Without having much opinion on whether students American schools should reemphasize foreign language education, it seems pretty clear American students should stop learning so much French. Unless quite a few more folks than I think plan on doing development work in Africa, the absurd amount of French-language education going on in schools makes no sense. Indeed, the choices offered by most schools seem a century or so out of date. You generally get classes in Latin, French, and the type of Spanish spoken in Spain. All good things, but given that each language taught is another language not taught, why we're not throwing those resources into Chinese and a nearer dialect of Spanish baffles me.
