Why MIT switched from Scheme to Python (2009)

Isn't this just part of the broader trend of CS departments switching away from teaching computer science to teaching computer engineering, which in turn is part of the more general trend of colleges becoming more vocational?

LISP dialects like Scheme are excellent for teaching pure computer science because they are the closest thing to executing lambda calculus expressions. Whereas Python is excellent for teaching applied computer engineering, because it's essentially executable pseudocode for imperative languages, and imperative languages are the most common language a computer engineer encounters in the real world.

Yes. One of the biggest complaints that computer science departments used to get from students is that they weren't learning any languages that employers are using.

I'm not so sure someone who's good with Scheme will be bad with Python or Java.

On the contrary, I suspect that such a person is likely to be better suited to build software in either of the latter two.

I also suspect that Python is not a particularly good first language for someone who aims for a professional career building software.