"It is easy to ridicule this as a benefit to the privileged, but our current funding of education, ..." Sounds like socialist tripe to me. When one wants to solve a problem one must understand all the facts. IF you think money is the major problem than I suggest you are less than a technical person. For me it's a very complicated algebra problem and requires a lot more than money. Bill Gates wants stupid Americans and plans to make money on Common Core as does Obama's Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. For anyone who's seen some of the math material, it's clear the intent is to stifle math education in America not improve it. Jeb Bush of Florida, seems to like it and it looks like he plans to cash in. Michigan's Rick Snyder loves it to and he loves foreign workers. Gates and those like him do not want educated people. He wants slaves just like any plantation owner of the American South. And anyone, who has a passing knowledge of the NEA will soon realize it is more about indoctrinating students than teaching them. John Dewey was a socialist and believed math and reading should not be taught in schools. They were to socialize children. Now the fat cats in America can make money while "fixing America's STEM problem." Any doctor or engineer with similar results would be fired for malpractice.

Im not a programmer, but I do many in this field. Many job shop, too. My suggestion is to not take all you hear as gospel, but investigate. Subscribe to Rob Sanchez' "Job Destruction" newsletter at http://www.jobdestruction.com./ Join the Programmers Guild and subscribe to the newsletter at http://www.americaneconomicalert.org./ In October, 2005 Elaine Chow, Bush's Sec. of Labor held back 50,000 high tech jobs so businesses could apply for H-1B visas. In November, 2005, the Senate planned to sell 385,000 high tech jobs via H-1Bs. By the way for those, who think this is a Republican only deal know that Senator Carl Levin voted to sell those jobs as a way to help the economy. You can locate a letter in response to a resident of Oakland County, MI. If you want to program do it, but plan carefully so you are least likely to be outsourced. I suggest learning Aida, as well. I suggest watching Lou Dobbs if you're able, as well. Anyone who thinks the American economy is being dismantled as a Republican plan missed NAFTA, which is an agreement not a treaty coutesy of the Clintons.