WA Gov. Sides With Microsoft: Philanthropy-Funded K-12 CS Education Now the Law 166
theodp writes: During public hearings on WA State's House Bill 1813, which took aim at boys' historical over-representation in K-12 computer classes, the Office of the WA State Superintendent of Public Instruction voiced concerns that by relying on the generosity of corporations, wealthy individuals, and nonprofits to fund STEM, computer science, and technology programs, learning opportunities would be limited to a small group of students, creating disparity of opportunity. "If this is a real priority," pleaded Chris Vance, "fund it fully" (HB 1813, like the White House K-12 CS plan, counts on philanthropy to make up for tax shortfalls). But legislators in the WA House and Senate — apparently more swayed by the pro-HB 1813 testimony of representatives from Microsoft and Microsoft-backed TEALS and Code.org — overwhelmingly passed the bill, sending it to Governor Jay Inslee for his signature. Not to worry. On Wednesday, the bill was signed into law by Gov. Inslee, who was perhaps influenced by the we-need-to-pass-HB-1813 blogging of Microsoft General Counsel and Code.org Board member Brad Smith, who coincidentally is not only responsible for Microsoft's philanthropic work, but was also co-chair of Gov.-elect Inslee's transition team. The WA state legislative victory comes less than 24 hours after the San Francisco School Board voted to require CS instruction beginning with preschool.
Cognitive Dissonance (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Big industry won't be able to claim a shortage of CS workers to justify more H1B visas for long.
Sure they will. They'll be able to claim anything they want and with their money they will have plenty of receptive ears.
Re: (Score:2)
Yup!
What I'd like to know is where's the funds and laws to deal with boys under-representation in achieving college degrees?
Re:Cognitive Dissonance (Score:4, Insightful)
The market is already saturated, by clueless newbie lee7 wannabes. We need quality not quantity. It was quantity over quality that devastated the American car industry. If we have quality everything else will fall into place.
Re: (Score:2)
Doesn't matter, TISA is going to simplify the process and there will be a flood of foreign workers, why do you think they are keeping it "secret".
Re: (Score:2)
The foreign workers will always be more willing to shack up four to a room.
Re:Cognitive Dissonance (Score:4, Insightful)
It is actually worse. We're funding education for the next 20 years, based on what the past 20 years were like. Think about it for a second, we are reflexively thinking that our world in 20 years will resemble our world from 20 years ago (40 year gap). This is fairly short sighted and is always the case with education, we're teaching our kids like we should have been educated, but not according to how they need to be educated.
Re: (Score:1)
I don't see this working (Score:5, Insightful)
Females simply don't seem to like software development work much.
Female developers tend to move away from development into project management, as soon as they can.
Sure call my sexist, misogynist, whatever. I've been a developer for over 25 years, and am just reporting what I have seen.
At least this won't take too much in the way of tax dollars.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure call my sexist, misogynist, whatever.
OK, so your "whatever" is sexist and mysogynist, but what should we call it?
Re: (Score:2)
Sure call my sexist, misogynist, whatever.
OK, so your "whatever" is sexist and mysogynist, but what should we call it?
I thought he meant to give it a ring, but didn't leave a number. :-p
Now cue the "grammar nazi" remarks... but we're just having a little silly fun.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure call my sexist, misogynist, whatever.
OK, so your "whatever" is sexist and mysogynist, but what should we call it?
"Mjölnir"
Re:I don't see this working (Score:4, Funny)
You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them they cry.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Women tend to gravitate towards easy, risk-free, non-competitive, unprofitable projects. Provide free money for no work in female-only environments and women may very well gravitate towards them.
Re: I don't see this working (Score:5, Insightful)
People tend to gravitate towards easy, risk-free, non-competitive, unprofitable projects. Provide free money for no work in any environment and people may very well gravitate towards them.
There FTFY..
Re: (Score:2)
Why? That doesn't seem to have gotten rid of upper management yet...
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
> Women are also implicitly discriminated against by the traditional "boys only club" mentality that predominates the technology and science cultures.
This is a complete lie. Studies on women in CS show that they dislike the same things that men are willing to tolerate from their projects and management. Women call that discrimination, men call it bad working conditions.
Re: I don't see this working (Score:4, Insightful)
Provide meaningful projects in gender-neutral environments and women may very well gravitate towards them.
Well that should be pretty easy. We just need to send a memo to the vast, vast majority of companies and agencies doing regular day-to-day programming tasks and tell them they need to save the world instead.
Re: I don't see this working (Score:4, Insightful)
If anything I'd say the women I work with are given more slack and more respect than the male developers. I have never seen anyone jump on any of the female engineers here (or anywhere I've worked) for making a mistake. Yet I have seen that happen to male engineers quite a bit, where a colleague or manager forces them to admit to a technical transgression, which sucks because now that female engineer might not learn as much from her mistake. In my experience, male engineers avoid confrontation with women in the workplace, even when it would be constructive.
I agree with OP, most women just don't want to work on the technical side of software development, and the majority of women that I have seen come into software engineering as interns or associate devs have ended up in project maangement. Hell, most men don't want to be software engineers, but there is a minority of men and even smaller minority of women that just have the knack for it. Forcing women who aren't interested into the feild and will make poor engineers is not the answer. If anything that will cause the men to discount minority of talented women (and treat them even more differently than they do now) that deserve to be in the feild.
Not Flamebait (Score:2)
Women tend to gravitate towards meaningful projects. Women are also implicitly discriminated against by the traditional "boys only club" mentality that predominates the technology and science cultures.
Provide meaningful projects in gender-neutral environments and women may very well gravitate towards them. So will plenty of other people of any gender.
Why was this modded down? It's what research has shown. I know that when I did CS undergrad, the department had discovered that women were *much* more likely than men to take Computer Science for *practical reasons*, so that it could help them as they pursued careers in Chemistry or Bio or other fields. Men were much more likely to be interested in Computer Science for its own sake.
They also found that women were *much* more likely to go on and take more computer science courses if at least one of their
Re: (Score:2)
If you don't know what you're talking about, then goddamit don't post.
Re: (Score:2)
I remember those days. If you look at the Byte adverts from that time, the industry was mainly COBOL, FORTRAN-77, punch cards, tape drives and mainframes. PC clones and home computers didn't exist except S-100 systems and desktop calculators. Computer science departments were usually part of the Mathematics or Electrical/Hardware Engineering departments, so they took their work really really seriously. Local jobs advertised were the Programmer/Analyst/Architect/Consultant.
Now, Computer Science will cover ev
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It's too bad Grace Hopper [wikipedia.org] isn't alive anymore to slap the stupid out of you.
Re:I don't see this working (Score:4, Informative)
Females simply don't seem to like software development work much.
Female developers tend to move away from development into project management, as soon as they can.
You describe all of engineering, not just software development: I've seen a lot women grads jump ship to Projects within a couple years of doing actual engineering work after college. Not just at this company either, I've kept track of a lot of my classmates via LinkedIn and it's a very common trend.
I once worked in a company that evaluated new technology for investors. We were writing reports in a Wall Street office. One of my co-workers was a woman with an engineering degree. After she graduated, she got a job in engineering. The way she described it, she sounded like a parody of Cosmopolitan. "I had to go out on the factory floor! I had to wear a helmet!" The kind of thing that I thought was cool, she thought was horrible. So she got a desk job with us.
There are good women engineers, but they're rare, and hands-on women engineers are even rarer. Many male engineers move into management or support roles, and they're useful too. But every female engineer I've met was in a management job where they didn't do things hands-on.
That's my experience. I wonder if anyone has done a formal scientific study.
Re: (Score:2)
Women are already dwarfing men in enrollment and graduation rates in colleges. I guess this is just sealing the deal. Fuck men.
Can you provide some statistics as to exactly what fields they are graduating in?
I would be willing to bet STEM fields are very far down the list.
As to your last statement, it is kind of hard to tell if you are suffer from misandry, or are just horny.
Re: (Score:1)
Philanthropy-Funded? (Score:5, Insightful)
That will mean "Philanthropy" controlled.
OK (Score:4, Informative)
So CS classes are critical for our future, while at the same time H1B's are replacing Americans (Disney) and the latest leak of TISA shows they may be simplifying the ability to bring in foreign workers.
in its Schedule, Parties shall allow entry and temporary stay of [contractual service
suppliers and independent professionals 3 ] for a minimum of [X%] of the following
sectors/sub-sectors:
Final wording subject to further discussion, including on the cross-reference to categories in the AU
submission on the temporary entry categories.
4-FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY-
LIMITED
TISA/DEC.2014/negotiating text/MNP
as of 13 February, 2015
Without Prejudice
Computer and related services:
9. Consultancy services related to the installation of computer hardware (CPC 841)
10. Software implementation services (CPC 842)
11. Data processing services (CPC 843)
12. Data base services (CPC 844)
13. Other (CPC 845+849)
Research and Development services:
14. R&D services on natural sciences (CPC 851)
15. R&D services on social sciences and humanities (CPC 852)
16. Interdisciplinary R&D services (CPC 853)
Huh?
Re: (Score:1)
Wow,
That is about as clear as the original poster was in announcing what Washington state was doing. I am still not sure if the philanthropy backed education is designed to shut boys out the way so many of the recent efforts have done.
I do see a lot of prejudiced BS going on.
Re: (Score:2)
You seem to have misunderstood. s/our future/stockholder returns/
Re: (Score:1)
Oh they meant the royal "our".
Male-ness is a Secondary Characteristic (Score:4, Insightful)
My problem with the whole "there aren't enough girls in CS" thing is that everyone assumes that males are specifically targeted and tracked into computer-related academic/research/career paths. That's not the case. By and large, it's social outcasts who take up computers as a hobby are tracked into computer-related academic/research/career paths and those social outcasts are more commonly male.
And they will continue to be male. And social outcasts.
So, at best, these kinds of initiatives will just track more female social outcasts into computer-oriented subjects/careers. Want more "normal people" in computer-oriented careers? Fat chance, buddy.
Re: (Score:3)
Why does nobody ever worry about boys under-representation on things, like Nursing ?
I mean, I know the reason why there are disparities between genders in certain fields, and it isn't representative of some hidden misogynist agenda of the HeMan Woman's Haters Club. The fact is, that there are Gender Attractions to certain kinds of work, and why can't we just leave it at that.
Men and Women tend to be different.
Re: (Score:2)
Because women need "better" representation in fields that provide the potential to make "more money".
Pretty funny, huh?
I mean it couldn't be that a certain stripe of feminists have bought into that idea while some self-serving politicians are trying to drive down salaries by saturating the market with sub-standard labor, could it? Because otherwise, we'd be seeing women push for more women in the trades, huh?
And that wouldn't be nearly as funny either.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't know many nurses, do you?
Re: (Score:2)
No, I'm an engineer. I know jack about nursing, but so does any politician bending over backwards to get people behind STEM initiatives.
What I know is that STEM is played up as somehow "glamorous"...here we are, the engineers and scientists of the world, the cultural elite, the "geek chic", the ones who make all the money and get all the visibility and notoriety. We're "rock stars" and "ninjas".
Being in STEM, according to politicians, not only confers money, but status. If that wasn't the case, why not p
Re: (Score:1)
Well, if the liberal Politicians in DC were so hung up on Women's equality in pay, then they would pay their women staffers the same as the male staffers, but ... they don't.
And if women do really work for less, then any bright American Entrepreneur type would hire only women, because it would cost them less, giving them a substantial advantage in the marketplace.
However, those things are NOT true. A man typically works every day possible (gaining experience), and women take time off to have kids and whatno
Re: (Score:2)
That's fine as long as the "Men and women tend to be different" for non-discriminatory differences.
Re: (Score:2)
That's fine as long as the "Men and women tend to be different" for non-discriminatory differences.
Define ... non-discriminatory differences?
How does one tell a gender preference towards solitary work (Computer Programming) or towards social type work (nursing, teachers, social work) verses discrimination based on gender by statistics alone?
The problem is, that we are ascribing as discriminatory, things that just might be normal and natural, but statistically looks like gender bias. This is my complaint about under-representation claims, based on statistics alone. Yes, they are underrepresented, but mayb
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know why this is modded down to 0 (at this writing). It's on point.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree that males and females tend to be different, but a lot of that has to do with upbringing. How many people can honestly say that if their male child wanted to play with dolls and be a nu
Re: (Score:2)
To speak to the nursing, the greater problem presented in that industry tends to be that there are more practicing male MDs than female MDs with females being weeded out and eventually going into nursing. So, it gets spun from "not enough males in nursing" to "women get forced out of MDs and over-saturate nursing".
That's not what's happening. Medical schools are admitting as many women as men now. https://www.aamc.org/newsroom/... [aamc.org]
The route to medical school and nursing school are completely different. They draw different people.
Medical school is a much more intensive course, with more years of clinical training. Most medical students that I know come from upper-class families, where their parents could send them to top K-12 and undergraduate schools, and as we know, family income is the factor most strongly associate
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Then there's plumbing, sewage, heavy machinery, roadwork, waste management, etc.
Those are the high visibility and hard working positions that, if females started competing for, males wou
Re: (Score:2)
Why does nobody ever worry about boys under-representation on things, like Nursing ?
I mean, I know the reason why there are disparities between genders in certain fields, and it isn't representative of some hidden misogynist agenda of the HeMan Woman's Haters Club. The fact is, that there are Gender Attractions to certain kinds of work, and why can't we just leave it at that.
Men and Women tend to be different.
Actually, back in the 1970s and 1980s, there was some discussion in the nursing profession about the overabundance of women. One of the nursing associations had a logo with a stylized design of a nurse, that looked female. After some discussion, they changed the design to make it more androgynous. But the ratio of male to female nurses hasn't changed much.
I would hypothesize that there was a strong movement to move women into more desirable male occupations. But there was no corresponding movement to move m
Re: (Score:2)
You chose to berate the poster and (likely) have him become hostile to you (and, by proxy, your viewpoint) when you could have simply presented the information that assert you've seen.
"Hey, did you hear pigs fly now? I've heard it said a lot."
"You fracking idiot! You believe everything people say? You're so ignorant! Look up the pig research!"
OR
"Hey, did you hear pigs fly now? I've heard it said a lot."
"I've heard that a lot, too, but I found this data that shows there's just a perce
Re: (Score:2)
You chose to berate the poster and (likely) have him become hostile to you (and, by proxy, your viewpoint) when you could have simply presented the information that assert you've seen.
I havbe done what you suggestes, as have many others before. Many times before.
The OP was too lazy to either remember previous threads he's been in or perform a 5 second web search to verify his own statements.
So, I give up.
Re: (Score:3)
I just attended a nursing graduation at a local University. Probably 10-1 Female to Male Graduates. (rough estimate). Tell me again how men are represented adequately in Nursing? The link below says it is 85% (close to my guestimate)
http://www.randalolson.com/201... [randalolson.com]
1) Health Professions (85% women): nursing assistant, veterinary assistant, dental assistant, etc.
Females have better representation in Engineering and Computer Science (18-19%) than males do in Nursing.
And I can come up with a whole slew of poss
Re: (Score:1)
Tell me again how men are represented adequately in Nursing?
Perhaps if you learned to read you wouldn't need telling so many things. I didn't claim there was not underrepresentation. I saying that people in fact do worry about the underrepresentation contrary to the uninformed opinions of legions of wretched whiners on slashdot.
Re: (Score:2)
I saying that people in fact do worry about the underrepresentation
People worry about things way too much. This is normal and natural. I also realize normal and natural is offensive to some people.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah now you're moving the goalposts.
First youmake a claim. When its obviously not true,you then move to saying it doesn't smtter.
That's logical fallacy 1.
Logical fallacy 2 is going for the naturalistic argument. You argue that it's good because it's natural. I therefore invite you to go and get bitten by a king cobra. That's also a perfectly natural thing to happen.
And since you're a fan of natural things, I take it that you eat raw food and wear no clothes?
Re: (Score:2)
So, male nurses can do things female nurses can't. And therefore they are deserving of higher pay because they are expected to do more. And therefore there is a discrimination lawsuit waiting when women aren't paid as well as men!
Re: (Score:2)
Well that's not really a problem. Even if there's not a natural 50/50 ratio of males/females that want to go into computer-related careers, now that it's a law, the government will be able to force girls to choose those careers at gunpoint if needs be.
Re: (Score:2)
Those that turn to computers as a safe, solo hobby eventually find each other. They commiserate. They create their own social norms and mores. These are not common social norms because "common society" rejected them back in middle school a
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:it should be re-evaluated entirely. (Score:4, Interesting)
This.
It's like sending every kid to piano lessons. Some kids will excel at piano. A damn few. The others will suck and fight the waste of time.
Re: (Score:1)
Spending more than you earn (Score:4, Insightful)
Yea, this is a great thing to teach our kids ... do things you can't afford to do, and force someone else to pay for it or beg for money to do so.
WTF happened to running a balanced budget and setting a good example to our kids about living within their means, why the fuck are we teaching them in elementary school that you can depend on someone else to give you hand outs to survive.
Its no wonder the rest of the world likes to take our jobs, we're raising a bunch of dependent babies.
GIRLS DON'T FUCKING LIKE COMPUTER SCIENCE, GET THE FUCK OVER IT.
Its not because all men in it are assholes, its BECAUSE THEY DON'T FUCKING LIKE IT. They are wired differently than men, this is a KNOWN AND ACCEPTED FACT to anyone who doesn't have political correctness shoved so far up their ass they can taste it.
Women do somethings better than men, and like some things men don't like, and dislike some things that men like ... conversely, Men do some things better than women, like things women don't like and dislike some things that men like.
YES THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS, but those are tiny number and you don't change everything because someone who doesn't even DO CS work thinks there should be more women in CS work.
Men and women ARE NOT EQUAL. STOP TRYING TO PRETEND THEY ARE.
If you think men and women are 100% equal, then you haven't paid attention to even basic anatomy.
I'm not saying one is better than the other, I'm saying they aren't the same and its fucking stupid to keep shoving shit down the throats of one of the sexes just to appease some douche who things he's crusading for the good of all women.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't know it and I don't accept it.
Citation, please.
Re: (Score:2)
Boom!
Prof Heidi Johansen-Berg, a UK expert in neuroscience at the University of Oxford, said the brain was too complex an organ to be able to make broad generalisations.
The MIsogyny of Slashdot (Score:3)
Evidence 1: The parent of this post.
Evidence 2: The moderators got it to a 5 rating.
Re: (Score:2)
Absolutely. There obviously can't be any external factors that could discourage girls from getting into computer science.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually in my experience reading emails, the opposite is true, for when I know whether the sender is male or female. That may because woman are more emotional while men are more intellectual. [this double plus un-good though crime has been reported, comrade -- MOT)]
Re: (Score:2)
You're aware that BitZStream is a dude, right?
That may because woman are more emotional while men are more intellectual.
whatevs, man.
Re: (Score:2)
I suspect he is a man, yes. what does that have to do with my post?
Re: (Score:2)
You seemed to entirely miss the point that I was mocking him personally for excessive capitalisation.
Re: (Score:2)
ok, sorry, I was speaking to your words not your point.
If a software dev make $250-500k a year... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If Software developers made $250-500k a year, I guarantee there would be no shortage of CS graduates.
Of course there would be no shortage, because 80% of current United States CS-related jobs would be off-shored to countries without such outrageous salaries. If you inflate wages above what the market will bear (taking into account the international market), then any industry will suffer the same fate the US auto industry suffered last century.
Re: (Score:2)
Assuming you're talking about an average industry-wide income - I think you can get to that by having a shortage of talented applicants thereby forcing the industry to compete for them.
If there's a glut of talent, the scramble for the best of that is less intense, and the talent overall is made cheaper.
Re: (Score:2)
CS is a special kind of hell for those that aren't passionate about it.
It's a win-win ... (Score:2)
... Big Business gets to sell stuff, girls get opportunities, schools avoid the stigma of discrimination and get some funding, Big Business says, "This proves how badly we nee H!-B visas in the meantime," ....
Again (Score:2)
This again. You have to be Superman or Superwoman or be married to Superwoman or Superman (all bases covered!) or be a lesser hero married to another lesser hero to make enough money to support a family and Government and Industry are *worried* about gender distribution in a particular field of industry.
Either we live in Kafka Land or the real interests aren't being disclosed. Both may be true. Or maybe the real problems are truly intractable and this what our betters come up with to keep busy.
How about th
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
fair enough, I agree with that, too. just complicates things a bit cause what's to stop a bad or extremely needy parent from pocketing the cash. I don't like tests and curricular requirements. To be fair, I haven't thought this out, I just know that I like the idea, and hate the public school system.
Re: (Score:2)
The industry is playing an progressively larger roll already. Perhaps it's too early to say for sure, but I think what we may see next are other industries: construction, healthcare, agriculture, entertainment, etc, competing with each other in the educational dominance of American children from the cradle on up.
If you are taught from preschool to 12th grade be a nurse, and your exposure to alternatives are reduced, you'll probably become a nurse. What we're seeing now is just one industry seeking to domina
Re: (Score:2)
The key to healthy industry involvement is parents having money to pay for education and the choice to buy whatever education they wish. Industry should have a profit motivation to attract students. Between 6 and 20 thousand are spent per kid in the public school system (http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/05/23/heres-how-much-each-state-spends-on-public-school-students/) I didn't read the link I'm just looking for a ball park. I'm guessing that enough money to motivate service providers
Using a computer != CS Skills (Score:2)
I posted something like this yesterday about the San Francisco CS education mandate. Getting people familiar with computers is good, labeling it as "CS education" is disingenuous. Millenials and "digital natives" aren't CS experts because they can use their iPhones and post on Facebook, nor are they CS experts because they can write a document in Office. If those same people can actually understand how the iPhone does what it does, or have some clue about how an operating system works, then that's different
coding slaves (Score:1)
Yes, because there's a shortage of programmers (Score:2)
Yes, there's a shortage of programmers. That's why Microsoft laid off 18,000 last year and will layoff another 500 this year.
Re: (Score:3)
It's about control (Score:1)
Morons (Score:2)
Not to worry. On Wednesday, the bill was signed into law by Gov. Inslee, who was perhaps influenced by the we-need-to-pass-HB-1813 blogging of Microsoft General Counsel and Code.org Board member Brad Smith, who coincidentally is not only r
In Soviet Russia (Score:2)
40% of chemistry PhDs were women.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/... [smithsonianmag.com]
Soviet Russia Had a Better Record of Training Women in STEM Than America Does Today
Perhaps it's time for the United States to take a page from the Soviet book just this one time
By Rose Eveleth
smithsonian.com
December 12, 2013
Between 1962 and 1964, 40 percent of the chemistry PhD's awarded in Soviet Russia went to women. At that same time in the United States, that number was a measly five percent. In 2006, that number was still lower than the
Re: (Score:1)
Actually, not that different in some UW departments. A lot of PhDs awarded in Biostatistics, Medical Genetics and other fields that are computationally heavy are women.
Microsoft or no, it's a complete waste of time (Score:1)
Why? Not H1B's although that is amusing to consider how it will screw local hopefuls beyond their wildest dreams. But rather, the natural progression is to university CS and related programs. And here's the catch. They demand Calculus + Physics, and only give token (if any) consideration to what you did in CS in grade school. Not even AP and/or IB CS is all that well respected, if it is respected at all.
Until the Universities care, it's all a vast waste of time, effort and money.
Re: (Score:3)
So? If they're going to use anything, they might as well pick the one that's being paid for by someone else. And from what I remember, Apple used to support a lot of schools back in the day (even though ours used PCjrs).
Re:bah (Score:4, Insightful)
No, apple gave education a 30% discount (better in some cases) on hardware. They didn't suggest curriculum or standards, nobody came out to your school to say this kid needs such and so, it was just a huge no strings attached gift of hardware. (my experience circa the mid 80's at Bellevue Community College, buying for the student paper)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:bah (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounds like sorry boys...and likely non-minorities...you just won't get these opportunities because of your sex and possibly even your race.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Where have you been? This is a dog-bites-man story.
Ultimately it's a big waste of money and time. Computer classes are pointless for kids who aren't interested, and kids who are interested won't have any trouble getting access to a computer - you can hardly avoid them anymore. Cliff Stoll was on target when he addressed the topic in Silicon Snake Oil.
Re: (Score:2)
No, it's only one boy, the one on the poster.
Re: (Score:2)
During public hearings on WA State's House Bill 1813, which took aim at boy's historical over-representation in K-12 computer classes
That should be boys', not boy's.
Well, either that, or it's a capitalization error. ("Boy's"?) Perhaps TFS is really a complaint about the overuse of Boy George's [wikipedia.org] music in K-12 computer classes.
With Timothy editing the summary, you never can be sure what he's talking about....
Re: (Score:2)
Funny, I don't see an effort to get more female roofers, plumbers, electricians, garbage workers, or any other male dominated professions. What makes this one so special? If women don't like a profession, then they don't go into it. Stop trying to force gender equality when it's not wanted nor necessary.
Seriously? If you lived in Seattle, you'd know there are statutes requiring that every government-funded project employ, at a minimum, some specific percentage of minority- and women-owned businesses when hiring contractors, roofers, plumbers, electricians, etc.
Washington State is a (poorly run) nanny state. I work at UW. This past month, in order to qualify for a $125 "wellness incentive" on my health insurance next year, I had to fill out a "well-being assessment" that, among other things, asked me multip
Re: (Score:2)
Washington State is a (poorly run) nanny state. I work at UW. This past month, in order to qualify for a $125 "wellness incentive" on my health insurance next year, I had to fill out a "well-being assessment" that, among other things, asked me multiple questions regarding whether I felt "empowered" at work. Based on my answers, one of the suggested activities I could do for credit (in addition to the more reasonable "eat five fruits and vegetables" and "walk at least 35,000 steps a week") was "meet with a mentor". Yeah, you guys can't even agree on a budget but you can spend money developing an overly-simplistic computerized system to pretend you're actually caring for your employees...
I wouldn't blame the nanny state for wellness incentives. That started out from the HR departments of the big corporations, as a way to cut health costs. I remember reading about that in BusinessWeek in the 1980s. More recently, I've seen studies of wellness incentives in the New England Journal of Medicine. They vary between being totally useless and having a small effect. Science doesn't know enough about diet to tell you that eating specific foods will improve your health (and cut your employer's health
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)