The Cape school district begins teaching Chinese to elementary students this year, as the Cape Gazette reports:

With the benefit of an $832,000 federal grant, Cape elementary students are preparing for an academic adventure designed to teach them Mandarin Chinese, the official language of China and the language spoken by more people on Earth than any other. Cape is the only school district in Delaware offering Chinese to its students, said Supervisor of Curriculum and Instruction Michael Kelley.
“In addition to learning to read, write and speak Chinese, our students will learn about Chinese culture and civilization – the longest sustained civilization on our planet,” said Kelley. The U.S. government determined Chinese is a foreign language that is critical for national security and commerce, he said. The Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP) grant was created to encourage schools to teach critical foreign languages.

President Bush’s National Security Language Initiative policy also gives grants to schools teaching Arabic, Farsi, Hindi, Russian and Urdu.    The Department of Defense has a hand in this too, figuring that the future will have us dealing with military enemies speaking these languages.  The government needs to start prepping the little ones at Cape now to prevent or engage future conflicts. U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings says, “This is not just an education issue; it’s an economical issue, a civic issue, a social issue, a national security issue, and it’s everybody’s issue”

 

Cape’s $832,000 is not without strings as the Gazette reports:

A condition of receiving a FLAP grant is that the recipient will strive to continue the program after the three-year grant expires. Kelley said the district is in the process of establishing a community advisory committee to provide for continuing the program.  Kelley said the district is also looking at ways to continue Chinese language classes for students who will be moving from its elementary schools to its middle schools next year.  DOE may be able to help, Kelley said, as it recently received authorization to approve visas for people who can come to Delaware from forewing nations to teach for one or two years.

…
The FLAP grant requires an equal matching investment of money spent or in-kind services but district officials predict only a minimal monetary outlay will be required to match the grant.  “The key is what we can allocate as in-kind services and resources within costs that have already been budgeted,” said Director of Business Operations Edward Seibert.  “We want to provide the in-kind match from services and facilities that are already being provided and are available,” he said.In-kind matches would include the pro-rata charge for time spent on the program by administrators, time spent using available computer resources, classroom maintenance and tuition reimbursement for the teachers of Chinese.  In addition to the in-kind matches, Kelley estimates that approximately $20,000 will be required for the purchase of classroom materials. Kelley said he believes the cash outlay will be for one-time expenditures and expects there will be no cash payments applied to the match during the second and third years of the federally funded program.
 

So this program was sold to many in the community as something that wouldn’t cost anything, but we see that is not true.  Cape needs to try and continue to pay for Chinese with local tax dollars after three years and Cape must pony up its own 832,000 dollars to make this thing work. 
I like Chinese, I like Chinese food, I even like foreign language opportunities for children, but with Cape’s budget problems of late, this is not the right time to spend on training future CIA agents.

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