We should make Spanish mandatory in schools and Mexico should make English mandatory in schools.
I'm not sure making Spanish mandatory is the best use of resources. Many students barely speak English as it is, and not just new arrivals. I counted nine grammatical mistakes in a 1990 episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" last night. They pay science advisor Michael Okuda lots of money to review scripts. You might think that they would also have a grammarian on the payroll. There are also foreigners, recent immigrants who do not speak English but who, by law, must be taught in the public schools. Public schools already use their resources to teach them English. There's a boy down the street from Brazil who rides a bus to a public school 30 minutes away, at the district's expense, in order to be taught enough English to matriculate into the local elementary school within a year and stay on grade with his age group. There are also groups large enough to justify classes taught in another language, and the schools hire teachers to teach in that language. Actually, this is common in the US, especially in Spanish-speaking areas. In some cases a majority of students in a school speak some language other than English, and then it makes sense to teach them core subjects in that language. It is precisely the fact that we have no official language that makes this easy enough to do politically. We are, after all, a nation of immigrants who believe that in diversity lies strength, therefore we should expect to burdened with hiring teachers in a multitude of languages. Still, it makes sense also to utilize some resources to prepare them for the English that they will eventually need to understand after they graduate from high school and move beyond their parents' neighborhoods. Official or not, it is the lingua franca. Libertarians say, "let the market decide." Sometimes I agree with that credo. In the subject of the language of commerce I certainly agree. For the moment, the market has decided that mostly English, but with a sprinkling of other languages, is the way to conduct business.
I notice that the local high school where I live has no specific requirement in foreign language. (It has a one-credit requirement in a broad area that includes foreign languages and some other things, but the language is an elective that may or may not be used to satisfy that requirement.) It does offer up to four years of either Chinese, French, German, or Spanish, and one year of Latin.
My own high school had a two-year foreign language requirement. I think we had French, German, Latin, and Spanish as choices. That was many years ago. I looked it up on line and found that Chinese and Arabic have replaced German and Latin as choices. I actually took four years of high-school Spanish, then I went on to take more Spanish courses as a university student, then worked as an English-Spanish interpreter for an ESL program at my university before traveling somewhat extensively throughout Latin America. I think studying Spanish (and English) is wise for those living in the western hemisphere, because with those two languages you can communicate with most of the people of the Americas. I also advise my son to take as much Spanish (and Chinese) as he can fit into his schedule. So far, he hasn't had the opportunity to take any of those classes, but we have taken him to Mexico and to China several times and each time we make him communicate a bit with the locals in order to practice the languages we are trying to teach him.
I've also had numerous conversations with native spanish speakers in Mexico, as well as with people in Peru, Guatemala, etc., regarding learning English. Everyone seems to agree that the more people with whom you can communicate effectively, the greater your economic and social opportunities will be. All advise their own children to learn English, just as we advise ours to learn Spanish (or Chinese or Arabic or whatever), but so many burdens are put upon the students already, and so many unfunded mandates put upon the public educational systems, that making any foreign language required is hard to justify. Also, I have philosophical objections with the schools' increasing propensity to take on the role traditionally assumed by parents. Certain decisions are best made within the families. While it might be a good idea to do something, it should not always be mandated by the state or by the school. Personal and familial responsibility is just as important a concept as language communication, after all, and we should put as much effort into teaching our children to take responsibility as we do into making them learn the arts and sciences.
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