The Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) urges the inclusion of Computer Science in the K-12 Core Curricula. In my opinion, an understanding of computing and computing literacies (not just programming) is much needed:

“Computing is by far where the greatest demand for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) jobs is in today’s economy,” said Bobby Schnabel, Chair of  ACM’s Education Policy Committee.  ”But the major efforts by the Governors and the Academy to define what students should know for the 21st Century make little mention of the need for computer science in the core curriculum. This is a missed opportunity to expose students to a fundamental discipline that they will need for their careers as well as their lives.”

Read the rest of the statement here.