(This is my final draft of the Synthesis essay with my opinion on foreign language education in the United States, composed of others’ perspectives.)

Unequal Tongues

There are 7,159 languages currently spoken in the existing world. In all of history, about 31,000 languages have ever been spoken¹. Language is a complex concept that connects people from culture to culture. But it is not universally shared. In modern days, we learn our native language at home, and a secondary language generally in school. Typically, in the United States, our second language is learned in high school. But it is not always an equal experience. Some high schools offer one or two options as a secondary language. Others are able to offer a large variety. Teachers can be dedicated- some care very deeply about the language they are teaching about, and put the maximum amount of time and effort into it. Or they can be disinterested and careless, and not really put in any work into their kids or the topic. This, however, mirrors a broader mindset. Some students have access to a rich introduction to languages and cultures, especially with higher amounts of wealth. Others are left behind with so-so teachers and minimal options. Both academically and in the real world, language is a skill, a tool, power, and a privilege- not equally provided to all.

To begin with, education is not equal. Neither are schools. It is more than likely that the richer an area is, the more affluent the school and its classes will be. This is determined by local property taxes- the higher they are, the higher the school’s funding is. Of course, richer schools can afford to provide many languages classes- French, Latin, Chinese. Schools with less funding in poorer areas, however, can only afford one, maybe two languages, and few language teachers. “Foreign Language Annals”, a relatively recent study by Rhodes and Pufahl, claim that “foreign language offerings in U.S. public schools have been in a steady decline leading up to 2010, especially in underfunded districts, leaving a significant gap in linguistic access between high and low income communities”². This means that lower income schools not only offer few language classes, but they also don’t offer many advanced ones either. This means that while students may take to learning these languages, they might not even be able to advance. This connects to the bigger issue of educational inequality. Wealthier and affluent communities offer not only a bigger variety of classes, but more advanced classes as well. Poorer students have to make do. Language mirrors privilege- the more well off you are raised into, the more resources you are given to connect globally. Students from a poorer background might have the same aptitude, interest, and skill in language, but due to the inequality of the stream, they cannot afford it. In “From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools” by Gloria Ladson-Billings, “We do not have an achievement gap; we have an education debt”³. She explains that the history of this is a mix of many ‘debts’– the Historical Debt, the Economic Debt, the Sociopolitical Debt, and the Moral Debt. Historically, white students with more monetary wealth, also gain linguistic knowledge, a sort of cultural currency. Not every student can afford it, making it an educational inequality.

Schools do not truly treat the study of language seriously. Often, they are second rate classes, often to the core four- history, mathematics, english, and science- or to STEM classes. As these classes have come into priority, the studies of language have continued to become more and more discredited. There is a heavy focus on test scores in main subjects, which moves attention away from non-core subjects like foreign languages. In fact, over the years, funding towards language classes has declined, and with it, the offering of a variety of language classes. Languages like German, Chinese, and Latin are not commonly offered. That is, of course, if the school did not already have surplus money to use. As these languages die out in schools, it begins to raise the question– is there really any point to learning a language in school? 

If it is really considered, filtering out language as a class in general may seem like a good idea. Many schools are underfunded, leaving subpar teachers to teach the language classes. Alternatively, it could be that language teachers are made to overwork themselves- from personal experience, the whole 9th grade and 10th grade had 2 teachers spread between them, and the 11th grade and 12th grade 1 each. Each grade has 200-300 kids in it, which is a ridiculous spread. In fact, lower funded schools face teacher retention issues, as the unequal pay to work value leads them to search for better, more fulfilling work⁴. And this means language teachers feel overworked– they aren’t able to put as much effort or care into their lessons, and this shows and reflects on the kids. Essentially, the system sets language teachers up to fail with lack of resources, training, and support– if you’re teaching 500 kids across multiple grades, it makes it hard to give specialized, interesting work or devote time to impassioned students. And it is not that students lack interest in language; most go in excited about the prospect, as knowing multiple languages is a lucrative skill. What they react to is a boring curriculum, the lack of genuinity– they give as much as they get, and become disinterested. Administrators see a lack of support and enthusiasm, and use this to cut programs further, and the issue persists.

There would be many benefits money wise to phasing out language classes in the United States. Students lack interest in them, STEM and core subjects should be priority, there’s less money to go around, and English is the most widely spoken language in the world. Hypothetically, shouldn’t that be enough? If language classes are becoming obsolete, shouldn’t energy be funneled to aiding classes that “matter more”? Many people are beginning to believe it. They say languages are poorly taught and poorly learned in school, and out of school, they lose any knowledge quickly⁵, and that a few hours in a class every week is a poor place to learn a new language⁶. But the real world is simply not that concrete. The United States is lagging behind globally in language proficiency in schools, and that is not a benefit. “Several U.S. cities associated with the Brookings Institution’s Global Cities Initiative are now examining the strategic value of local language capacities in attracting such investment, and researchers are now finding evidence that businesses across the country will offer higher salaries to bilingual employees”⁷. This means that being multilingual is a serious pro in both the workforce and life– bilingual workers usually earn more money. The knowledge of a second language imparts skill in all of academics, and with our increasingly connected world, we need to know multiple languages to properly understand and respect others’ cultures. If our country stagnates ourselves by only caring to teach kids one language in school, it’ll lead to cultural isolation and lack of outside and global understanding and connection. It would also be the poorer schools having these programs get cut first, whereas wealthier schools will always have more access to different cultures and interests. It would lead to language proficiency being a privilege, something only the wealthier has access to– the opposite goal of public schools/education.

Continuing on that point, when referring to specific cases, the emphasis on foreign language education has a stark difference in private and public schools. I come from the district of Yonkers, and I went to the public Yonkers Middle High School. It is the second best public school in all of Yonkers⁸. As previously mentioned, it did not perform very highly in terms of foreign language education. We carried the following courses: Spanish 9, Italian 9, Spanish 10, Italian 10, IB Spanish 11/12 A Lit. and B, IB Italian 11/12 B and Ab. However, the IB classes were not required. Between those 12 classes– as of my graduating class of 2025– we had 6 teachers. Only two Italian teachers, and some of the Spanish teachers stuck to only teaching a specific class, meaning some had more than others. To add to that, Spanish or Italian 9/10 was mandatory, meaning those teachers (2-3 in total) got the brunt of the work. For that reason, I and many others from my school stopped doing a language after 10th grade. Personally, I enjoy the facets of another language, but the teaching manner at my school was so subpar and generalized that I dreaded the class. In a separate case, there is the Iona Preparatory School. A private, Catholic school, many young men I knew went there for their high school years. As a stark difference, they have Italian/Spanish/Latin 1, Introduction to Latin, Italian/Spanish 2, Italian/Spanish 3, and Italian/Spanish 4⁹– and even an easy way to find their course catalogue! It just points to how the difference in wealth makes for added care and dedication to the pursuit of foreign language education, which those in public schools lack. 

What can be done to bridge this gap and fix this issue of language inequality in schools? When a problem is perpetuated for so long, it can be hard to fix. Ways to begin solving this issue is bypassing the link being the property tax of an area and school funding, dedicating more money or grants to language programs in poorer schools, and even make language a core class. The property taxes of an area decides how much money schools in that area get. However, richer areas most likely have less people who can afford to live there, therefore less kids who need to go to a school, and more money to fund a school. Poorer areas tend to have the majority of the population; more kids, less money to fund the schools, and more schools needed for more kids, so money is spread thin. If this cause and effect could be broken, it would greatly help kids in the poorer areas. Many grants also tend to go towards STEM programs, so why not raise the idea of giving to language programs instead? Additionally, language programs are often core class in many countries outside the U.S. It would put our country on the same standard if we did have them as a core class. Like in Lyiscott’s “Three Ways to Speak English¹⁰”, we could also give more emphasis and recognition to those who already know multiple languages to any extent. She brings to attention how code-switching is a veritable skill that connects many people across a culture, and we should highlight what students may already know about their own languages.

The knowledge of language, as many things come back to, is becoming a measure of wealth rather than skill. It is just a niche of the overall issue of education inequality perpetuating itself. Teachers and students being disengaged in teaching and learning languages does not mean the fault lies with them, it’s a symptom of the reasons above. It is just a continuation of privilege. Administrators have the ability to change this- to make this into a chance for reform and success, and to brighten unprivileged students’ futures. There are 7,159 languages currently spoken today. 7,159 different ways to see the world in a different lens. Public education should give opportunities, not take them away– the engaged, dedicated learning of a second language should be a given right.

Works Cited

“America’s Languages: Investing in Language Education for the 21st Century | American Academy of Arts and Sciences.” Www.amacad.org, www.amacad.org/publication/americas-languages/section/3.

Ethnologue. “How Many Languages Are There in the World?” Ethnologue, 2024, www.ethnologue.com/insights/how-many-languages/.

Ingersoll, Richard M. “Teacher Turnover and Teacher Shortages: An Organizational Analysis.” American Educational Research Journal, vol. 38, no. 3, 2001, pp. 499–534. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3202489. Accessed 10 Nov. 2025.

Ladson-Billings, Gloria. “From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools.” Educational Researcher, vol. 35, no. 7, 2006, pp. 3–12. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3876731. Accessed 10 Nov. 2025.

Lyiscott, Jamila. “3 Ways to Speak English.” Ted.com, TED Talks, Feb. 2014, www.ted.com/talks/jamila_lyiscott_3_ways_to_speak_english.

Public School Review. “Yonkers High School.” Public School Review, 26 Oct. 2025, www.publicschoolreview.com/yonkers-high-school-profile. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

Pufahl, Ingrid, and Nancy C. Rhodes. “Foreign Language Instruction in U.S. Schools: Results of a National Survey of Elementary and Secondary Schools.” Foreign Language Annals, vol. 44, no. 2, 4 May 2011, pp. 258–288, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1944-9720.2011.01130.x.

 “Iona Preparatory, Westchester’s Premier College-Prep School.” Ionaprep.org, 2025, www.ionaprep.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=64714&type=d&termREC_ID=&pREC_ID=413460. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

 “Language Classes in School Are Useless…” Reddit.com, 2025, www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/16ckhnx/language_classes_in_school_are_useless_and_they/.

“Reddit – the Heart of the Internet.” Reddit.com, 2023, www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/17r3rhu/how_well_is_foreign_language_taught_at_your/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

1. Ethnologue. “How Many Languages Are There in the World?” Ethnologue, 2024, www.ethnologue.com/insights/how-many-languages/. ↩︎
2. Pufahl, Ingrid, and Nancy C. Rhodes. “Foreign Language Instruction in U.S. Schools: Results of a National Survey of Elementary and Secondary Schools.” Foreign Language Annals, vol. 44, no. 2, 4 May 2011, pp. 258–288, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1944-9720.2011.01130.x. ↩︎
3. Ladson-Billings, Gloria. “From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools.” Educational Researcher, vol. 35, no. 7, 2006, pp. 3–12. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3876731. Accessed 10 Nov. 2025. ↩︎
4. Ingersoll, Richard M. “Teacher Turnover and Teacher Shortages: An Organizational Analysis.” American Educational Research Journal, vol. 38, no. 3, 2001, pp. 499–534. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3202489. Accessed 10 Nov. 2025. ↩︎
5.  “Language Classes in School Are Useless…” Reddit.com, 2025, www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/16ckhnx/language_classes_in_school_are_useless_and_they/. ↩︎
6. “Reddit – the Heart of the Internet.” Reddit.com, 2023, www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/17r3rhu/how_well_is_foreign_language_taught_at_your/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025. ↩︎
7. “America’s Languages: Investing in Language Education for the 21st Century | American Academy of Arts and Sciences.” Www.amacad.org, www.amacad.org/publication/americas-languages/section/3. ↩︎
8. Public School Review. “Yonkers High School.” Public School Review, 26 Oct. 2025, www.publicschoolreview.com/yonkers-high-school-profile. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025. ↩︎
9.  “Iona Preparatory, Westchester’s Premier College-Prep School.” Ionaprep.org, 2025, www.ionaprep.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=64714&type=d&termREC_ID=&pREC_ID=413460. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025. ↩︎
10. Lyiscott, Jamila. “3 Ways to Speak English.” Ted.com, TED Talks, Feb.
    2014, www.ted.com/talks/jamila_lyiscott_3_ways_to_speak_english. ↩︎