[Ezra]

Page "Selling Haskell for CS1"

Joostena, Van Den Berga and Van Der Hoeven "Teaching functional programming to first-year students"

Chakravarty, Keller "The risks and benefits of teaching purely functional programming in first year"

Felleisen, Findler, Flatt and Krishnamurthi "The Structure and Interpretation of the Computer Science Curriculum"

You can get these all off Google Scholar. The papers listed do a good job, in my opinion, of discussing both the good and the bad of a functional approach.

When I went through school, we were taught with a myriad of languages, and when I was finishing up, they were transitioning to a more "practical" java/c++ monoculture. I think that's a bad deal for the students, personally.

Having been a tutor for a first year class teaching (a subset of) C++, I have anecdotal evidence against doing that. There are too many gotchas, and too much rainmaking to make it worthwhile, in my opinion.