I think your misconstruing the purpose of these initiatives.
The purpose is not to turn the kids into programmers at a young age. The purpose is to EXPOSE them to the world of programming.
You're not going to make coders out of them in elementary or middle school. But you might make them more INTERESTED in pursuing further programming education in say high school. Mission accomplished.
Agreed. The fact that I could be a programmer clicked for me only because I made pretty complex TI-89 calculator programs and games in HS. I thought I was just dicking around, but later I was like "wait, this is programming? I've done this before!"
The purpose is not to turn the kids into programmers at a young age. The purpose is to EXPOSE them to the world of programming.
You're not going to make coders out of them in elementary or middle school. But you might make them more INTERESTED in pursuing further programming education in say high school. Mission accomplished.