Obama seeks $4 billion to reboot tech education - CNET

President Barack Obama on Saturday announced a $4 billion plan aimed at making sure all kids, especially girls and minorities, get a chance to lea computer science.

The three-year initiative, called "Computer Science for All," would provide states with money to train teachers, equip classrooms and develop new classroom materials. It's part of the president's 2017 budget and would need approval of the Republican-led Congress.

"In the new economy, computer science isn't an optional skill -- it's a basic skill, right along with the three Rs," Obama said as he announced the plan in his weekly radio address. "Nine out of 10 parents want it taught at their children's schools."

And yet right now, only a quarter of kindergarten through 12th grade schools offer computer science, Obama said. Twenty-two states don't even allow it to count toward a diploma.

The initiative is just the latest to help bridge a well-documented tech education gap. In the fewer than 15 percent of all high schools that offered any Advanced Placement computer science courses in 2015, only 22 percent of those who took the exam were girls, and only 13 percent were African-American or Latino students, The White House said.