As for the State of Michigan, one doesn't study a foreign language (in public schools) until High School - usually 9th or 10th grade. Granted, there might be some exceptions where a school is able (financially) to introduce it in Middle School, but those are rare exceptions. Foreign language is currently an elective for students, but recently our governor made it a requirement. This requirement is put into effect for all students that will graduate by 2016 (current 3rd graders) and after. The usual languages offered are Spanish, French, & Latin.
In every state I've been to, there are no foreign language programs until at the earliest 8th grade. Speaking for myself, I took 4 years of high school Spanish, starting in 8th grade. Generally, foreign language is not a requirement for graduation in most states. New York, however, has three types of high-school diplomas, the highest of which does require 3 years of foreign language, plus passing a proficiency test. The most common languages I have seen in public schools are (in order) Spanish, French, Latin, German. Others languages offered depend largely on the school district and region of the count (in NY state, for example, there are apparently schools offering Russian, Chinese, Italian, Polish, Hebrew, and Albanian, all of which can be used for the high-school language proficiency exams).
