
Hunter N. answered 09/21/19
UCLA Latin / Ancient Greek Expert with 10+ Years' Teaching Experience
I think more and more public schools, particularly charter schools, are starting to see the value of an education in Latin. That being said, I think it comes down to a few factors:
- There aren't enough qualified Latin teachers available to staff all of the open positions.
- It requires thinking outside of the box to see the advantages, e.g. studying Latin boosts SAT scores and increases one's vocabulary, improves command of English grammar and serves as a gateway to other Romance languages, makes 2,000+ years worth of literature accessible to students, etc.
- It's easier to justify learning something like French or Spanish because it's a spoken, living language (even though, in my opinion, most modern language instruction at schools is inconsistent and ineffective in its approach).
If you go to any decent sized university or liberal arts college, the odds are that they will have Latin classes on offer. Ancient Greek seems to be more rare these days. That might also have to do with the difficulty of the subject, the fact that Greek isn't connected to modern romance languages like Latin is, etc.