Children (and technology) are our future, so President Obama's new Computer Science For All initiative aims to turn K-12 students in the U.S. from digital consumers to creators.
The White House is proposing that the upcoming budget include billions for computer science training in grades K-12.
"Our economy is rapidly shifting, and both educators and business leaders are increasingly recognizing that computer science (CS) is a 'new basic' skill necessary for economic opportunity and social mobility," U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith wrote in a blog post.
The president wants to allocate $4 billion for states and $100 million for school districts to train more teachers, expand access to high-quality computer science instructional materials, and build regional partnerships.
Obama also called for $135 million in computer science funding from the National Science Foundation and the Corporation for National and Community Service.
In his recent State of the Union Address, Obama said "real opportunity requires every American to get the education and training they need to land a good-paying job.
"We've increased early childhood education, lifted high school graduation rates to new highs, and boosted graduates in fields like engineering. In the coming years, we should build on that progress, by … offering every student the hands-on computer science and math classes that make them job-ready on day one."
In 2015, more than 600,000 high-paying tech jobs across the country were left unfilled; by 2018, 51 percent of all STEM jobs are expected to be in computer science-related fields. But a majority of K-12 schools in the U.S. do not offer programming and coding classes. And those who do have access to such courses are mostly white males.
The administration said Delaware, Hawaii and more than 30 school districts have already pledged to expand their CS offerings. In the private sector, Cartoon Network, Google, Apple, Facebook, Qualcomm, Salesforce.org, Microsoft, Code.org, and more have pledged will expand their computer science education-related outreach.
"Tech careers are exciting, fun, high-impact, and collaborative as well as being critical for our economy. We want all Americans to have the opportunity to be part of these teams," Smith wrote. "CS For All will help make that a reality and ensure every student has access to computer science in their classrooms at all levels."
This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.