On Monday night, Ivanka tweeted the following:
In the video, Ivanka promotes a new initiative that her father and a bunch of tech companies are teaming up on: teaching kids how to code. On Monday night, Father Trump signed a memorandum that tasks the Department of Education to direct $200 million in existing funds towards STEM. In the tweet, Ivanka is showing us how cool code can be! (Her tweet has already inspired parodies.)
While directing education funding towards STEM might seem banal, many have voiced concerns about Silicon Valley’s push to gain more influence within the public school system. One career-education bill that passed in Idaho that was backed by Microsoft read, in part, “It is essential that efforts to increase computer science instruction, kindergarten through career, be driven by the needs of industry and be developed in partnership with industry.” That this industry is teaming up with the Trump administration—whose education secretary is working to dismantle public education as we know it—should be some cause for suspicion.