Press Release from Senator Pam Roach

Ways and Means Committee OKs Sen. Roach's foreign language pilot project bill

March 6, 2007

OLYMPIA…The Senate Ways and Means Committee last night approved a bill prime-sponsored by Sen. Pam Roach, R-Auburn, that would make foreign language instruction a higher priority in Washington schools.  

Substitute Senate Bill 5714 would create a two-year Spanish and Chinese language instruction pilot program in which two Washington school districts could participate. 

SSB 5714 now goes to the Senate Rules Committee, the final hurdle before a full Senate vote.  

“We’re one step closer to starting a program that could have a very positive and profound impact on Washington’s elementary schools,” Roach said. “We are one of the few nations that don’t teach a second language to elementary school students, so that puts our kids at a disadvantage. It’s time to change that. We should make learning a world language as high a priority in our elementary schools as learning math, reading and spelling.”     

Roach said individuals become more fluent and proficient at speaking a second language if they start when they are very young.  

“That’s what happens in other countries, and the results speak for themselves. Kids in elementary schools can soak up a new language like a sponge. Besides, it’s fun and something new for them to learn. Kids who learn a second language will have higher WASL scores because they will be mentally stimulated. That should matter to parents, teachers and administrators alike,” Roach said.  

For the rest of the story, follow this link.

As I have made clear on several occasions, my interest in childhood education is in part parental bias. Other biases of mine being pro-human survival and development, I think we are fools to not support education developments like this. As greater and greater evidence piles up regarding the benefits of multilingualism and the human brain, we come to a crossroads of explicitly supporting or eschewing future human potentials.

Evidence of the benefits of multi-lingualism: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.