Will Scarsdale Be Part of 1 Million Strong?

This letter was sent to Scarsdale10583 by Mayra Kirkendall-Rodríguez, a Fox Meadow parent who is part of a group called The Mandarin Team, that is encouraging the Scarsdale Board of Education to widen language choice in Scarsdale schools.

Last week's Chinese President Xi Jinping's official state visit to the United States generated significant media attention, because of the numerous important trade, cybersecurity, and national security issues on the agenda. What was unexpected and generated less media coverage was that Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO held a meeting with the Chinese president speaking entirely in Chinese. Speaking a foreign language can be taxing to most Americans, but speaking a language that bears no resemblance at all to English, especially to the leader of the world's second largest economy is certainly an admirable feat.

As the meetings with President Xi Jinping closed, President Obama launched an ambitious national initiative, '1 Million Strong,' a plan to increase the number of Mandarin speakers in the US to 1 million by 2020. Currently only about 200,000 students in the United States study Mandarin nationwide. In comparison, there are about 350 million Chinese students currently studying English.

As I analyzed the initiative's components, I could not help but wonder, whether Scarsdale can be part of the 1 Million Initiative. This US government initiative has the objective of creating a standardized and comprehensive national Chinese curriculum, but that would be flexible enough for local school boards to adapt it. The initiative will also promote language learning technology and online investment, promote investment in teachers colleges, and establish a consortium of governors to support learning in US public schools.

President Obama stated that 'if our countries are going to do more around the world, then speaking each other's language, truly understanding each other, is a good place to start.'
Understanding foreign cultures, especially that of the largest country in the world is certainly very important for Americans. Additionally, however, there is significant demand for foreign language speakers in the US. For example, Wanted Analytics, a recruiting company, currently has 85,000 job postings nationwide in a variety sectors of the US economy such as education, finance, healthcare, the military, retail, and science. About 40% of the demand is for Spanish speakers; the second most in demand language is French, followed closely by Mandarin, and subsequently in order by demand Japanese, Portuguese, German, Russian, Korean, Arabic, and Italian.

For Americans interested in working in the State Department, National Security Agency, CIA, select groups within all military branches or the FBI, languages that are of particular interest are Bahasa Indonesian, Farsi, Mandarin, Swahili, and Urdu.

Not only is there significant demand for foreign language speakers in the US, individuals who speak foreign languages can command a higher salary than those who only speak English. Albert Saiz, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania, and Elena Zoido, an economist at the consulting group LECG , published a study comparing wage premia for American college graduates who spoke Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian and Chinese as a second language. Unsurprisingly, the laws of demand and supply reign. Because there are many more Spanish speakers in the US, speaking that language only added about 2% more to a salary than that earned in an equivalent position by a monolingual American. French commanded an average of a 3% premium, while German, Italian, Russian and Chinese were more valuable, translating into an average 4% higher.
I am very pleased that in October, the Scarsdale Board of Education will be sending out two World Language surveys to Scarsdale parents of elementary and middle school parents.

The first one will be focused on asking us what additional languages should be taught at the middle school level; presently students are limited to only taking one of two languages, French or Spanish. The second survey will ask us what languages should be added to the high school language curriculum, which presently includes, French, Latin, Mandarin, and Spanish. We cannot say that we have a World Language program in Scarsdale, when the emphasis is disproportionately on Romance languages and practically nothing from the other language families.

In Scarsdale we are incredibly lucky to have a high level of educated and committed parents, educators, administrators, and members of the board. I have no doubt that in the not too distant future, the next American who will speak Mandarin fluently with a high level politician, business person, or scientist in China could very well be a Scarsdalian.

Mayra Kirkendall-Rodríguez is a member of the Fox Meadow Multicultural committee and is in a group of Scarsdale parents, The Mandarin Team, encouraging the Board of Education to widen language choice in Scarsdale schools.