I think there's huge value to learning Latin, but that's because it was the core language of European civilization for millennia more than because it's a gateway to English.
Ancient Greek is a very difficult language. It takes a solid decade of work to learn, and the payoff is you get to read a few - admittedly brilliant - authors. I would not automatically prefer that to being able to talk to everyone in the Spanish-speaking world - or to learning la belle langue. Also, I don't think Greek was ever learnt by the majority of pupils.
In a 1940 Massachusetts public school, my blue collar grandfather was required to take Latin, immersive French, and was graded on handwriting. Latin plus a foreign language like Mandarin, Hindi, or Spanish should be the table stakes minimum standard. English composition, creative writing, and reading classics should also be nonnegotiable essential requirements too.
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