"In this riveting book, Natasha Singer breaks down how titans of tech used the Big Pharma playbook to push computer science and then AI literacy in schools with industry-written curriculum and high-powered marketing operations. Now that promises of high-paying jobs have fizzled, Singer breaks down the history of innovation, inequality, and industry capture that led us to this moment, and asks: what would education about technology look like if it focused on the best interests, and critical thinking skills, of today's children?" -Cathy O'Neil, author of Weapons and Math Destruction

"Through rich storytelling and rigorous reporting, Natasha Singer’s Coding Kids reveals how the new norms surrounding educational technology came into being - and who benefits from the push to get every student to study computer science. (Hint: it’s not the kids.) This is a must-read for parents, educators, and policymakers." -danah boyd, author of It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens

"Coding Kids is a necessary book for anyone trying to understand the powerful role of technology in the schools. She brings a reporter’s keen eye and writing skills to the project. She frequently notes that Big Tech has operated like Big Pharma in creating and satisfying demand for its product. And she wisely warns us that Big Tech’s goal is not typically aligned with the best interests of students." -Diane Ravitch, author of An Education and Reign of Error

"In Coding Kids, Natasha Singer reveals how tech corporations positioned themselves as education saviors. Through a clear-eyed examination of school–tech partnerships, Singer shows how urgency to incorporate AI in education has been carefully manufactured—through glossy curricula, philanthropic branding, and policy pressure—to secure corporate power, not student opportunity. Coding Kids ultimately calls on educators, parents, and policymakers to slow down, ask harder questions, and reclaim education as a public good—not a corporate proving ground." -Ruha Benjamin, author of Imagination, Viral Justice, and Race After Technology

"Essential reading. Singer is the best possible introduction for an urgent and necessary conversation about the ways technology reshapes reality. Tools are never morally, ethically, and politically ‘neutral.’ They live within the social conditions that produce them. . . . Singer’s compelling narrative provides the terms for resistance, by framing computation as a form of power that distributes attention, opportunity, and vulnerability." -Sherry Turkle, best-selling author of Reclaiming Conversation and The Empathy Diaries,