@slofstra, the meta-analysis you highlight is based on studies done in the 80s,  the subjects under study would have been primary school age in the 60s or 70s and could not have been exposed to computer programming at a young age. The value of an element of programming education in our modern world is not in question but whether it is necessary to introduce it to the general population at the expense of other subjects in their pre-teen years certainly is.