Language instruction at the K-12 level in the United States is not representative of language usage throughout the rest of the world. This means that our military may not be able to respond adequately to future conflicts and that our international economic competitiveness is hindered.
Language instruction in the United States is heavily weighted towards Spanish, and ignores Mandarin (#1), Hindi (#4), Arabic (#5), and other languages.
I propose using existing Education, Commerce, and Military funding to provide a subsidy for language instructor salaries for language instruction at the K-12 level for underrepresented languages being taught in the United States. The amount of the subsidy should be prorated to approximately 50% for an instructor teaching 100 students, a full time load.