I don't agree nor disagree as such, but what I will say is that different people perceive comments in different ways. Although you mightn't have intended for the comment to cause offence, one of your classmates may have taken offence by it because they (or even one of their friends or family) have opted to go down the route of taking less academic subjects such as Art, Music, P.E, etc. Perhaps if it did cause offence, this is the reason for your comment being misconstrued?
I personally think that it is important that students choose the subjects that play to their strengths and/or interests. Larger state schools offer such a wide array of different subjects as they have the resources to do so, and in my opinion, students would be awfully foolish to choose a subject based on its reputation and/or significance, if they had absolutely no interest or understanding in the subject.
I don't profess to have a great deal of experience in the area, but I have been there and done that. My school advised Year 9 students to take a language at GCSE as it allegedly shows that you're able to learn something completely new and universities look highly on this. I absolutely hated French, as some of you will be able to remember from my previous rants in this thread (probably the V1.0 variant), and still to this day regret taking the subject. I'd have much preferred to take a "less academic" subject, such as Music, as I'd have probably achieved a better grade at the end of the day. Ultimately, the letter you get at the end of Year 11 is what matters most, and if you don't enjoy a subject, you're probably not going to achieve as good a grade as you'd like to in it.
When I was choosing my A-Level subjects, my Maths teacher told me that I was "taking the easy route" by selecting ICT, Business Studies, Media Studies and English. He, too, said that these subjects were "Mickey Mouse subjects", and that they weren't beneficial at all in later life. In his eyes, the only important A-Level subjects for those wanting to do well in life were the Sciences and Maths. I took great offence by what he said, and it's for that reason, I didn't take Maths at A-Level. I'm quite pleased that I have proven that teacher wrong: ICT and Business Studies have helped me massively so far in the workplace.
