White House announces $200 million a year for computer science – Code.org #CSforAll

Looking forward to hearing more details at Code.org’s webinar this afternoon.  Hadi Partovi posted on Facebook that the money will be provided as competitive grants to schools and non-profits through the Department of Education.  Hadi has written a personal blog post about his motivations in supporting this announcement.

The White House memorandum on the announcement is here. I don’t understand all the details here, and the details of the funding are important.  If it’s not new funding, then it puts CS in competition with other fields, e.g., if the money is set aside for CS when it was originally allocated for all of STEM.  The White House memorandum says, “Establish promotion of high-quality STEM education, with a particular focus on Computer Science, as a Department of Education priority.” If it’s a preference (e.g., a school gets money if and only if they’re teaching CS), it may hurt schools that can’t afford to teach CS yet because they’re stretched thin teaching literacy and mathematics.

Here’s the webinar information: (9/26) at 11am PT, 2pm ET
By web: https://code.zoom.us/j/783490509
By phone: US: +1 646 558 8656 or +1 669 900 6833
Webinar ID: 783 490 509

Today, the White House announced a $200 million per year commitment to computer science education in America’s schools. Unlike similar proposals in previous years, today’s action delivers funding to schools, immediately. Besides expanding access to computer science in schools that previously didn’t teach it, the funds promise to increase participation by women and underrepresented minorities.This funding will jumpstart efforts to ensure every student in every school has the opportunity to learn computer science as part of a well-rounded education. For advocates of increased access and diversity in CS, this is the culmination of years of momentum that began in classrooms, spread to entire school districts, and won the support of business leaders and elected officials globally.

Source: $200 million a year for computer science – Code.org – Medium