How Silicon Valley pushed coding into American classrooms

New York

AT A recent White House gathering of tech titans, Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple, delivered a blunt message to President Donald Trump on how public schools could better serve the nation's needs. To help solve a "huge deficit in the skills that we need today", Mr Cook said, the government should do its part to make sure students learn computer programming.

"Coding should be a requirement in every public school," Mr Cook told the president. The Apple chief's education mandate was just the latest tech company push for coding courses in schools. But even without Mr Trump's support, Silicon Valley is already advancing that agenda - thanks largely to the marketing prowess of Code.org, an industry-backed nonprofit group.