Code.org Celebrates 10th Anniversary With Fond Memories of Its Viral 2013 Video 21
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp shares his perspective on the 10th anniversary of Code.org:
Remember this?" asks tech-backed Code.org on Twitter as it celebrates its achievements.... "It's the viral video that launched Code.org back in 2013!" Code.org also reminds its 1M Twitter followers that What Most Schools Don't Teach starred tech leaders Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Tony Hsieh, and Drew Houston.
But 10 years later, the promise of unlimited tech jobs and crazy-fun workplaces promoted in the video by these Poster Boys for K-12 Computer Science hasn't exactly aged well, and may serve as more of a cautionary tale about hubris for some rather than evoke fond memories.
"Our policy at Facebook is literally to hire as many talented engineers as we can find," exclaimed Zuckerberg in the video. But ten years later, Facebook's policy is firing as many employees as it can — 11,000+ and counting. Houston, who sang the praises of working in cool tech workplaces in the video ("To get the very best people we try to make the office as awesome as possible"), went on to make remote work the standard practice at Dropbox, cut 11% of his employees, and reported a $575M loss on unneeded office space. Under pressure, Gates left Microsoft, Dorsey left Twitter, and Hsieh tragically left (Amazon-owned) Zappos, and the companies they co-founded recently unveiled plans for massive layoffs and halted ambitious office expansion plans as tech employees push back on return-to-the-office edicts.
Still, there's no denying the success of what the National Science Foundation called the "amazing marketing prowess" of tech giant supported and directed Code.org when it comes to pushing coding into American classrooms. The nonprofit boasts of having 80M+ student accounts, reported it had spent $74.7M to train 113,000+ K-12 teachers to deliver its K-12 CS curriculum, and has set its sights on making CS a high school graduation requirement in every state by 2030.
Interestingly, concomitant with Code.org's 10th anniversary celebration was the release of a new academic paper — Breaking the Code: Confronting Racism in Computer Science through Community, Criticality, and Citizenship — that provocatively questions whether K-12 CS, at least in its current incarnation, is a feature or a bug. From the paper: "We are currently seeing an unprecedented push of computing into P-12 education systems across the US, with calls for compulsory computing education and changes to graduation requirements.... Although computing creep narratives are typically framed in lofty democratic terms, the 'access' narrative is ultimately a corporate play. Broadening participation in computing serves corporate interests by offering an expanded labor supply from which to choose the most productive workers. It is true that this might benefit an elite subset of BIPOC individuals, but the macroeconomics of the global labor market mean that access to computing is unlikely to ever benefit BIPOC communities at scale. [...] There are several nonprofits invested in the growth of computing, many with mission statements that do explicitly cite equity (and sometimes racial equity, in particular). Some of the larger nonprofits, though, are mainly funded by (and thus ultimately serve) corporate interests (e.g., Code. org).
But 10 years later, the promise of unlimited tech jobs and crazy-fun workplaces promoted in the video by these Poster Boys for K-12 Computer Science hasn't exactly aged well, and may serve as more of a cautionary tale about hubris for some rather than evoke fond memories.
"Our policy at Facebook is literally to hire as many talented engineers as we can find," exclaimed Zuckerberg in the video. But ten years later, Facebook's policy is firing as many employees as it can — 11,000+ and counting. Houston, who sang the praises of working in cool tech workplaces in the video ("To get the very best people we try to make the office as awesome as possible"), went on to make remote work the standard practice at Dropbox, cut 11% of his employees, and reported a $575M loss on unneeded office space. Under pressure, Gates left Microsoft, Dorsey left Twitter, and Hsieh tragically left (Amazon-owned) Zappos, and the companies they co-founded recently unveiled plans for massive layoffs and halted ambitious office expansion plans as tech employees push back on return-to-the-office edicts.
Still, there's no denying the success of what the National Science Foundation called the "amazing marketing prowess" of tech giant supported and directed Code.org when it comes to pushing coding into American classrooms. The nonprofit boasts of having 80M+ student accounts, reported it had spent $74.7M to train 113,000+ K-12 teachers to deliver its K-12 CS curriculum, and has set its sights on making CS a high school graduation requirement in every state by 2030.
Interestingly, concomitant with Code.org's 10th anniversary celebration was the release of a new academic paper — Breaking the Code: Confronting Racism in Computer Science through Community, Criticality, and Citizenship — that provocatively questions whether K-12 CS, at least in its current incarnation, is a feature or a bug. From the paper: "We are currently seeing an unprecedented push of computing into P-12 education systems across the US, with calls for compulsory computing education and changes to graduation requirements.... Although computing creep narratives are typically framed in lofty democratic terms, the 'access' narrative is ultimately a corporate play. Broadening participation in computing serves corporate interests by offering an expanded labor supply from which to choose the most productive workers. It is true that this might benefit an elite subset of BIPOC individuals, but the macroeconomics of the global labor market mean that access to computing is unlikely to ever benefit BIPOC communities at scale. [...] There are several nonprofits invested in the growth of computing, many with mission statements that do explicitly cite equity (and sometimes racial equity, in particular). Some of the larger nonprofits, though, are mainly funded by (and thus ultimately serve) corporate interests (e.g., Code. org).
Then and Now (Score:1)
But ten years later, Facebook's policy is firing as many employees as it can
This type of juxtaposition is bland without some context. A lot happened in the 10 years between then and now, and the important part is these companies tried to expand way too much during covid.
I oppose code.org not because it was a corporate ploy to expand the labor pool, but because of its democratic message trying to get everyone on board with coding even if they clearly aren't suited and don't want it. Fuck off and stay fucked off.
We have entire high schools (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Maybe pay teachers better? You pay bottom tier wages and you get bottom tier results.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There are two things the average can never be, and "bottom" is one of them.
74.7 million for 113 thousand teachers? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
From the cited paper: "Right now, computing education is designed to value the goals of computing-not the needs of teachers and students. For example, a number of professional development opportunities for elementary teachers focus on teaching them Scratch so they can bring coding into their classrooms to teach disciplinary content, like math or English language arts. Or worse, elementary teachers go to a limited professional development to learn to teach the CS Fundamentals course [code.org] [6-8 hours]. In both of t
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain (Score:3)
Learn to do the thing we're telling every student in the nation to learn!
It totally will lead to a well-paying job and couldn't possibly create a race to the bottom in the labor market!
Kids, forget coding, go into the medical field. That's a job market sorely in need of some competition to bring down the costs. Oh, did I say that out loud? What I meant was "You'll make good money and be able to buy that big house and fancy car you've always wanted."
Re: (Score:3)
I've been telling anyone I know without an education the same thing the last few years. Go into anything related to medicine. Demand is off the charts today, and only going to rise. You can probably get schooled for free if you start now, with all the Covid grant money percolating. Just 1 year of school to be a medical assistant will put you in a position where you can choose among employers, instead of settling for whoever will take you. Becoming a full R.N. means you're made for life.
Also, you don't have
Re: (Score:2)
code.org paid teachers to exclude boys (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
You can't help anyone these days, because you'll be accused of not helping someone else.
It's just another tactic designed to maintain the status quo, used by the people whom the status quo benefits.
Billionaires' pet projects (Score:3)
Fuck the billionaires & their pet projects. Let the experts, parents, teachers, & school administrators work together on evidence-informed policies & programmes that help pupils to actually learn stuff that'll set them up for their futures.
Or get overtaken by the rest of the world. Your choice.
Re: (Score:1)
Problem is billionaires don't like the things that kids really need.
- taxes on billionaires and their corporations to pay for education
- employment rights so they can't just discard those employees the moment the economy gets the sniffles
Viral video? (Score:2)
Oh yeah, everyone was talking about it...
Actually no. No they weren't.
Where will all the coders go (Score:2)
when AI replaces them in 10 years?
Re: (Score:2)
I was a fan, then I wasn't. There is a Better Way. (Score:2)
Learning to code is a great thing. Having it as a school elective is a great thing. But making coding mandatory is NOT a great thing, and that's Code.Org's goal for education.
As an engineer, I was a huge supporter of Code.Org from the day it started. Then I started volunteering to work with students, to help them learn to code, and saw how programming could create divides and disconnections, rather than bringing students together. Code.Org tends to ignore the students who don't or can't code.
I next went dow