Because that stuff is boring and it drives away a bunch of people who might really get in to programming if there wasn't a huge gap between "just starting" and "doing anything remotely cool".
I for one would not have become a developer if my first experience with programming was a typical "CS101: Let's spend 3 months learning about loops" class, which unfortunately is many students first introduction. This class alone probably drives away half of the people who were interested in programming enough to take the class in the first place, which I find disturbing.
I spent a bunch of my free time as a kid making (really bad) web pages, (really bad) Javascript, and (really bad) PHP. Did I understand OOP, or how/why it's different than FP? Heck no. It wasn't until years later that I even took a programming course. But by the time I was ready to learn solid programming fundamentals, I'd already been bitten by the programming bug.
If I had to guess, I'd say this class is more about getting people interested in programming than it is intended to teach everything you Should Know. IMO, that's what a beginner course on any heavy material should be anyway.