Hacker News Reader

Comment by Bostonian | Hacker News Reader

Not everyone is smart enough to be a coder. Here are some suggestive numbers.

According to the College Board, the PSAT Reading+Math test scores needed to have a 50% chance of scoring 3 or higher on the AP Computer Science A exam is 1130, and 1280 to score 4 or higher https://cb.collegeboard.org/ap-potential/app/expectancy.html... . PSAT Reading+Math test scores are comparable to SAT scores, and the average SAT score is 1060, even though SAT takers are a self-selected group. The average SAT score in West Virginia, where there are many coal miners, is 974.

View on HN

> the AP Computer Science A exam

Biden said learn to code, not learn to do advanced placement computer science.

(I still think is advice is unfortunately going to be impractical for many members of this particular group of people.)

Doesn't the APCS exam cover mostly content of a first-semester course in computer science?

I.e. if you do well, you can skip the Java intro class?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP_Computer_Science_A

> Doesn't the APCS exam cover mostly content of a first-semester course in computer science?

I don't know. So what if it does?

The advice was to learn to code, not learn to be a computer scientist. You don't need degree-level computer science in order to get a job coding.

But you probably need an Intro to Java class, which is what the AP CS exam tests. I thought you were implying that a passing AP CS score was "advanced", far beyond beginner coding.

To me, "learn to code" = Took the "Intro to Java" class (certified by passing the AP CS exam)

Whereas "CS Degree" = 15+ classes in CS, math, stats.

Advance Placement is not very "advanced". Passing AP CS simply means you learned basic Java in high school, so can skip it in college.

But is your point that there are still job opportunities for those with very basic coding skills? CS apprentice? That would be interesting.

Perhaps if previous administrations (one of which Biden was part) had properly funded education, then those coal miners would be smart enough to take him up on his career suggestion.

Tone deaf. Just tone deaf.

Biden’s comment was really quite a foolish thing to say, but he really didn’t have much to do with education spending in coal mining areas of the country. According to [1], federal funding for high schools represents around 7 or 8 percent of the total. Historically, the Federal government doesn’t fund elementary, middle, or high school education; that responsibility falls on the local and state governments.

Furthermore, funding doesn’t seem to be the problem with US schools, see [2].

[1] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cma.asp

[2] https://data.oecd.org/eduresource/education-spending.htm

The USA spends more per student on public education than any OECD country besides Norway. It’s probably not a funding problem.

Look at marginal utility of the dollars spent per student. Each additional dollar on a given student is worth less than the previous one, and since wealthy neighborhoods get 3-10x the funding, lots of their dollars are having dramatically less impact.

Gingrich proposed tweaking child labor laws to let poor students work as janitors to make the schools look close to as shiny as rich schools ( https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/11/newt-gi... ), but I think that is missing the real problem.

Not sure where you’re getting 3-10x. The discrepancy appears to be closer to 10-20% (~$11k per student in poor districts vs. ~$13k in rich districts). Are you saying there are districts that spend $30k-100k per student?

[0] https://edtrust.org/resource/funding-gaps-2018

[1] https://edbuild.org/content/23-billion#CA

Wow seems my numbers may be way off.

That’s one interesting thought. Most coal miners I’ve met didn’t want to pursue a programming career, but could have if they’d wanted to thanks to our very generous federal student loan policies. Much more likely is that those with aptitude go into chemical or petroleum engineering. Not many apples or googles in Appalachia. They aren’t exactly awash in those new service sector jobs we keep hearing about.

Is this really an education funding issue?

How many countries have successfully transformed massive adult labors to programmers? I'd like to know.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com