The Gifted and Talented magnet school in St. Paul now has the name Capitol Hill. I don't know if that is a successor school to the one you remember.

In general, I'm not sure how schools have been teaching reading in specific places in the relevant generations, but I would agree with the critics who say that reading could have been better taught than it usually was in school over the last few generations.

http://www.amazon.com/Why-Johnny-Cant-Read-about/dp/00609134...

http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Read-Thinking-Learning-about...

http://www.amazon.com/Overcoming-Dyslexia-Complete-Science-B...

http://www.amazon.com/Early-Reading-Instruction-Science-Brad...

Best wishes in your continued efforts to add to your technical vocabulary. I learn new words fairly regularly here on HN.

"Ph.D.s in education have put a great deal of effort into figuring out how to teach that skill to the kids who Just Don't Get It."

Actually, Ph.D.s in education have done a generally appalling job of researching how children learn to read. There are a few happy exceptions, but I would look more to Ph.D.s in linguistics or psychology (harder disciplines, and more evidence-based, than education in general) for advice on how to teach children to read.

Here are some sound resources on reading instruction:

http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Linguistic-Approach-Leonard-Bloom...

http://www.amazon.com/Language-Development-Learning-Read-Sci...

http://www.amazon.com/Overcoming-Dyslexia-Complete-Science-B...

So, yes, the problem with introducing programming into the K-12 curriculum is

a) figuring out how to teach it well to learners of that age of varying backgrounds and interest levels, and

b) figuring out what else gets crowded out of the curriculum.