Because of the intense focus of the federal No Child Left Behind Act on reading and mathematics, some schools around the country have reduced the number of foreign-language courses offered or stopped teaching foreign languages altogether, says a report by the Washington-based Committee for Economic Development, a nonpartisan policy-research group made up of business and education leaders.
The report compiles information from a number of sources to make the case that to stay competitive in the global economy, schools in the United States need to do a better job of teaching cross-cultural understanding and foreign languages.
Mary Ann Zehr was an assistant editor for Education Week. Her beats included English-language learners, bilingual education, immigrants, dropouts, achievement-gap issues, and charter and private schools. She was the author of the blog Learning the Language.
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