The America Can Code Act has been recently introduced to the US House of Representatives. It is said that it will add computer science to the list of foreign languages that are useful for US students to learn, including (I think) Spanish and French. There will be some sort of incentive for schools to teach computer science all the way through school.
What they're trying to accomplish is great! In a world full of advanced technology, most of which contains advanced programmable processors, almost anyone can benefit from knowing how it works. Of course, educators will have to choose a good learning tool to introduce the concepts - hopefully not the disaster that is Scratch. (More on that and other gripes with CS education in "Teach Real Programming, Please.") With the sudden interest in having kids learn programming, a well-thought-out curriculum will probably be developed.
I'm not sure how I would feel about the Common Core assimilating computer science into their collective. They would probably find some way to make it apply to somewhat-immediate life, but CS is such a quickly-growing field that almost any use for the things the kids are learning would be slippery. Therefore, the CC might try to teach concepts, like data hiding, polymorphism, and type systems that can't do anything on their own.
Also, nobody speaks programming. There is no level of geekness that could prompt someone to use any scripting language for verbal communication. Why did the proposers of the ACCA try to merge it with real language education? In my opinion, the education system could definitely benefit from being poked by the creation of a new subject.
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