Education courses in BASIC remain a foundation of teacher training for computer use. Such courses do little more than re-invent programming structures that are already available in such educational programming languages (EPLs) as PILOT and TEACH. While BASIC is the only general programming language that is both simple and powerful enough to enable beginning programmers like teachers to develop software in their own content area, it typically limits them to writing simple programs with multiple-choice format answers. An EPL can generate more powerful, more flexible software in less time without requiring knowledge of a more difficult lower-level programming language. Education courses emphasizing BASIC are obsolete, and educational computing classes should be restructured toward the more versatile EPLs. Teachers, particularly in the humanities, would be better served by mastering one of these languages. BASIC remains useful to know since so many programs have been written in the language, but it should be offered at a reading-knowledge-only level in computer literacy courses. (Author/RP)