Well yeah the opinions are biased. Teacher bias is a clear factor in success. That's the point. The second point is exactly that qualification is needed. What age group or goals do you have. hga seems to understand.
CS: Scheme and SICP or a less intense book.
WWW: Javascript (well, after I brushed up). mikeryan has the right idea here, and it probably would be a great match for a bunch of high school and even younger students.
Prior to Javascript and DHTML VB might have been a good choice for the same reason (I'm assuming the edit-compile-run cycle was fast). VB prior to VB.NET wasn't that ugly.