I don't agree with your implication that finding math easy is somehow a prerequisite for high school programming classes. I found that most of my struggle in mathematics came from lack of any kind of practical application for it. By contrast, I saw programming as building something, which is directly in line with my own sense of fun. I could just as easily have been an engineer or carpenter, it's just computers that I got my hands on first. I would say it's because of this that mathematics are much easier to me when I can apply it somehow to relevant problems that I'm facing in programming.

So I argue that programming courses may actually be a good way to boost the really important stuff - literacy and mathematics. (I think everyone here would agree that literacy is an important part of being a good developer.) It's a real, practical, exciting application of these more abstract ideas.