Youngkin Welcomes Google in Schools, Touts New Partnership with Big Tech

Governor Youngkin joined Google executives this week in Northern Virginia, where the tech giant has built massive offices and data centers in recent years, to publicly unveil Google’s new $300 million investment in Virginia. The investment includes the construction of more data centers, which already dot Virginia’s landscape and have become a hot button issue in the mostly rural areas they’re being placed in as residents wonder exactly what their community is getting out of welcoming in big tech.

In addition to further data center construction and an expansion of business operations in Virginia, Google seems to have effectively bought a seat at the table of Virginia’s schoolchildren, something that is quickly raising alarms among parent activists who have been fighting to push the radical left out their kids’ schools, not bring them back in.

Included in Google’s massive investment is a $250,000 grant to the Richmond-based nonprofit CodeVA to establish computer science lab schools and expand tech training opportunities for both teachers and students. Additionally, the investment brings Google into a partnership with Virginia’s community colleges and career and technical training schools to provide professional certification training to high schoolers and others. Google, “will make sure our kids are not only college ready but career ready,” says Governor Youngkin.

“Google’s investment of $300 million in VA & a CodeVA partnership is an exciting step for workforce development & computer science opportunities for Virginia’s students,” Youngkin posted to Twitter along with photos of himself celebrating the deal with Google executives. “Now, the general assembly must act to move forward with innovation schools to maximize these great partnerships,” Youngkin went on in saying, encouraging Virginia’s state legislature to further Google’s newfound influence over Virginia schools even more.

Conservative commentator and frequent exposer of Big Tech’s far-left agenda, Michelle Malkin, blasted Governor Youngkin on Twitter for welcoming Google into Virginia schools, saying that the Governor, who won office in 2021 thanks to the momentum of parents opposed to Critical Race Theory and pro-trans school policies, has sold out to an American worker-replacing, globalist corporation that propagates the very ideologies Virginians opposed at the ballot box.

“What is the point of getting rid of CRT in Virginia schools if you are just going to sell out to woke, diversity-pimping, behavioral-profiling, American worker-replacing, child data-mining, privacy sabotaging Google/Big Tech in the name of ‘innovation’?” Malkin posted to Twitter, retweeting Youngkin’s Google announcement.

For years, Google has been forcing its own employees to sit through aggressive Critical Race Theory “training” sessions and has widely adopted pro-trans policies, like abolishing gender-specific bathrooms in many of their workplaces and having employees publicly list their “preferred pronouns.” While their American operations appear warm, fuzzy, and liberal, Google puts on a different face when doing business in Communist China, long being accused of directly aiding the nation’s tyrannical regime in genocide and mass surveillance.

Google has also spent years advocating for the direct replacement of American workers, being among the biggest cheerleaders for the temporary work Visa programs that have displaced Americans, who are often forced to train their foreign replacements before leaving their jobs.

National File reached out to Governor Glenn Youngkin for comment on Virginia’s new Google ties, asking him why he would welcome far-left big tech into Virginia schools and if is at all concerned with the company’s extremely close ties to Communist China, but received no response by the time of its publishing.

What is the point of getting rid of CRT in Virginia schools if you are just going to sell out to woke, diversity-pimping, behavioral-profiling, American worker-replacing, child data-mining, privacy-sabotaging Google/Big Tech in the name of "innovation"? https://t.co/LH5IM549VD
— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) April 19, 2022

Someone’s getting paid off.

I retired from teaching at a small rural school eleven years ago, but I still occasionally sub there. I am gobsmacked by how big Google is the school.

It seems as if the lessons are presented on something called Google Classroom. Every kid is equipped with a Chromebook and many if not most assignments are done on the Chromebook and turned in, I think to Google Classroom. I don’t really know, because as a sub I don’t have access to either the lessons or how the kids did on them. Each kid and class has a unique code to allow them get into Google Classroom

Now, it may well be that the teachers, knowing there will be a sub may fill the day’s assignments to make it easier for the sub, but I still sub because I actually still enjoy teaching, and this new system makes that difficult.

How much Google is charging for all of this, I have no idea. I find it hard to believe that they are doing it all for free. What Google does with all of the information that it is gathering from all of the schools participating, I have no idea. Actually, Google likely has a much better idea of what is being taught and how well kids are learning than any other organization in the country.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.