Schools Cut Foreign Language Programs

How can we expect our children to compete globally without a knowledge of other languages and cultures?

Great quote from ACTFL Director, Mary Abbot: “In many cultures, a lot of business does not get done around the business table, it gets done in side conversations and social situations,” said Marty Abbott, director of education for the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and a former high school Spanish and Latin teacher. “If you can’t participate in those discussions, you get left out.”

Foreign Languages Fall as Schools Look for Cuts
Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times


By WINNIE HU
Published: September 11, 2009
IN Edgemont, a high-performing Westchester school district, children as young as 7 could recite colors and days of the week in Spanish, but few if any learned to really converse, read or write. So this fall, the district canceled the Spanish lessons offered twice weekly at its two elementary schools since 2003, deciding the time and resources — an estimated $175,000 a year — could be better spent on other subjects.


Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times
The software replaced three teachers.
Class consolidation in Yonkers resulted in the loss of four foreign-language teaching positions, and budget cuts have cost Arlington, N.Y., its seventh-grade German program, and Danbury, Conn., several sections of middle school French and Spanish.

And in New Jersey, the Ridgewood district is replacing its three elementary school Spanish teachers with Rosetta Stone, an interactive computer program that cost $70,000, less than half their combined salaries.

“There’s never a replacement for a teacher in the classroom,” said Debra Anderson, a Ridgewood spokeswoman. “But this was a good solution in view of the financial constraints.”

After years of expanding language offerings, suburban districts across the New York region are now cutting back on staff and instructional time, phasing out less popular languages, and rethinking whether they can really afford to introduce foreign tongues to their youngest students while under constant pressure to downsize budgets and raise achievement in English and other core subjects.

But such cuts have dismayed and frustrated some educators and parents, who say that children need more, not fewer, foreign language skills to compete in a global marketplace.

“In many cultures, a lot of business does not get done around the business table, it gets done in side conversations and social situations,” said Marty Abbott, director of education for the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and a former high school Spanish and Latin teacher. “If you can’t participate in those discussions, you get left out.”

Foreign languages play an increasingly prominent role in urban schools that serve diverse ethnic communities. For instance, the New York City schools offered courses in Haitian-Creole, Vietnamese, and Portuguese last year, and opened the first public school dedicated to Arabic language and culture in Brooklyn in 2007. Last week, the city’s first Hebrew-language charter school opened, also in Brooklyn.

Advocates for foreign-language instruction would like to see the lessons integrated into the core curriculum rather than treated as electives easy to ax at budget time. They also say that instruction should begin as early as possible — ideally in preschool — because academic research shows that younger children are more accepting of other cultures and better able to master the pronunciation and intonation of foreign words. Some even contend that learning a foreign language can foster cognitive skills that lead to higher standardized test scores in other subjects.

On Long Island, more than 200 residents of Long Beach signed petitions over the summer opposing the district’s decision to phase out a dual-language English-Spanish program at Lido Elementary School that had served as a model for other districts.

“I think it’s a terrible shame,” said Sebastian Arengo, a software engineer, whose 6-year-old twin daughters are in the program. “It’s at the right age for kids to speak both languages, and it’s also a great way to bring the English-speaking and Spanish-speaking communities together here in Long Beach.”

Robert Greenberg, superintendent of the 4,000-student Long Beach district, said that the program had been created mainly to help Spanish-speaking students learn English through bilingual classes, but that it has evolved into an immersion program for those who want to learn Spanish. “I have Latino families wanting me to teach their children Spanish, but that’s not the intent of the program,” he said.

Separate from the dual-language program, the district has provided 90 minutes a week of Spanish instruction to all kindergarten and first-grade students since 2007, and plans to expand that program by one grade every year. “We made an instructional decision that we’re teaching all children Spanish rather than a few,” he said.

Many superintendents say they remain committed to teaching languages, but simply cannot afford to do more at this time. In Rockland County, the 9,400-student Clarkstown district spent about $60,000 last year to hire a full-time Spanish teacher for one of its 10 elementary schools but postponed plans to do the same at the other schools this fall “until we determine the economy is getting better,” said Meg Keller-Cogan, the superintendent.

In Connecticut, the New Hartford district cut its one foreign language teacher at Ann Antolini Elementary School from full time to three days a week to save $35,000. Fewer hours mean that Spanish will no longer be taught to third and fourth graders. “It was just for budget reasons and it was a very painful decision,” said Philip O’Reilly, the superintendent, adding that other staff members had hours reduced — and two were laid off — to cut costs.

Some educators said they were re-evaluating foreign-language programs not just because of finances but to update them and incorporate new technology. The Ridgewood district, which started twice-weekly Spanish lessons at its elementary schools in 2005, said its interactive software, made by Rosetta Stone, allows students to learn at their own pace.

The 10,400-student Arlington district decided to phase out German — leaving Spanish, French and Italian — because it was the least popular choice among students; last year, 44 seventh graders enrolled in introductory German compared to more than 300 in Spanish. The district also phased out Russian more than a decade ago.

“It was a low-fill, high-cost area of instruction, and if that wasn’t taken, something else would have been,” said Frank V. Pepe Jr., the superintendent.

The district will continue to require every student to study a foreign language in seventh and eighth grade; nearly a quarter of all students study a language through their junior or senior year, according to district officials.

“I’m not pleased we eliminated German,” Mr. Pepe said. “I’m not pleased at all.”