Python in High School

[sprad]

I'm a high school computer teacher, and I'm starting a series of
programming courses next year (disguised as "game development" classes
to capture more interest). The first year will be a gentle
introduction to programming, leading to two more years of advanced
topics.

I was initially thinking about doing the first year in Flash/
ActionScript, and the later years in Java. My reasoning is that Flash
has the advantage of giving a quick payoff to keep the students
interested while I sneak in some OOP concepts through ActionScript.
Once they've gotten a decent grounding there, they move on to Java for
some more heavy-duty programming.

I've never used Python, but I keep hearing enough good stuff about it
to make me curious.

So -- would Python be a good fit for these classes? Could it equal
Java as the later heavy-duty language? Does it have enough quickly-
accessible sparklies to unseat Flash?

I want to believe. Evangelize away.