Well then Chinese would be a breeze with fewer verb tenses. 
Seriously though, Italian has its own issues. More complicated possessive pronoun rules is one example. Compound tenses with avere/essere (similar to avoir/être in French) is another. Compared to that, ser/estar, por/para is heaven. However, I seriously doubt that if a student is struggling with Spanish that French or Italian would be any better. Aside from the greater opportunities to use Spanish in the US, as mentioned above, there is the risk that any less commonly taught language could be discontinued at a moment’s notice.
However, that is really off topic as there is no indication the OP’s son is struggling with Spanish or is considering a switch, only that he had a crappy teacher, which we’ve all had at one point.