First, running Perl on Windows is a PITA. Just to compile a module with a XS component is a major hassle. Everything works so much better on Linux, so your first priority should be to get the school to switch to Linux ( or a variant). That way you get free, easy to use C and C++ compilers, then Perl just naturally falls into place.

As far as Perl being taught as a first language, the concensus amoung the "professionals" is it is not good, because it uses alot of "shortcuts" to make things easy; and a beginner will assume that those are standard methods in programming.

I, on the other hand, am a 'big-picture person'. I like to get results, then if needed, delve into the details. So I say Perl is the IDEAL first language, because the student will get "immediate gratification" that he/she can do something useful with a program, besides adding 2 + 2. Within a few months, a students can be connecting to email servers, writing Tk gui's, and all the other cool stuff they want to do.

Then, when they start asking about "speed", you introduce them to C. Then they are off to a good start, because you gave them a language Perl, which they can take with them the rest of their lives to write simple useful scripts. Plus Perl closely parallels C, with it's inner workings, as far as system innards are concerned, so they get an "easy to use" head start into systems programming.

So "linux, Perl,C" is the way to create a generation of students to compete with the people in India. Otherwise, the US is going to fall behind the rest of the world, who are dumping Windows as fast as they can, and moving forward on solid ground with Unix variants.

Anyone can install and use Windows at home if they want, but it is a dirt poor system to train programmers on. On the other hand, MSWindows makes it easy to spy on people, so maybe the government and schools have a "secret agenda" in pushing it.