As I noted in an article Monday, the National Science Foundation wants to reform high school computer science education in America, expanding its reach and updating the curriculum to better prepare students for a 21st-century economy. Professional organizations and major technology companies, including Google, Microsoft and Intel support the broad agenda, though companies are not getting into curriculum details.

There is some reason for optimism. The Obama administration is increasing federal support for science, technology, engineering and mathematics education, or STEM programs.

But in the United States, K-12 education is a state and local affair. Any agenda for change will live and die at the level of school superintendents, teachers and parents. And computer science programs, typically elective courses, have suffered in recent years because of budget cuts and the priority given to core courses that are the basis of standardized tests.

The N.S.F. seems to have a sound strategy for elevating computer science education in high schools by collectively raising its sights. Across the board, the approach is less emphasis on the digital equivalent of shop classes — how to use PowerPoint and Excel, or do Java programming. Instead, the goal is to “teach them the magic of computing,” said Janice Cuny, program director of the foundation

This represents a return to the larger ambitions of computing education decades ago. In the early 1960s, the professors John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz developed BASIC (Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) at Dartmouth College because they thought educated people, and future leaders of America, should have some first-hand experience with computing. They were influenced by C.P. Snow’s “The Two Cultures” and the concern that the rise of computing would divide the population into two groups — those who understood the strengths and weaknesses of modern technology and those who were passively ruled by it.

In talking to education leaders, one hears echoes of that thinking. “Kids going through school today need to be more than mere consumers of this technology, to be functional and literate citizens,” said Chris Stephenson, executive director of the Computer Science Teachers Association. “And that will be true for them no matter what they become — artists, geologists, doctors, lawyers and, yes, computer scientists.”

A broader and smarter approach to high school courses, ideally, will produce more American computer scientists, but mostly it will enlarge the pool of people who understand and sample the field. “Some percentage will absolutely adore it, as in any discipline,” said Alfred Spector, vice president for research and special initiatives at Google. “But the main goal is to broaden the funnel, to show more kids the extraordinary depth of this field and all you can do with it.”

Indeed, one thing that is striking for veterans of the field is that some of the things envisioned decades ago, like artificial intelligence, machine learning and natural-language translation, are starting to move into mainstream in the Internet era.

Mr. Spector is one of those veterans. As a student at Harvard, he built some basic programming tools for the university’s computer center, which Bill Gates used to write his start-up company’s first product, Microsoft BASIC.

“Computing,” Mr. Spector said, “is far more interesting than when Bill Gates and I were students at Harvard.”