What do you mean by “ancient dialect” of Java and Python? Even if they taught Java 7 and Python 2.5, it’s not a huge leap to comprehend modern language features. I’d argue that Racket is even more fast moving than either of them. I don’t think the goal is to teach “methods that are usable in industry” as much as it is to teach computer science. It’s probably easier to learn modern Python coming from old Python than it is coming from Racket anyway, but that’s completely irrelevant.

I think your second question is sound, even though it might be difficult to test. I’d be interested in the answer to it (or better, the answer to the related question of whether the students taking the Python version fare better than those taking the Racket version).