here.
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft and Google are trying to influence that labor supply, too. 1. Microsoft President Calls For a National Talent Strategy For Electricians [slashdot.org]. 2. Google is announcing a new paper and support for an effort to train 100,000 electrical workers and 30,000 new apprentices in the United States [blog.google].
Go back to corporate training (Score:2)
There was a time when businesses expected their employees to have basic skills for the job, and weren't afraid (or too cheap) to supplement their knowledge with in-house training, specific to the needs of the business. Now job seekers have to match the requirements of the job precisely, regardless of how unrealistic that is. The employee added value to the business, and the business added value to the employee. Employee loyalty was higher as a result, as the employee recognized that working where they were
About 1-2% of the workforce (Score:1)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
While everyone needs to read, write, and do arithmetic to function, and just about everyone has to know enough "college prep math" to be able to make a budget or figure out loans or amortization of one kind or another, a very small fraction of the working population needs the be able to do calculus and up, and only about 1-2% of people will ever need to write code.
Nearly everyone is eligible to vote. Almost everyone might cross paths with the legal system either as plaintiff
One is not like the other (Score:2)
I am all for making CS (actual computer science!) a requirement. But AI, nah, except maybe as a side note about what it *cannot* do, or maybe in the context of linear algebra.
The reason I think teaching CS and coding is a good thing is for the same reason why teaching maths above simple arithmetic is a good thing: it teaches logical thinking and a rigorous approach to solving problems. When you write a computer program, you can't be sloppy, what you write is what the computer will do, the computer will not