Should Schools Stop Requiring Foreign Language Classes?

Hoping to free up more options for students when it comes to high school electives, the House Education Committee approved two bills in Lansing on Tuesday that would eliminate the foreign language requirement for graduation.

Plymouth-Canton Community Schools, in line with the Michigan Merit Curriculum, requires students graduating in the class of 2016 and beyond to have two credits of world language.

PCEP high schools currently offers students a choice between Spanish, German, French and Chinese.

"I think it's really, really important for our students to go into the work force being bilingual and being fluent in one other language besides English," said Kim Villarosa, Canton High School assistant principal and World Language coordinator for P-CEP high schools. "And we're really behind other countries in terms of the ability to speak more than one language."

Plymouth-Canton Schools is currently  in the process of expanding its world language program to the elementary school level. The district introduced Chinese in elementary schools this year as a pilot program. Beginning this year, fourth and fifth grade students will be exposed to all four languages taught within the district during that two-year period, according to Villarosa.

Additionally, seventh-grade middle school students are offered the option of taking Spanish as an elective and eigth-graders can take any language taught at PCEP. Depending on the numbers of students that sign up for each language, the teacher will either travel to the middle school for the class or students will be bused to PCEP to take the class there as their first hour. 

By eliminating the two-year foreign language requirement, the proposal hopes to give students not headed to college more vocational options in school, but the Michigan Department of Education opposes the bill, according to the Detroit News.

"Students, regardless of post-secondary plans, will benefit tremendously with at least one additional language to be competitive in the global marketplace," spokesman Martin Ackley said in the report. "World languages is essential for all of our students."

House Bills 4465-4466 would also modify required credits in physical education, the arts, career and technical education, science and math, according to the Livingston Daily Press & Argus.

The bill awaits a full house vote.

However, even if they pass, Villarosa is hoping it won't do anything to the world language program in Plymouth-Canton. 

"It's the school district that sets the graduation requirements - so even if the state decided that world language was no longer going to be a graduation requirement, that doesn't necessarily meant that Plymouth-Canton Schools will decide it's no longer a graduation requirement," Villarosa said.

"The state sets the bare minimum and then what we do is, we decide over and above that if there are any requirements that we want for the students in our district," she said. "And I certainly can't speak for the district, but I think that our hope in expanding the language program is to offer as many educational options to our students as we can to prepare them when they leave high school."