Foreign-Language Programs Stung by Budget Cuts

From http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/06/01/33language.h30.html?tkn=WTWFchcOQRKDxrojrffGc%2F0CywCl7dEc7+5Y&cmp=clp-edweek

Foreign-Language Programs Stung by Budget Cuts
By Mary Ann Zehr
June 1, 2011

Congress substantially reduced funds to support the teaching of foreign languages to K-12 and college students in the budget deal struck for fiscal 2011.

Foreign-language advocates are relieved, though, that the $27 million Foreign Language Assistance Program authorized by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which gives grants directly for K-12 programs that teach languages deemed critical to U.S. security and economic needs, emerged from the budget talks unscathed.

The 14 small programs in the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 that support language and international education, authorized by the Title VI and Fulbright-Hays sections of the law, were funded at $126 million in fiscal 2010. They weren’t mentioned in the 2011 budget legislation approved by Congress in April, but a chart of the cuts in the 2011 budget posted on the website of the House Appropriations Committee said that those programs could receive a cut of $50 million, or 40 percent of their budgets. The final budget released last month showed the programs will be funded with nearly $76 million in fiscal 2011, which means that the U.S. Department of Education agreed to the 40 percent cut.

Read the full article at http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/06/01/33language.h30.html?tkn=WTWFchcOQRKDxrojrffGc%2F0CywCl7dEc7+5Y&cmp=clp-edweek