[mfoy_]

School is generally about pushing students to learn more about things they may or may not be good at or interested in. Surely you've heard people complain about math / chem / bio / physics and how it's hard and they don't care. Programming will just join that list of "things you should generally be aware of and have the opportunity to learn more about in high school".

As for exposure to programming: You say it's everywhere and we don't need it in school at all? Would you say that to some poor kid who doesn't have the environment at home that fosters self-teaching, or maybe even a computer at all? You do realize that some of these kids literally struggle to have breakfast each morning and here you are hand waving access to computing resources and educational material as trivial...