A Failure to Communicate.

The article focuses on the lack of graduates in the U.S. who are not fluent in "critical languages." Since the 2001 terrorist attacks, colleges have been struggling to respond to demands from the government, businesses and students for more teaching of the Arabic, Mandarin and Persian languages. The federally funded National Flagship Language Program was created in an effort to meet the demands. Another approach is intensive language instruction in grade school which hopes to produce high-school graduates ready to enter college with the language skills equal or higher than those who have finished a foreign language undergraduate degree.