President Donald Trump will soon direct the Department of Education to commit $200 million every year to K-12 computer science education, which Code.org is..
President Donald Trump will soon direct the Department of Education to commit $200 million every year to K-12 computer science education, which Code.org is marking as a victory for its nonprofit organization. As Recode reported earlier today, Trump’s memorandum calls on the Department of Education to commit at least $200 million of its grant funds to STEM education.
“Today’s $200M per year commitment to computer science education marks a victory for Code.org, and for the movement we started four years ago to expand access to computer science and increase participation by women and underrepresented minorities,” Code.org founder and CEO Hadi Partovi said in a statement to TechCrunch.
Last year, during the good ol’ days of President Barack Obama, our former president called for more than $4 billion in funding for states to ensure everyone has access to computer science education. Unfortunately, Congress ended up not approving the initiative. No matter what your stance may be on Trump, this is a good thing for the youth of America.
“This federal commitment along with the continuing generous support of private industry, state and local governments will accelerate the adoption of computer science as core curriculum in American K-12 schools,” Partovi said. “More teachers will be trained and more students will have access to learning and achieving success in computer science. Today, only 40 percent of U. S. schools teach computer science, whether using Code.org’s popular curriculum or alternatives. By 2022, we hope that number is 100 percent.”
According to the memo, Trump is directing the Department of Education to explore ways to increase or add focus on CS in K-12 schools, take into account gender and racial diversity and produce an annual report highlighting the department’s effectiveness in these efforts.
