You can apply this logic to almost all subjects in school aside from the very basic ones (math, reading/writing) and even then you can argue school need not be teaching at a high level.
> I feel like just shoving code at kids isn't going to do much unless they are also incentivized to use it somehow.
We shove kids into biology, chemistry, physics, literature, art, etc. The ones that like it will make it their career or college major. The ones that don't will forget and throw away their notes after the final. The same will happen with programming classes.
Or it could go the way of math, hated but all but the very most talented at it and generally considered boring. This has very real effects on the discipline, including a more exaggerated gender problem that CS has already inherited, and a number of extremely intelligent people are conditioned to never really give it a chance.
nuh, up to a certain point you won't learn much that's not at least interesting, save for french. And even that could help me with latin now, had I learned it better. Sure there's details only needed in a career, but that's late and kept to a minimum for obvious reasons, was for me.
The investment is the pupils choice and the rdturn on investment is debateable. You argue diminishing returns, I say scientific responsibility can be a burdon indeed, so what I really dislike is that it's forced.
> I feel like just shoving code at kids isn't going to do much unless they are also incentivized to use it somehow.
We shove kids into biology, chemistry, physics, literature, art, etc. The ones that like it will make it their career or college major. The ones that don't will forget and throw away their notes after the final. The same will happen with programming classes.