Tech companies have a long history of pitching schools on the need to adopt their curricula and tools, promising high-paying jobs for students who learn to use them. In her new book 'Coding Kids,' New York Times education technology reporter Natasha Singer details how companies embedded themselves in classrooms over the past 15 years, training students on their products and making them likely future customers. By the time many students entered the workforce, new technologies had already made those job promises questionable.
Singer specifically recounts how Apple and Microsoft each created curricula for AP Computer Science Principles classes featuring their own tools like Apple's Swift and Microsoft's Minecraft. She notes that parents would likely not accept similar corporate involvement in subjects like AP Biology, Physics, or Environmental Science, yet accepted it in computer science. Google also became a dominant education force through widespread distribution of low-cost Chromebooks.
Now, Singer warns that AI companies are approaching schools with the same playbook. She expressed concern about 'collective amnesia,' questioning whether lessons from past tech cycles in schools will inform how AI is rolled out in education and ensure proper safeguards are put in place now rather than a decade from now.