French, German, Spanish.
Those are the foreign languages taught in the Janesville School District since the school board phased out Latin a decade ago.
But are they the most important languages for American schools to teach in the 21st century?
New school board member Tim Cullen says current offerings are perfect for the World War II era, when European powers dominated the globe along with the United States.
Today, surging economic powers of the Far East and the growing strategic importance of the Middle East have turned American educators’ heads. Chinese and other language programs are growing slowly around the country. The U.S. government is promoting the teaching of “critical languages,” including Chinese, Arabic, Farsi, Hindi and Korean.
Cullen is calling for the district to explore adding a non-European language.
“I think a kid from Janesville who can speak Chinese and have a degree in technology or engineering, they are an employable person,” Cullen said.
District administrators already were working on that idea before Cullen joined the board.
The Janesville Academy for International Studies, a program that serves small numbers of students from Craig and Parker high schools, for instance, found a teacher of Chinese who worked with a few students last year. Two other academy students studied Arabic using a software program and a local Arabic speaker who came in occasionally.
Local companies have increasingly global connections. Prent Corp., for example, has plants in China, Singapore, Malaysia and Puerto Rico.
Dan Cunningham of the local business group Forward Janesville, said the idea of offering an Asian language in local schools interests his organization.
“There’s really no question that our world is changing,” Cunningham said. "… Anything we can do to make our workforce more labor-ready to compete on a global scale is a good thing, definitely.”
Donna Behn, the Janesville School District director of instruction, has been looking for a permanent teacher of Chinese and is applying for a grant from the state Department of Public Instruction to help.
The DPI has started a program to help people with teaching degrees from China to get certified in Wisconsin, Behn said, and it’s possible Janesville could land one of those teachers after they are certified in about two years.
But whether a pilot program in Chinese or some other language becomes a choice for large numbers of Janesville students is uncertain.
When the idea of expanding language options was proposed at last week’s school board meeting, two school board members questioned the wisdom of adding new programs during a district budget crisis.
The board cut programs and positions for the coming school year, and if no help is forthcoming from the state, officials expect another round of cuts for 2008-09.
Board member DuWayne Severson said he was surprised the administration would propose adding a foreign language because relatively few students would benefit. Programs cut in the latest budget affected far more students, Severson said.
Behn said funding is one of the hurdles the district would have to overcome: “That’s always a challenge when you bring in something new and budget cuts are looming. We may need to look at what we can give up.”
Other alternatives may be to phase in a new language over several years, and consideration should be given to starting a program in the middle or even elementary schools, Behn said.
Those are all “big questions that we need to explore this year,” Behn said.
What about dropping one of the current languages in order to make room for a new one?
Some board members mentioned that possibility, Behn said, but “I’m not sure that’s the way to go. Those languages have been well established in the district for a long, long time.”
Grant expands opportunities for foreign-language studies
One local measure of the federal government’s interest in expanding foreign-language learning is a $110,000 grant Beloit College received this year.
The grant allows high school students at least 17 years old to study Chinese or Arabic for free at the college’s intensive study programs this summer.
The grant is one of 34 nationwide from the government’s STARTALK grant program.
STARTALK is part of a National Security Language Initiative launched by the Bush administration last year, according to the University of Maryland’s National Foreign Language Center, which administers the program.
The $4.8 million STARTALK program is funded by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the U.S. Department of Defense.
STARTALK’S spending is expected to grow to $20 million per year in 2010, according to a Beloit College news release.
