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Washington May Count CS As Foreign Language For College Admission
theodp writes On Wednesday, Washington State held a public hearing on House Bill 1445, which proposes a study "to allow two years of computer sciences to count as two years of world languages for the purposes of admission into a four-year institution of higher education." Among the questions posed by the House Higher Education Committee to a UW rep at the hearing was the following: "What's the case for...not just world language is good, world language is well-rounded, but world language is so super-duper-duper good that you should spend two years of your life doing them and specifically better than something else like coding?" The promise of programming jobs, promoted by Microsoft execs and other MS folks like ex-Program Manager Audrey Sniezek (ironically laid off last summer), has prompted Kentucky to ponder a similar measure.
You're arguing from what you expect, rather than from data.
The number of Americans able to hold a conversation in a foreign language is about 25%. Which is nowhere near "Most Americans".
http://www.gallup.com/poll/182...
This is especially bad since about 17% of Americans are Hispanic. Not all Hispanics are bilingual, of course.
In the UK the bilingual rate is about 38%; in Ireland it's 34%, both higher than the US, despite your claims. Across the EU, it's 56%.
http://www.newscientist.com/ar...
It's understandable that English-speaking countries have lower rates, but even within English-speaking nations, the US is pretty near the bottom.
(Australia is right at the bottom.)
http://yourlanguage.org/resear...