Study: Iowa lags in world language education

For rural Iowa school districts struggling to sustain foreign language classes, there is a program that brings teachers from Spain to instruct in small schools. Other teens must enroll in online courses or at community colleges if they want to learn a new language.

Those efforts and others help maintain world language programs in Iowa's K-12 schools, but advocates say more should be done to promote biliteracy so students can compete in an increasingly global economy.

Slightly more than 15 percent of Iowa's K-12 students were enrolled in a foreign language course in 2014-15, according to a comprehensive report published by the American Councils for International Education and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.

That figure put Iowa 35th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia in the percentage of students learning a world language.

Meanwhile, numerous other Midwestern states, such as Wisconsin (No. 3), Michigan (No. 11) and Minnesota (No. 19), all had a higher percentage of students learning a foreign language. 

"I'd love to see Iowa leading the way," said Jason Noble, president of the Iowa World Language Association, which represents foreign language teachers and professors in the state.

More than 36 percent of Wisconsin K-12 students were enrolled in language courses during the 2014-15 school year, the report found. In part, that total could be due to state regulations.

Wisconsin requires schools to offer foreign language courses starting in seventh grade. Iowa requires it starting in high school. Iowa students are not required to take foreign language coursework to graduate, although some school districts or programs individually choose to require it.

In addition, Wisconsin urges schools to begin language instruction as early as possible. In Iowa, it's rare for elementary schools to offer language instruction, and in middle school it may be a quarter-long or semester-long introduction class instead of a full course, said Stefanie Wager, a consultant with the Iowa Department of Education.

Larger districts typically offer more robust programs, which Noble said highlights Iowa's rural-urban divide.

In Des Moines, seven language courses are offered at the high school level, including Italian, Japanese and Arabic. And in elementary schools that participate in the International Baccalaureate program, all students study Spanish or Chinese.

“I think we would love to grow the (language) programs,” said David Johns, director of the International Baccalaureate schools in Des Moines. “Nobody with a straight face is talking about adding programs in schools. Everything is a trade-off, financially.”

Districts cut back 

From teacher shortages to budget challenges, some districts are being forced to cut back on foreign language programs.

In 2015, West Des Moines decided to phase out its Japanese program and roll back Spanish classes in elementary schools, citing budget shortfalls.

Other schools offer Spanish as the only language option.

About 84 percent of Iowa students studying a foreign language in 2014-15 were learning Spanish, the June report found. 

Many students have Spanish-speaking friends or have visited Spanish-speaking countries, upping interest, Johns said. It's also an attractive option for Hispanic students who may know how to speak Spanish, but cannot read or write in the language.

Yet with an increasingly global economy, learning languages such as Chinese, Russian or Arabic can prove useful, even instrumental to a student's future, Noble said. 

"I think the case can be made for other languages being pragmatic, but the perception is that Spanish is the most," he said.

Raising expectations

Iowa education advocates want to raise the prestige of learning a foreign language by creating a special recognition on high school diplomas.

Twenty-six states and the District of Columbia have adopted what's known as the Seal of Biliteracy, which is placed on a diploma after a student demonstrates proficiency in English and another language by taking a test. 

Iowa lawmakers considered the seal this past legislative session, but it did not become law. Advocates are hopeful it will soon.

Noble said the seal would award a student's academic success, as well as formally recognize immigrant students who are fluent in a language they speak at home, such as Vietnamese or Bosnian.

“That communicates so much more than having a couple of language courses on your transcript,” Johns said.

Iowa's checkered past

Despite recent efforts to elevate language learning, Iowa has a tainted history of language education, following a political backlash during World War I, said David Johnson, a professor at the University of Iowa.

German immigrants formed strong communities here, including bilingual schools. But near the end of the war, in 1918, then-Gov. William Harding signed the "Babel Proclamation," which outlawed all foreign languages in many settings — including instruction in public and private schools.

That "silencing" of bilingual education had a devastating effect, despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling just a few years later, in 1923, that overturned a Nebraska law restricting foreign language education. 

By the 1930s some German language programs resumed in Iowa schools, but never to the extent it once was, Johnson said. 

Immersion programs growing

Today, only a handful of Iowa's public and private schools offer full- or part-time language programs, where classes such as math or social studies are taught in another language, Noble said.

It's unclear how many immersion programs exist in Iowa, since the Department of Education does not track them.

Yet across the country, such programs are growing in popularity. 

In 2000, an estimated 260 dual language programs were offered in U.S. schools when then-U.S. Education Secretary Richard Riley called for a nearly four-fold increase.

“We need to invest in these kinds of programs,” Riley said at the time. “In an international economy, knowledge, and knowledge of language, is power.”

By 2011, more than 2,000 such immersion programs were offered across the nation, surpassing Riley's original goal, according to the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Parents are often eager to enroll students; there's a wait list each year at Pella Christian School, which has a Spanish immersion program, said Noble, a teacher and parent at the school.

It's not just the practical benefits of being able to communicate in a second language that draws families to the program, he said.

"Learning world languages gives you empathy for speakers who don't speak English. It helps students create a cross-cultural awareness that you can't get any other way."

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