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President Donald Trump and His Daughter Ivanka To Unveil a New Federal Computer Science Initiative With Major Tech Backers (recode.net) 260

Posted by msmash from the up-next dept.
From a report: President Donald Trump will issue a new directive Monday to supercharge the U.S. government's support for science, tech, engineering and mathematics, including coding education, three sources familiar with the White House's thinking told Recode. To start, Trump is set to sign a presidential memorandum at the White House later today that tasks the Department of Education to devote at least $200 million of its grant funds each year to so-called STEM fields, as the administration seeks to train workers for high-demand computer-science jobs of the future. And on Tuesday, Trump's daughter and advisor, Ivanka, is expected to head to Detroit, where she will join business leaders for an event unveiling a series of private-sector commitments -- from Amazon, Facebook, Google, GM, Quicken Loans and others -- meant to boost U.S. coding and computer-science classes and programs, the sources said.
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President Donald Trump and His Daughter Ivanka To Unveil a New Federal Computer Science Initiative With Major Tech Backers More

President Donald Trump and His Daughter Ivanka To Unveil a New Federal Computer Science Initiative With Major Tech Backers

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  • Say what... (Score:3, Funny)

    by ILoveFatCashews ( 5089757 ) on Monday September 25, 2017 @12:24PM (#55260483)
    Must be "Bring Your Daughter to STEM Work" day at Slashdot.
    • I know a whole bunch of H1B's are clapping their hands with joy now.

  • Companies want cheap workers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 25, 2017 @12:28PM (#55260523)

    It doesn't matter if there are no American applicants or if there are hundreds of American applicants. As long as there is one person from India willing to do the work for 20k a year, they will pick that person.

    • Re:Companies want cheap workers (Score:5, Informative)

      by 0100010001010011 ( 652467 ) on Monday September 25, 2017 @12:50PM (#55260741)

      Then explain the multiple open job positions posted all across the country on job sites. It took me all of a week to find a new job in the 6-figure range. Yes there are Indians that claim they'll do it for $20k a year and companies get what they pay for.

      Have you considered that you don't have modern, relevant job skills if someone in India is taking them?

      • You can't apply for a job with modern skill X unless you have already done modern skill X for a legitimate job. That's the trap that people get into, and open source projects and book learning usually doesn't count.

        • Then maybe you should have thought about that when you decided to never learn anything new on the job. I could word my resume any number of a dozen different ways depending on what the job position asked for. But that meant going above and beyond showing up to work every day.

          I volunteered for new projects. I learned how to do skill X and apply it to my desk job.

          Getting a college degree doesn't set you for life. It gives you a bit of breathing room and a head start until the rest of the world catches up. I g

          • So you worked in some places that allowed you to work on side projects. Good for you. For every one of those places there are ten companies that want you to stick to your *actual job*.

            • No. Working on actual projects incorporating new skills.

              "Hey analyze these million files, I don't care how you do it"

              "I wonder what sort of analysis tools Python has" "Hrm, I wonder if I could use Jenkins to automate batch running of analysis".

              Tada. New resume buzz words.

              • You've been lucky then.

                I have gotten scolded (eventually laid off) for doing that sort of thing at my old job - "I don't have the budget for you to be doing that sort of scripting on these projects." Boss would rather have done crap by hand.

                At my job before that, I did that sort of thing but there was limited funds/advancement so that's why I left to go to the aforementioned job that promised to let me go do my own thing.

                • The same thing happened to me. I was configuring middleware, and some of the fields had javascript. There was a problem that required changing the javascript. It didn't seem that difficult to me so I changed it and tested it, everything worked fine. Well they ran up one side of me and down the other for doing something that apparently wasn't my job.

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by Creedo ( 548980 )

                    Well they ran up one side of me and down the other for doing something that apparently wasn't my job.

                    If that is accurate(and I have no reason to doubt you), I would be spreading my resume like pollen in spring. Any place that hammers on you for legitimate improvements is a place to leave ASAP. If it's a contract, document your work, note the boundaries that they threw up in your path, collect your paycheck and move on.

                    Now, if you work in a strictly controlled and regulated environment, such as some parts of healthcare or military engineering, then I could see why fooling around with a standard library w

                    • Now, if you work in a strictly controlled and regulated environment,

                      Funny you should mention that.... it's more or less what I'm doing. We have voodoo scripts and Excel files turning out software because that is what got certified.

                      We're coming up on getting certification on future devices and the build environment. I've moving all of that to Jenkins and automated builds. And code compliance checking (MISRA C : 2012).

                      No more "oh, I guess that merge didn't work". We're ~15 years behind other industry devops.

                      Same goes for unit testing physical I/O instead of having a test eng

              • Personally I couldn't consider that enough to put 'python' on my resume, because I had hacked my way through one script. That's what I meant by stretching the truth.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by Creedo ( 548980 )
                  After the first few, learning a new programming language is just syntax. If you have experience in python, call it out. Be honest("I worked with it, but I'm not an expert"), but don't sell yourself short, either. When I'm interviewing someone, I'm looking for flexibility in coding. I'll throw out a few challenges, but I'm not looking for gotchas. Hell, I take python pseudo code all the time, because any half ass programmer with google can get that right. I want to see your thought process. Same for when I w

                • It's just another language.

                  How well should I know it before I'm allowed to? If I had to rank it at that time I'd probably fall between my Matlab and C. Now I'd probably put it between my Simulink and Matlab on the scale of Simulink, Matlab, C, PHP, C++, VBA, C#, to Java. Last week I had to write a CDLL wrapper. Next week it may be C#. I'll grab the C# documentation, run it through some regex and have it spit out a mostly assembled Python class.

                  And if my industry started moving to a new language I might hack

      • It took me all of a week to find a new job in the 6-figure range.

        Yeah, and on that job you met your wife, Morgan Fairchild, which whom you have had sex.

        • What ever you want to believe. But these "the sky is falling" comments are getting old. I've read slashdot for 17 years at this point and during college I have believed them. I was terrified of my 30s. That time came and went. I went out job searching and found none of the problems I had been hearing about.

          Then I figured out at work exactly 'who' those people were making these comments. They're useless warm bodies that are only kept around because it's too much of a hassle to get rid of them, for now. They

          • What ever you want to believe.

            Nah, I believe you dude. I was just poking fun.

            If you have relevant skills for 2017 you should have no problem finding a job anywhere in the US.

            And the most relevant skill is being able to pay off your student loan while spending 50% of your income on housing costs. Guys like you and me got our educations back in the day when the expense was pretty trivial. I actually graduated with more money than I started school with, thanks to tuition waivers and working as a TA. It's

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by TheSync ( 5291 )

              while spending 50% of your income on housing costs.

              Then vote for massive deregulation of housing in urban areas. Every US city should look like Hong Kong with 60-story apartment towers!

    • if they could get Americans for that $20k/yr.

  • Oh yay (Score:4, Insightful)

    by computational super ( 740265 ) on Monday September 25, 2017 @12:29PM (#55260531)
    $200 million in government grants to fund offshore initiatives.

  • It's a trick. Get an axe. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 25, 2017 @12:32PM (#55260551)

    As the article alludes to, most of these same tech companies just left the administration en mass after the 'very reluctant/weak/late condemnation of nazis' debacle.

    This is effectively taking proposals that have already been thrown at them, and using it as an excuse to get large amounts of money from these jilted companies, and 'manage' them at their whim.

    Here's what these companies should do: Create their OWN organization to manage any funds they want to use effectively, and just ignore the noises from this administration.

    Better than letting DeVos have any potential control over it.

    • Re:It's a trick. Get an axe. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Monday September 25, 2017 @12:37PM (#55260609) Journal

      I'm not sure why they're paying attention to the Administration at all. Nobody else is. Congress is basically acting as if the White House was vacant (which, in a metaphorical sense, it is)

      • I'm not sure why they're paying attention to the Administration at all. Nobody else is. Congress is basically acting as if the White House was vacant (which, in a metaphorical sense, it is)

        Nobody's paying attention? They can't shut up about it.

      • I'm not sure why they're paying attention to the Administration at all.

        That's the real story here, imo.

      • We're certainly paying attention to them here. Which of the following is a smarter career move at Google, in a CNN newsroom, or in the Yale faculty lounge: to admit to voting for Donald Trump, or to proudly proclaim you are a member of the Resistance?

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Trailer Trash ( 60756 )

        Yeah, nobody's paying attention to President Trump <eyeroll>

        He just tricked half the NFL players into embarrassing themselves last weekend - the guy's a fucking genius at manipulating left-wingers. They're not only paying attention, they're dancing to his tune.

    • Wait, you're suggesting that people and companies should do their own thing, instead of routing it through the federal government ?

      What a crazy idea!

      But...how in heavens could anything get accomplished if the government's not running it?

  • The only high tech job in the entire world, get ya coders here get ya coders here! o fuck we need engineers and those maf dorks too back to India maybe next time guys

  • Weak Journalism (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ranton ( 36917 ) on Monday September 25, 2017 @12:33PM (#55260559)

    the White House later today that tasks the Department of Education to devote at least $200 million of its grant funds each year to so-called STEM fields

    So how much does the Department of Education (DoE) currently devote to STEM field grants? You are looking at around a $70 billion budget, with tens of billions already going to various grants. What is even the point of releasing this kind of news if no one can even tell if it is an improvement on what we already do?

    • Re:Weak Journalism (Score:5, Insightful)

      by drew_kime ( 303965 ) on Monday September 25, 2017 @12:38PM (#55260621) Journal

      What is even the point of releasing this kind of news if no one can even tell if it is an improvement on what we already do?

      The difference is now you know we're doing it. Did you know before this story came out how much we were spending on STEM? No? Well you do now. Winning bigly!

      • What is even the point of releasing this kind of news if no one can even tell if it is an improvement on what we already do?

        The difference is now you know we're doing it. Did you know before this story came out how much we were spending on STEM? No? Well you do now.

        No, I still don't. I know that the Department of Education has been asked to spend at least $200M of existing funds on CS. But I don't know how much we were spending before, and I don't even if we're increasing the funding level.

        Winning bigly!

        So much winning. Trump did say that we'd get tired of it. I certainly am.

    • Digging around from previous news releases what is already known this $200 million it is for computer programming camps directed at "coding education programs that target women and minorities".
      This would be in line with similar programs considering that the federal government spend $100 million on getting hispanic students into STEM classes.

    • So how much does the Department of Education (DoE) currently devote to STEM field grants?

      Quite probably more than 200M. I know it was well funded. It's a common practice to talk about how big an absolute number you're assigning to a program when cutting it.

      Fun fact, the websites about STEM funding on the Dept. of Ed. website still talk exclusively about Obama and his programs.

  • Theodp, you don't need to submit as "anonymous". We know it is you

  • This is more likely just going to further suppress wages in these fields with an even greater glut of workers that they won't pay decent wages to and continue outsourcing work to other nations.

  • to distract from other issues going against common sense and logical steps for the common good of a nation and - world as whole.
    Just look at this tinderbox North-Korea and who plays with matches on it. Can light up any time, nothing is learned from history by an Idiot!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hord ( 5016115 )

      I wonder how much all the military action in NK is going to cost us. Probably far in excess of $200 million. I have no idea why an English speaking orangutan has this level of authority.

    • Not to mention the issues with the NFL on the domestic side. True seeds for revolution in that.

  • $200M isn't going to "supercharge" squat (Score:5, Insightful)

    by enjar ( 249223 ) on Monday September 25, 2017 @12:55PM (#55260785) Homepage
    My town has 9 schools (1 pre-K, 4 elementary, 2 middle, 1 high school). The tab to run the district for a year is ~$65M. This works out to about $11k/student, which is pretty near the national average for school expenditures. There are about 50 million students in public schools in the US. So $200M/50M = $4/student. For a classroom of 25 kids, that's $100. Maybe you can pick up an Arduino kit. For a district that spends $11K/yr on a student, $4 is a rounding error. If this was $2B that would be $40/student, which for a classroom would be $1000, which could actually be used for technology initiatives -- buying equipment, IT staff to manage the equipment, teaching materials, hiring teachers and the like.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Naa, $2B would still be a joke. Make that $20B per year and you start getting somewhere.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by enjar ( 249223 )
        Definitely agree with you there, although it doesn't necessarily need to be all STEM. I had more class and extracurricular options as a kid in the 80's than my kids have today. Shop classes are a distant memory, anything art related (choir, band, orchestra) is withering on the vine, and in many places honors or AP level classes are nonexistent. Sports fees, club fees, lab fees -- it's ridiculous. Every one of these things can be useful to some kid in some way. It doesn't need to be STEM all the time, there

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Indeed. And it is pretty important to let kids see and try a lot of different things.

  • Supercharge? Is that like "supersize"? (Score:3)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Monday September 25, 2017 @12:56PM (#55260791)

    I.e. more fat, more sugar, less agility and less quality everywhere? I think I see where Trump is going with that. He is trying to re-create the success of the fast-food industry in education! Genius!

  • Ultimately the number of people attracted to STEM will reflect the ease of obtaining sizable and life long opportunities in the STEM field, regardless of what schools do. It's up to corporations to decide what they want.

  • Publicity Stunt For Ivanka (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LostInTaiwan ( 837924 ) on Monday September 25, 2017 @01:35PM (#55261141)

    I don't understand why Ivanka is involved with this project. Sure, we need more women in STEM, but I feel that Ivanka has always been more about the superficial feel good cosmetic of sales and marketing, antithetic to unglamorous logic driven grunt work of STEM. Oh', I forgot, she is the president's daughter.

    Other may disagrees, but I look at this as a $200 million dollar public funded campaign effort to groom Ivanka for the Trump dynasty.

    Slowly we drift into the idiocracy. . . .

    • I think you're right, this $200M is largely a feel-good measure, primarily for the sake of appearance. The problem is that we really can't get much more than that anymore. People who know STEM well *and* have a desire to teach are rare to begin with; those who are willing to teach below the college level and put up with the political headaches, endless grading, just-above-the-poverty-line wages, and general classroom drama are one in a million. Meanwhile, computers themselves are becoming evermore locked do

  • No kids until the companies bring the jobs (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday September 25, 2017 @01:43PM (#55261197)
    why the hell would I let my kid go into IT. There's no jobs except for the top math wizs, and there's always jobs for those guys. This is just another transparent attempt to lower wages for the few folks left who have jobs.

    End the H1-B and J1 programs first, then us parents will talk about giving you our kids. Until then my kid's going into Medical because they have a bloody Union (the AMA) and have so far resisted mass importation of cheap labor.
    • why the hell would I let my kid go into IT.

      Whatever gave you the idea that you have any control over what line of work your children go into?

  • President Donald Trump will issue a new directive Monday to supercharge the U.S. government's support for science, tech, engineering and mathematics, including coding education

    Whether it is lead by Trump or Obama, government should not — indeed, must not — involve itself in the markets, including the higher education market. Not the government of a free country, anyway...

    The Central Planning, that Statists like so much, is both inefficient [atlasnetwork.org] and opressive [mises.org].

    • So the Scandinavian countries are inefficient and opressive [sic]? Thanks for the information, nobody in them seems to notice!

  • This from the man who's organization still runs unpatched Exchange Servers from 2003.

  • cuts $9.2B dollars, wants credit for $.2B increase (Score:5, Insightful)

    by happyjack27 ( 1219574 ) on Monday September 25, 2017 @04:43PM (#55262317)

    okay so let me get this straight, trump cuts 9.2 billion dollars from the DOE's budget, wants credit for $200M that he didn't even fund - he's just saying that of the money already allocated to grants, this much should go to STEM.

    Meanwhile, when obama was president, he proposed a 4 billion dollar inceare in DOE's budget to go specifically to CS education, but that didn't pass because of republicans.

    So the net score is: Obama +4 billion (blocked by republicans), Trump -9.2 billion (republicans love it).

    And he wants to sell this as him supporting STEM?!?

  • Current Trump supporters are anti-science, anti-fact and Anti-American.

      If he does truly support education, he should change the head of the department of education from a flat earthed, anti-science person first; or would coming out in support of science cause them to drop their support, can they blame "liberals", for "eroding his morals"?

  • Trump attaches name to program that does something for somebody, in attempt to coverup ineptitude by throwing random shit at wall and seeing what sticks...

    He couldn't cite one fact about the healthcare bill(s) he was pushing. He didn't know the difference between medicare and medicaid. He doesn't know the difference between health insurance and life insurance. He doesn't even know anything about the things he does care about, much less the things he doesn't care about. He'll still put his name on it, tho

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