Chess has analogies to real-life situations, and if you played a lot of chess in school (I did - high school age, after school, mostly) you find it very helpful. And even all these years later and not playing chess often, I still find it helpful, in at least verbalizing challenges or articulating real-world puzzles I'm trying to solve.

I agree with Dick. It doesn't need to be a huge part of the curriculum, but it wouldn't hurt as an elective, at some point through the K-12 experience.