I had a H.S. principal (not for my son's school) last year tell me that he thought the emphasis on foreign languages was misplaced in college requirements. When I called him on it he said that he did agree learning another language was important but that 2-3 year of H.S. classes didn't teach you fluency and that there were many more important skills students could learn in H.S. That a lot of students were missing out on other important and useful H.S. coursework because of the college language requirement.
Personally, I've found my foreign language requirement did a wonderful job of teaching me
English. Much like a fish doesn't know it's wet, an English speaker doesn't know he's conjugating commonly used irregular verbs (to be, to have) until he tries it in a foreign tongue.
And when you look at languages from the outside, you start to notice their quirks, which can be revealing about the history and culture of their speakers.
