Chinese may be the 'most spoken language on the planet', but it's spoken nearly exclusively within the borders of China & Taiwan. Unless they plan on opening up a Chinese restaurant it won't help any of these Chicago kids.
As I already said, this will only take away precious time that should be spent on useful, essential studies which are sorely lacking in U.S. public schools. Studying Chinese should be a college elective, (and I doubt even most colleges teach it), not a public school mandatory subject.