I like the idea of After School Programming, if only because programming is a skill and like any skill the earlier you learn and the more you practice it, the better you get and the more of an advantage you have later on in life. It's like kids who do competitive swimming, gymnastics, bowling, wrestling, karate, etc. from a young age. If they stick with it, they tend to be at the highest competitive level throughout life simply because they started sooner and have more practice to develop their skill.
Many of the best programmers I've ever met were coding by middle school on their own self taught and self directed projects.