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Submission + - Zoom Commits $5 Million to K-12 AI Literacy Push as it Announces AI Products

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "Alongside its [AI] product announcements," Fast Company reported Thursday, "Zoom also revealed a $10 million, three-year commitment to expand access to AI education and opportunity. That includes $5 million for K through 12 AI literacy, with large anchor grants to global organizations and smaller regional grants to local changemakers. First-round recipients include [tech-backed nonprofit] Code.org and Data.org, which help equip students, workers, and nonprofits with AI skills."

"Code.org is receiving a $1 million grant and Zoom product support to launch and scale a new AI Foundations course in high schools, aiming to reach 500,000 U.S. students annually by 2030," Zoom explained. "The grant will also be used to scale AI units in middle schools and revitalize block-based CS and AI content for elementary learners globally."

Zoom's $5M K-12 AI education pledge was one of 135+ AI education pledges first announced at a meeting of the White House Task Force on AI Education hosted by First Lady Melania Trump earlier this month that preceded a White House AI dinner with the CEOs of AI tech giants Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, and OpenAI.

At the AI Task Force meeting, Code.org President Cameron Wilson informed the First Lady of its tech leader-backed campaign to make CS and AI a graduation requirement, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai's revealed that his company was giving Code.org $3 million to "transform its [K-12] CS curriculum and integrate new AI features." Wilson added that Code.org will engage 25 million learners this year in the new "Hour of AI" for schoolchildren. Pledges to support AI Education — including millions of dollars in AWS credits, prizes, and prize money for the First Lady-led Presidential AI Challenge for K-12 students — were also made by Code.org "Lifetime Supporters" ( $30+ million in donations) Microsoft and Amazon.

Submission + - Google, Microsoft, Amazon Pledge Support for First Lady's AI Initiatives

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Earlier this month, Business Insider and others reported that tech leaders Sam Altman, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, Satya Nadella, Bill Gates and others lauded President Trump at a White House AI dinner, where the 30 guests were encouraged to speak and went around the table praising the president. Less covered were the commitments and millions of dollars pledged by Google, Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, and others to First Lady Melania Trump's AI education and workforce training initiatives at the dinner and earlier in the day at a White House AI Education Task Force meeting hosted by the First Lady.

Google, Microsoft, and Amazon also issued corporate blog posts detailing their support for the First Lady’s Presidential AI initiatives. "It’s an honor for me to be here and to support the First Lady’s [K-12] Presidential AI Challenge," said Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who pledged $150 million towards grants to support AI education and digital wellbeing, including $3 million to tech-backed nonprofit Code.org to transform its K-12 CS curriculum and integrate new AI features, as well as $2 million to the Flourish Fund to support nonprofits equipping youth aging out of the foster care system with tools to succeed in the workforce (foster care is a pet cause of the First Lady). "Through this initiative, you are inspiring young people to use technology in extraordinary ways."

Not to be outdone, Microsoft President Brad Smith detailed a sweeping set of new commitments to support the Presidential AI Challenge and the AI Education Executive Order made at the AI Education Task Force meeting, including $1.25 million in prizes for the Presidential AI Challenge that was announced by the First Lady in late August. Like Google, Microsoft is also supporting Code.org's AI pivot (via its $4B Microsoft Elevate AI training initiative) by funding the nonprofit's new Hour of AI, which Code.org President Cameron Willson told the First Lady would engage 25 million schoolchildren in December. And, in its response to the White House's AI Education Pledge to America's Youth, AWS VP of Global Education and US State and Local Government Kim Majerus posted that Amazon will support AI skills training for 4 million, including a contribution of up to $200,000 in AWS credits and $1.5 million in cash prizes to support the Presidential AI Challenge.

So, to paraphrase the old adage, "Happy president and president's wife, happy AI company life"?

Submission + - WSJ: Tech CEOs Take Turns Praising Trumps for AI Leadership at the White House

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Even those on opposite ends of the political spectrum would likely agree that the Who's Who of tech CEOs and AI players — including Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Sundar Pichai (Alphabet), Tim Cook (Apple), Satya Nadella (Microsoft), and Sam Altman (OpenAI) — attending Thursday's White House dinner hosted by President Trump gave a cringeworthy master class on brownnosing.

The WSJ reported on how the tech titans took turns praising the President and put together a nice highlights reel of the gushing (full video). "Thank you for incredible leadership," said Bill Gates. "Thank you for being such a pro-business, pro-innovation president — it's a very refreshing change," stated Sam Altman. "I want to thank you for setting the tone such that we could make a major investment in the United States," said Tim Cook, gushing over Trump's leadership and innovation. "You've unleashed American innovation and creativity," said Oracle CEO Safra Katz. "Thanks for your leadership," added Sundar Pichai.

Earlier in the day, Pichai and IBM CEO Arvind Krishna got a chance to practice their flattery on First Lady Melania Trump, who hosted a meeting of the White House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence Education (full video). "We are living in a moment of wonder, and it is our responsibility to prepare children in America," Mrs. Trump said in her opening remarks. "It's a privilege to be here and contribute to help build America's AI ready workforce," began Krishna. "Let me begin by first thanking the first lady, Mrs. Melania Trump for helping lead this effort and galvanize all of us into contributing." Addressing the First Lady, Pichai said, "You are inspiring young people to use technology in extraordinary ways," adding that Google's massive pledge to AI education "includes $3 million to [tech-backed nonprofit] Code.org to transform its curriculum and integrate new AI features."

Also present at the AI Task Force meeting was Code.org President Cameron Wilson, who informed the First Lady it was working with "450 CEOs, many of whom are in this room today [...] to require computer science and AI education for every student." Microsoft President Brad Smith separately posted details on its Public Policy blog of Microsoft's new commitments to support the Melania Trump-led Presidential AI Challenge and AI Education Executive Order, which includes providing $1.25 million in prize money for the Presidential AI Challenge via the company's new Microsoft Elevate initiative. In an accompanying video, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says, "We are so grateful to the President, First Lady, and the entire administration for making it a national priority to prepare the next generation to harness AI's power." Microsoft Elevate is also providing support for the new 'Hour of AI' with Code.org (which replaces the nonprofit's flagship 'Hour of Code' event), which Wilson told the First Lady aims to promote AI literacy to 25 million schoolchildren this December.

This week's AI education pledges made by tech companies and their leaders to President Trump and his wife Melania may evoke memories for some of the $300 million in K-12 CS education pledges made by tech companies and their leaders in 2017 to President Trump and his daughter Ivanka. Those pledges, Microsoft President Brad Smith later revealed in his 2019 book Tools and Weapons, were needed to secure First Daughter Ivanka Trump's help in persuading her father to issue an Executive memorandum directing then Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to earmark $1 billion in Federal funding for K-12 STEM+CS education. Seated immediately adjacent to Melania Trump at Thursday's White House AI Education Task Force meeting was current Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, reminiscent of how Ivanka Trump was once paired with Betsy Devos at events promoting K-12 CS education.

Submission + - First Lady Melania Trump Launches Nationwide K-12 Presidential AI Challenge

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Melania Trump on Tuesday invited students in grades K-12 to participate in a government-sponsored nationwide contest that is designed to encourage them to work together to use artificial intelligence tools to solve community issues.

"As someone who created an AI-powered audio book and championed online safety through the Take It Down Act, I’ve seen firsthand the promise of this powerful technology," the first lady says in a short video announcing the Presidential AI Challenge. "Now, I pass the torch of innovation to you. [...] Just as America once led the world into the skies, we are poised to lead again. This time, in the age of AI."

Every student from kindergarten through 12th grade is invited to "unleash their imagination and showcase the spirit of American innovation," Trump said. K-12 students who sign up will complete a project using an AI method or tool to address a community challenge. According to the Presidential AI Challenge Guidebook for Participation, prizes of $10,000 per team member will be awarded in the Middle Youth Category (grades 6-8) and the High School Youth Category (grades 9-12).

Submission + - Tech-Backed Nonprofit Code.org Pondering What AI Means for Its Brand

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "There won't be an Hour of Code and an Hour of AI," tech-backed nonprofit Code.org clarified for members of its Advocacy Coalition in a meeting last week (video, 29:34). "Hour of Code is totally becoming Hour of AI. [...] There will be adult-facing activities [...] We're leaning into the 'K-Gray' learning [a switch from the Hour of Code's focus on K-12 schoolchildren]."

Asked what the switch from the Hour of Code to Hour of AI means for the Code.org brand, Chief Academic Officer Pat Yongpradit replied, "That is a question that needs to be answered, for sure. And certainly something that all of us need to wrestle with. What is our place in a world where CS and AI are mashing together and evolving and everything." Code.org Director of Government Affairs Anthony Owen added, "I'm not touching the brand-changing question with a 10-foot-pole, but I will say that [...] we need to accept [...} AI is CS."

Slides from the meeting show that the new Hour of AI, which will launch during CS Education Week in December, aims to have 25 million participants ("Every Student. Every Teacher. Every Leader"), including 1,000 'Policymakers.'

Submission + - NYT: Goodbye, $165,000 Tech Jobs. Student Coders Seek Work at Chipotle.

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: The New York Times reports from the CS grad job-seeking trenches: Growing up near Silicon Valley, Manasi Mishra remembers seeing tech executives on social media urging students to study computer programming. “The rhetoric was, if you just learned to code, work hard and get a computer science degree, you can get six figures for your starting salary,” Ms. Mishra, now 21, recalls hearing as she grew up in San Ramon, Calif.

Those golden industry promises helped spur Ms. Mishra to code her first website in elementary school, take advanced computing in high school and major in computer science in college. But after a year of hunting for tech jobs and internships, Ms. Mishra graduated from Purdue University in May without an offer. “I just graduated with a computer science degree, and the only company that has called me for an interview is Chipotle,” Ms. Mishra said in a get-ready-with-me TikTok video this summer that has since racked up more than 147,000 views.

Some graduates described feeling caught in an A.I. “doom loop.” Many job seekers now use specialized A.I. tools like Simplify to tailor their résumés to specific jobs and autofill application forms, enabling them to quickly apply to many jobs. At the same time, companies inundated with applicants are using A.I. systems to automatically scan résumés and reject candidates.

Submission + - Microsoft President to Kids: The Hour of Code is dead, long live the Hour of AI

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: A July blog post by Microsoft President Brad Smith has been recently updated to include the complete video from the launch of Microsoft Elevate, which will bring "more than $4 billion in cash and AI and cloud technology to K-12 schools, community and technical colleges, and nonprofits." The initiative, Smith wrote, "will focus on advancing AI education and training with schools, community colleges, and nonprofits. It will launch new and innovative initiatives, including the support we’re announcing today for a new 'Hour of AI' with Code.org."

Later in the video, Smith asserts it's time to 'switch hats' from coding to AI, adding that "the last 12 years have been about the Hour of Code, but the future involves the Hour of AI." This sets the stage for Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi's announcement that his tech-backed nonprofit's Hour of Code — the wildly popular learn-to-code annual event for K-12 schoolchildren that's held during Computer Science Education Week in December — is being renamed to the Hour of AI.

Explaining the pivot, Partovi says: "Computer science for the last, you know, 50 years has been, has had a focal point around coding that's been sort of like you learn computer science so that you create code. There's other things you learn like data science and algorithms and cybersecurity. But the focal point has been coding. And we're now in a world where the focal point of computer science is shifting to AI. It's, we all know that AI can write much of the code. You don't need to worry about where did the semicolons go, or did I close the parentheses or whatnot. The busy work of computer science is going to be done by the computer itself. The creativity, the thinking, the systems design, the engineering, the algorithm planning, the, the security concerns, privacy concerns, ethical concerns, those parts of computer science are going to be what remains with a focal point around AI. And what's going to be important is to make sure in education we make, give students the tools so they don't just become passive users of AI, but so that they learn how AI works."

Speaking to Smith, Partovi vows to redouble the nonprofit's policy work to "make this [AI literacy with a focus on AI engineering] a high school graduation requirement so that no student graduates school without at least a basic understanding of what's going to be part of the new liberal arts background [...] As you showed with your hat, we are renaming the Hour of Code to an Hour of AI."

Code.org launched in 2013 with the tagline "Leaders and trendsetters agree more students should learn to code." So, does this pivot mark the final death knell for 'Learn to Code'?

Submission + - OpenAI Opens an AI 'Dollar Store' for Federal Agencies

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: OpenAI said Tuesday it will offer ChatGPT to federal agencies for $1 a year as part of a new partnership with the General Services Administration (GSA). The announcement comes one day after the agency added OpenAI’s AI model to its government purchasing system, alongside Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude.

"One of the best ways to make sure AI works for everyone is to put it in the hands of the people serving the country," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement. “We’re proud to partner with the General Services Administration, delivering on President Trump’s AI Action Plan, to make ChatGPT available across the federal government, helping public servants deliver for the American people.”

Anthropic is also reportedly planning to make its models available to the government for as little as $1. Last month, OpenAI, Microsoft, and Anthropic announced the launch of a $22.5 million AI training center for members of the American Federation of Teachers union, which represents about 1.8 million workers, including K-12 teachers, school nurses, and college staff. On the heels of that announcement, Microsoft separately pledged $4 billion for AI education training programs, targeting schools, community colleges, technical colleges and nonprofits.

Submission + - AP CSA Exam Takers Struggled Again in 2025 With Simple Array Questions

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Presenting the 2025 AP Computer Science A (Java) Exam scores for high school students, The College Board's Trevor Packer reports that after a year's study, students did a far better job of answering multiple-choice questions that included IF statements than they did when asked to come up with actual code to initialize and search a 2-D array (AP CSA students' have long-struggled with array questions).

Regarding multiple-choice questions [MCQs], Packard writes that students exhibited "strong performance on primitive types, Boolean expressions, and if statements (units 1 & 3); 44% of students earned 7-8 of these 8 points," but were challenged by "questions on Arrays, ArrayLists, and 2D Arrays (units 6-8); 17% of students earned 11-12 of these 12 points." Regarding free-response questions [FRQs], Packard writes "The most challenging AP Computer Science A FRQ was #4, the 2D array number puzzle; 19% of students earned 8-9 of the 9 points possible." Despite the low success rate, a sample Java solution is pretty straightforward (as is an Excel VBA solution, which also incorporates a visual presentation).

So, with students having the benefit of access to AI coding assistants and tutors for the full school year and a purported game-changing $15 million AP CS A curriculum from Code.org and Amazon, is it surprising that 33% of students failed to receive a 3+ passing score on the AP CSA exam? Indeed, fifteen years after the tech giants teamed with nonprofit partners to assert control over K-12 computer science education in the U.S., AP CS A has the dubious distinction of having a higher percentage of students receiving the lowest possible AP exam score (1 out of 5) than any other subject except AP Statistics. Still, that track record didn't dissuade the American Federation of Teachers from entrusting the future of education for all subjects to the likes of Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic.

Comment Claude Code is a Slot Machine (Score 5, Interesting) 77

Claude Code is a Slot Machine": "I'm guessing that part of why AI coding tools are so popular is the slot machine effect. Intermittent rewards, lots of waiting that fractures your attention, and inherent laziness keeping you trying with yet another prompt in hopes that you don't have to actually turn on your brain after so many hours of being told not to. The exhilarating power of creation. Just insert a few more cents, and you'll get another shot at making your dreams a reality."

Submission + - U.S. Dept. of Education Moves to Make AI the Fourth 'R'

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic, and now, 'rtificial intelligence? The U.S. Department of Education this week sent a Dear Colleague Letter to grantees and future grantees on leveraging federal grant funds to improve education outcomes through AI, including 'AI-Based High-Quality Instructional Materials' and 'AI-Enhanced High-Impact Tutoring.'

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon also announced her fourth proposed supplemental grantmaking priority, advancing AI in education, including "the integration of AI literacy skills and concepts into teaching and learning" and "expand[ing] offerings of AI and computer science education" in K-12 and higher education.

"Artificial intelligence has the potential to revolutionize education and support improved outcomes for learners," said McMahon. "It drives personalized learning, sharpens critical thinking, and prepares students with problem-solving skills that are vital for tomorrow's challenges. Today’s guidance also emphasizes the importance of parent and teacher engagement in guiding the ethical use of AI and using it as a tool to support individualized learning and advancement. By teaching about AI and foundational computer science while integrating AI technology responsibly, we can strengthen our schools and lay the foundation for a stronger, more competitive economy."

This week's actions, the Dept. of Education notes, "are in response to President Trump’s April 23 Executive Order, Advancing AI Education for American Youth." The actions also come on the heels of announcements by Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic to partner with teacher unions on AI and a pledge by Microsoft to spend $4 billion to push AI into schools and the workforce, as well as the launch of a national campaign by tech leaders and Code.org to make AI and CS a graduation requirement.

McMahon's 2025 AI+CS spending directive is reminiscent of a similar 2017 directive to prioritize K-12 STEM+CS funding enacted by U.S. Dept. of Education Secretary Betsy Devos in response to a Trump Presidential Memorandum "to ensure that federal funding from the Department of Education helps advance [K-12] computer science." In his book Tools and Weapons, Microsoft President Brad Smith credited tech companies' efforts — including private sector pledges to spend $300 million on K-12 CS — for unlocking that $1 billion in Federal support.

Submission + - White House AI Action Plan Calls for Luring Children into AI Infrastructure Jobs

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In Disney's 1940 Pinocchio, boys are lured to Pleasure Island, where they are magically transformed into donkeys and sold into slavery, often to work in circuses or salt mines.

In the White House's 2025 American AI Action Plan (full pdf), plans call for Federal agencies to team with tech companies to lure middle school boys and girls (10-14 years old) into AI infrastructure jobs: "Led by DOL [U.S. Dept. of Labor], ED [U.S. Dept. of Education], and NSF [National Science Foundation], partner with education and workforce system stakeholders to expand early career exposure programs and pre-apprenticeships that engage middle and high school students in priority AI infrastructure occupations. These efforts should focus on creating awareness and excitement about these jobs, aligning with local employer needs, and providing on-ramps into high-quality training and Registered Apprenticeship programs."

Echoing Microsoft President Brad Smith's March call for more electricity and 500,000 new electricians to build out the AI infrastructure, the White House AI Action Plan explains that "America's path to AI dominance depends on [...] streamlining permitting, strengthening and growing the electric grid, and creating the workforce to build it all." Referring to tech's insatiable demand for electricity to power its AI data centers at the AI Action Plan event, President Trump quipped to tech leaders, "You need more electricity than any human beings ever in the history of the world. [...] My father always used to say, 'Turn out the lights, son.' But you guys are turning up the lights."

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