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Executive Summary
A
pervasive lack of knowledge about foreign cultures and foreign lan-
guages threatens the security of the United States as well as its abil-
ity to compete in the global marketplace and produce an informed
citizenry. The U.S. education system has, in recent years, placed little value
on speaking languages other than English or on understanding cultures
other than one’s own. Although there have been times in the country’s his-
tory when foreign languages were considered as important as mathematics
and science, they have reemerged as a significant concern primarily after
major events that presented immediate and direct threats to the country’s
future. Most recently, the events of September 11, 2001, compelled the
federal government to reflect on the expertise of its personnel and to focus
attention on the need for more and better language skills, particularly in
certain languages considered critical.
It would be shortsighted, however, to limit national attention to the
needs of government alone. Language skills and cultural expertise are also
urgently needed to address economic challenges and the strength of Ameri-
can businesses in an increasingly global marketplace. Professions such as
law, health care, social work, and education call out for an international
dimension that reflects the changed world environment and increasingly
diverse U.S. population. The U.S. education system—from elementary and
secondary school to higher education—needs the capacity to provide the
requisite training. Higher education needs the capacity to serve as a re-
source on the politics, economics, religions, and cultures of countries across
the globe, countries whose positions on the world stage change over time,
often in unpredictable ways. The Title VI and Fulbright-Hays (Title VI/FH)
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INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES
programs are designed to help to serve these broader societal and educa-
tional goals as well as to help respond to specific government needs.
During the most recent reauthorization debates related to the Higher
Education Act, questions were raised about one set of programs that are
designed to help address these needs—the Title VI programs of the Higher
Education Act and the education component of the Fulbright-Hays Act.
In response, at the request of Congress, the U.S. Department of Education
(ED) asked the National Research Council to review the adequacy and
effectiveness of these programs in addressing their statutory missions and
in building the nation’s international and foreign language expertise—par-
ticularly as needed for economic, foreign affairs, and national security pur-
poses—and to provide recommendations to enhance future effectiveness.
The committee was asked to consider eight key areas specified by Congress
in conducting its review. (Box ES-1 presents a list of the eight.)
The Title VI/FH programs were created nearly 50 years ago in response
to concerns raised by the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik and at the time
consisted of three programs: the National Resource Centers (NRC), the
Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships, and International
Research and Studies. As a result of reauthorization every six years, pro-
grams were added to Title VI to address business needs for international
expertise, to improve the programs’ reach to undergraduate education, to
BOX ES-1
Key Areas Identified by Congress
1. Infusing a foreign language and area studies dimension throughout the
education system and across relevant disciplines, including professional
education.
2. Conducting public outreach/dissemination to K-12 and higher education,
media, government, business, and the public.
3. Reducing shortages of foreign language and area experts.
4. Supporting research, education, and training in foreign languages and
international studies, including opportunities for such research, education,
and training overseas.
5. Producing relevant instructional materials that meet accepted scholarly
standards.
6. Advancing uses of new technology in foreign language and international
studies.
7. Addressing business needs for international knowledge and foreign lan-
guage skills.
8. Increasing the numbers of underrepresented minorities in international
service.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
focus on international studies as well as area studies, to create new centers
focused on language support overseas research centers, to advance technol-
ogy use, and to bring individuals from minority groups into international
service professions. Today there are 10 programs under Title VI and 4
programs under Fulbright-Hays. The legislative history of Title VI has
consistently affirmed the connection between language preparation and
area scholarship and has adopted a broad focus on creating globally aware
students in a range of disciplines.
The committee’s review of the programs was hampered by the paucity
of rigorous, reliable information on program performance, particularly
related to the impacts or outcomes of the programs. The performance
measures used by the ED and aggregate annual data reported by grantees
provided insufficient information to judge program performance. Also,
there have been few well-designed program evaluations that systematically
measure outcomes. In reaching our conclusions, the committee relied on the
combined weight of the few program evaluation studies, public testimony,
historical funding data, grantee data, select commissioned analyses, and
a series of site visits to universities that receive Title VI funding. In many
cases, however, the limited evidence available did not support making spe-
cific recommendations related to the specified key areas.
The committee concluded that the Title VI/FH programs have served as
a foundation for internationalization in higher education. Federal funding,
sometimes through the priorities set by the ED for individual competitions,
has served as a catalyst for language or area studies initiatives in higher
education, with a frequent focus on advanced study of less commonly
taught languages. Universities themselves have invested significant resources
beyond those provided by the ED. The programs have built substantial
capacity in the teaching of less commonly taught languages, with Title VI
NRCs across the nation offering instruction in more than 250 less com-
monly taught languages. The programs have also developed instructional
and other materials that are used by academia, K-12 education, and gov-
ernment. Box ES-2 presents the committee’s specific conclusions related
to future program effectiveness as well as with regard to the eight areas
specified by Congress.
Nevertheless, Title VI/FH funding, including staff resources, has not
kept pace with the expansion in the mission of the programs. While many
new programs and objectives have been added since Title VI began, fund-
ing in real dollars has not increased proportionately. Not only is there a
need for additional resources to match the growing mission of Title VI/FH
programs, but there is also a need to expand support for foreign language,
area, and international studies throughout the education system. These
relatively small programs cannot be expected on their own to address the
wide range of needs throughout the entire K-16 education system, as well
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INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES
BOX ES-2
Conclusions Related to Enhancing
Future Program Effectiveness
• ED has not made foreign language and culture a priority and its several programs
appear to be fragmented. There is no apparent department master plan or unifying
strategic vision.
• Given the recognized lack of knowledge about foreign cultures and foreign lan-
guages, additional resources are needed for an integrated and articulated approach
in multiple systems, including K-12, higher education, and business, to help address
this critical shortcoming.
• There is currently no systematic, ongoing process for assessing national needs for
foreign language, area, and international expertise and developing approaches to
address those needs.
• Current efforts to develop language assessments and to effectively apply develop-
ments in technology to language assessment and the support of language instruction
suffer from a dispersion of resources.
• The current data reporting system for Title VI/FH programs (Evaluation of Exchange,
Language, International and Area Studies database [EELIAS]) is inadequate, is diffi-
cult to use and has significant consistency problems as well as a lack of transparency
in the data collected.
• At the present time, limited information is available to rigorously assess the outcomes
and impacts of the Title VI/FH programs, and the nature of the funding (partial fund-
ing of a larger set of activities) makes it difficult to assess outcomes and impacts.
• Sharing successful grant applications could improve future competitions and contrib-
ute to a continual improvement process.
Conclusions Related to the Eight Key Areas
Infusing a foreign language and area studies dimension and conducting outreach
(Key Areas 1 and 2)
• NRC and Language Resource Centers have developed multiple and varied methods
for reaching out to the K-12 system, particularly to current K-12 teachers. Within the
constraints of limited funds, they also attempt to reach out to other audiences.
• The need for teachers with foreign language and international expertise is great.
as those of business, government, and the public. Additional resources are
needed to develop an integrated and articulated approach in multiple sys-
tems, beginning in K-12, to help address this critical shortcoming.
The current administration recently announced the National Security
Language Initiative (NSLI) to increase the nation’s capacity to provide ex-
perts with critical language skills—in languages such as Arabic, Chinese,
Farsi/Dari, Hindi/Urdu and Turkic—determined to be vital to national
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Reducing shortages of foreign language and area experts (Key Area 3)
• The language proficiency of FLAS Fellowships recipients is not at present being
adequately assessed.
• Although overseas study has been shown to increase speaking proficiency, ED’s
policies discourage full-year overseas study by FLAS recipients.
Supporting research, education, and training (Key Area 4)
• The Title VI/FH programs have enhanced the body of knowledge about foreign lan-
guages and area studies.
• The Title VI/FH programs make a significant contribution to the teaching of less com-
monly taught languages in particular.
Producing relevant instructional materials (Key Area 5)
• The Title VI/FH programs develop a variety of instructional and assessment materials,
with many aimed at developing proficiency in less commonly taught languages.
• Although there are no uniform scholarly standards for instructional materials, there
are widely accepted “best practice” approaches to materials development that are
disseminated by professional associations and journals.
Advancing uses of new technology (Key Area 6)
• Title VI/FH programs are using available technologies, such as the Internet and dis-
tance learning, but they could do more to maximize the potential created by current
technologies.
Addressing business needs (Key Area 7)
• The legal requirement for business involvement in Centers for International Business
Education and Research (CIBER) boards provides an appropriate mechanism for
business input into the program to enable it to address business needs. The CIBER
and Business and International Education (BIE) programs appear to act as resources
for the larger business education community, providing resources to business edu-
cation programs that are interested in developing capacity to support teaching and
research on business issues.
• The CIBER has created a network for sharing information and learning from each
others’ experiences that is a model for the other Title VI/FH programs.
Increasing the numbers of underrepresented minorities (Key Area 8)
• The Institute for International Public Policy, designed to increase the representation
of minorities in international service, has so far produced few graduates who entered
international service and would be likely to benefit from a redesign of its program.
However, it should not be the sole Title VI/FH program concerned with increasing
the number of minorities.
security and foreign policy. The initiative draws on evidence suggesting
that mastery of these less commonly taught languages requires many years
of study and that learning should begin at an early age. This initiative
would provide resources for programs at the U.S. Department of State, the
Department of Defense (DoD), the Office of the Director of National Intel-
ligence, and ED, many of them aimed at increasing the number of teachers
of critical languages or increasing the number of young students studying
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INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES
critical languages. Although the initiative has not yet been funded, several
federal agencies have refocused the resources of existing programs toward
these critical languages.
When ED targeted resources toward critical languages under its For-
eign Language Assistance Program (FLAP) (a program complementary to
Title VI/FH that provides resources to elementary and secondary schools),
outside groups expressed concern that such a narrow focus would be det-
rimental to the foreign language field. The critical, strategic world areas,
and the languages people in those areas speak, are not always predictable.
Having the capacity to respond to new and unanticipated challenges re-
quires maintaining capacity in a broad range of languages. The committee
concluded that, while greater infusion of foreign languages and cultural
instruction is vitally needed in K-12 education, too narrow a focus on a
small set of languages in either K-12 or higher education could be detri-
mental to the country.
Although international education has begun to emerge as a concern in
ED, strategic coordination either in the department or with other federal
agencies has not. The Title VI/FH programs are not currently administered
at the executive level at ED; there is no formal mechanism for coordination
across programs; and functions and activities related to foreign languages
and international education are scattered throughout the agency. And un-
like DoD and the State Department, which place responsibility for the
NSLI initiative with a senior executive staff person, ED’s efforts have been
coordinated by a politically appointed adviser to the assistant secretary
for postsecondary education. Finally, ED, as the federal agency with clear
responsibility for education issues, should have a more visible presence in
directing efforts aimed at education, particularly K-12 education.
Recommendation: The Department of Education should consolidate
oversight of its international education and foreign language programs
under an executive-level person who would also provide strategic direc-
tion and consult and coordinate with other federal agencies. The posi-
tion should be one that requires presidential appointment and Senate
confirmation (12.1).
The resources of ED should be coordinated with the resources of other
programs. The Title VI/FH programs play a unique role among the array of
federal programs by focusing on creating a broad infrastructure in higher
education, whereas FLAP provides resources to K-12 education. DoD’s
Defense Language Institute and the State Department’s Foreign Service
Institute are designed to address specific governmental needs for particular
language skills at specific points in time. DoD’s National Security Educa-
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
tion Program targets critical languages and includes a government service
requirement. All relevant federal agencies should have a formal mechanism
to consider the range of national needs for area and international education
and foreign languages and the appropriate balance between maintaining
capacity in a range of languages and areas of the world and responding to
immediate needs. The committee concludes that this is best accomplished
through a regular, publicly available report to Congress.
Recommendation: Congress should require the secretary of education,
in consultation and coordination with the Departments of State and
Defense, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and other
relevant agencies to submit a biennial report outlining national needs
identified in foreign language, area, and international studies, plans for
addressing these needs, and progress made. This report should be made
available to the public (12.2).
To implement this recommendation most effectively, information on
both needs and program accomplishments will need to be improved across
government. For example, one of the primary criticisms directed at the Title
VI/FH programs was that they do not produce graduates with sufficient
levels of language proficiency. ED requires recipients of FLAS Fellowships
and Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad, the primary programs aimed
at advanced language study by individual students, to provide, upon com-
pletion of their fellowship, self-ratings of their proficiency before and after
their fellowship. However, there is no available evidence of the reliability
or validity of these ratings, and the way it is implemented limits its use in
assessing student’s proficiency. If self-assessment is to be maintained, a more
reliable and valid approach should be developed.
Recommendation: The Department of Education should stop using its
current self-assessment approach and develop an alternative approach
to measuring foreign language proficiency with demonstrated reliability
and validity (5.2).
At the same time, demand for proficiency assessment has increased and
is likely to continue to increase, both to demonstrate the language results
of select Title VI/FH programs and to determine the success of a range of
new foreign language initiatives in government and in elementary and sec-
ondary education. Although ED has encouraged the development of other
standardized assessments, these efforts have received limited funding, have
been widely dispersed among the Title VI centers, and have not yet ad-
dressed many of the less commonly taught languages.
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INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES
Similarly, information and communication technology has made signifi-
cant and continual progress; this progress provides unharnessed opportuni-
ties to advance foreign language assessment and instruction. Technology
provides particular opportunities to advance instruction of less commonly
taught languages—languages that are among the strengths of the Title VI/
FH programs and a subset of which are of particular current interest in the
federal government. Investment in research and development that marries
language instruction and assessment efforts with technology would benefit
the range of federal agencies concerned with international education and
foreign languages. It will also require coordinated effort by individuals with
a range of specific areas of expertise.
Recommendation: The federal government should contract for a new
National Foreign Language Assessment and Technology Project. The
initial focus of the project should be on the research and development
needed to design and implement a range of new technology-based meth-
ods for (1) assessing language proficiency and (2) supporting language
instruction through the development of common platforms (12.3).
In general, meaningful data on program performance is lacking. Grant-
ees must report extensive annual information via a web-based reporting
system. However, technical issues with the system design, staffing limita-
tions at ED that affect staff ability to ensure data quality and integrity, and
widely held perceptions by grantees that the system is a burden without
benefit, limit its use. Although the department recognizes many of these is-
sues and has implemented system improvements to address several technical
issues, there is no immediate plan to assess the relevance of performance
measures or to make data fully available to grantees or to the public that
might improve program transparency.
Recommendation: The Department of Education should ensure that
its new data system, the International Resource Information System,
provides greater standardization, allows comparison across years and
across programs, and provides information to all grantees and to the
public (11.1).
In addition, meaningful evaluations of outcomes and impacts are lack-
ing. More rigorous, periodic evaluations are needed to ensure public ac-
countability, inform the process of regular reauthorization, and advance
continued departmental efforts to stimulate internationalization.
Recommendation: The Department of Education should commission
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
independent outcome and impact evaluations of all programs every 4
to 5 years (11.2).
Unlike earlier years, when the Department of Education measured
performance of all 10 Title VI programs using measures based on just
two programs, they now have three measures approved by the Office of
Management and Budget for most of the 10 programs (one has only two
measures). These measures meet federal reporting requirements but appear
to have little buy-in from grantees and capture only isolated aspects of the
program. The measures used for the NRC program, for example, do not
capture outreach activities emphasized by the department nor advanced
language offerings. In general, in the recent past, there has been little ef-
fort to collaborate with universities to specify mutual goals, measures that
address those goals, and promising approaches to best meet goals. Such
collaboration requires the executive-level leadership mentioned earlier and
could build on emerging efforts by program staff to take a broader view
of the program, the collaborative networks developed by grantees of the
largest programs, and the significant expertise that has developed in some
universities. Universities must be ready partners willing to refine and direct
their programs toward mutual goals.
Recommendation: The Department of Education should work with
universities to create a system of continuous improvement for the Title
VI and Fulbright-Hays programs. The system would help develop per-
formance indicators and other improvement tools and should include
networks of similar centers (National Resource Centers, Language
Resource Centers, Centers for International Business Education and Re-
search) and university officials with overall responsibilities in language,
area, and international studies (11.3).
The Title VI/FH programs were created nearly 50 years ago, when the
country’s economic, political, and military challenges were narrower than
they are today. The mission of the programs has continually expanded to
address national needs for internationalization across multiple systems
without a concurrent increase in funding. As the programs face their next
50 years, they must be more closely aligned with other federal resources
to ensure that resources operate in a complementary way and maximize
achievement of multiple goals. They must implement efforts to achieve
specific objectives more effectively (see the full list of recommendations
in Box ES-3), must be held more accountable for performance via col-
laborative mechanisms between universities and ED, and must harness the
opportunities and challenges presented by a world increasingly dominated
by technology.
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0 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES
BOX ES-3
All Recommendations*
Recommendation 4.1: The Department of Education should increase incentives in the
application process for National Resource Centers and Language Resource Centers to
collaborate with schools or colleges of education on their campuses in the development
of curriculum, the design of instructional materials, and teacher education.
Recommendation 5.1: The Department of Education should modify its policy guide-
lines to encourage overseas study by Foreign Language and Area Studies fellows.
Recommendation 5.2: The Department of Education should stop using its current
self-assessment approach and develop an alternative approach to measuring foreign
language proficiency with demonstrated reliability and validity.
Recommendation 10.1: The Institute for International Public Policy should redesign
its activities in order to increase graduation rates and facilitate entry in careers in
international service.
Recommendation 10.2: The Department of Education should encourage Title VI and
Fulbright-Hays grantees to actively recruit minority members.
Recommendation 11.1: The Department of Education should ensure that its new data
system, the International Resource Information System, provides greater standardiza-
tion, allows comparison across years and across programs, and provides information
to all grantees and to the public.
*The recommendation number refers to the chapter in which the recommendation appears
and the number of recommendations in that chapter.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Recommendation 11.2: The Department of Education should commission indepen-
dent outcome and impact evaluations of all programs every 4 to 5 years.
Recommendation 11.3: The Department of Education should work with universities
to create a system of continuous improvement for the Title VI and Fulbright-Hays pro-
grams. The system would help develop performance indicators and other improvement
tools and should include networks of similar centers (National Resource Centers, Lan-
guage Resource Centers, Centers for International Business Education and Research)
and university officials with overall responsibilities in language, area, and international
studies.
Recommendation 11.4: The Department of Education should make its award selec-
tion process more transparent, including making successful applications publicly avail-
able via the Internet.
Recommendation 12.1: The Department of Education should consolidate oversight
of its international education and foreign language programs under an executive-level
person who would also provide strategic direction and consult and coordinate with other
federal agencies. The position should be one that requires presidential appointment
and Senate confirmation.
Recommendation 12.2: Congress should require the secretary of education, in con-
sultation and coordination with the Departments of State and Defense, the Office of
the Director of National Intelligence, and other relevant agencies to submit a biennial
report outlining national needs identified in foreign language, area, and international
studies, plans for addressing these needs, and progress made. This report should be
made available to the public.
Recommendation 12.3: The federal government should contract for a new National
Foreign Language Assessment and Technology Project. The initial focus of the project
should be on the research and development needed to design and implement a range
of new technology-based methods for (1) assessing language proficiency and (2) sup-
porting language instruction through the development of common platforms.
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