Learning computational thinking and its language, various forms of computer code, needs to be elevated to the same level of importance as reading as writing, lest we risk perpetuating inequality in public education, argues Tasneem Raja in her Mother Jones article.Raja writes:
"In other words, computational thinking opens doors. For while it may seem premature to claim that today every kid needs to code, it's clear that they're increasingly surrounded by opportunities to code—opportunities that the children of the privileged are already seizing. The parents of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg got him a private computer tutor when he was in middle school. Last year, 13,000 people chipped in more than $600,000 via Kickstarter for their own limited-edition copy of Robot Turtles, a board game that teaches programming basics to kids as young as three. There are plenty of free, kid-oriented code-learning sites—like Scratch, a programming language for children developed at MIT—but parents and kids in places like San Francisco or Austin are more likely to know they exist."
http://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/06/computer-science-programming-code-diversity-sexism-education