You make a lot of interesting points.<p><i>It's teaching us to hate the 'mandatory' subjects, because everyone has to take them, and thus the teachers can't teach it well because 3/4 of their classes are utterly uninterested.</i><p>I ran into this as well.  I was fortunate in having a high school with a high percentage of AP classes and those were much closer to collage classes than high school classes.  But remember in college they have mandatory courses too.<p>If a course in high school is mandatory it means that someone has decided it is beneficial for most of society to understand that subject and I disagree with some of the details, but there is obvious benefit to having an educated society.<p>One way to at least help alleviate what you are describing is to offer more classes, more AP style classes, develop cooperatives with local community colleges so some students can take classes there instead of at the high school, and to let people test out of classes if they have already mastered the subject.<p><i>This is even harder to argue with, because of the "most". I guess it's that old argument: would you rather allow the more gifted to excel, or everyone be held at the same level (with that level being slightly higher than had you went with the other option)? </i><p>You can allow the gifted(loaded term, but that is a different topic) to excel while ensuring everyone has every opportunity and incentive to meet the minimums.  They are not mutually exclusive.<p>The sticking point of course is that to do that we would need a lot more resources in the education system than we have now, but I think that as a society we should spend a lot more on education.<p><i>My point: in almost all places in the USA, other languages are useless.</i><p>I think that is going to far, but I would agree with in the US another language is of limited value.  And for an English speaker, you will find a relatively high percentage of people in most other countries speak at least some English.<p>But, as the original article pointed out, learning a second language helps develop your mind.  It can also give you better perspective on another culture.<p>It is the ancillary benefits that are highly valuable rather than the skill itself for most English speakers.