Improving Language Study in the US

As with so many Bush initiatives, what is described in glowing terms turns out to be considerably less if not the opposite of what is claimed. The following is from the 1-23-06 New Republic.

At a conference of American university presidents on January 5, Bush unveiled his National Security Language Initiative, a much-needed scheme to attract more American students to the study of "critical languages" like Arabic, Farsi, and Korean. To gauge the likely impact of the plan, let's play a little numbers game. Number of additional students who will study foreign languages on Gilman and Fulbright scholarships under the new initiative: about 350. Number of military linguists sacked between fiscal years 1994 and 2003 for being gay: 322 (see Nathaniel Frank, "Stonewalled," January 24, 2005). Amount of money designated to support critical language study in K-12 schools through the Department of Education's Foreign Language Assistance Program under the new initiative: $24 million. Amount of money requested for fiscal year 2006 to fund abstinence-only education in those same schools: $206 million--$39 million more than the year before.