Education Policy, Business and Technology

Pitt arts and sciences faculty divided over proposal to eliminate foreign language exemption

Inside Higher Ed: Foreign language study helps high school students gain admission to colleges and universities, but should it also exempt from them from such study once admitted? An ongoing curricular debate at the University of Pittsburgh -- in which about half the faculty seem to want to raise the standard for foreign language study and half want to maintain the status quo -- highlights the role of foreign languages in general education at a public research university.

“Grades and what they mean at different high schools vary immensely, as do standards and practices -- every state certifies its own foreign language teachers in different ways,” said Lina Insana, chair of French and Italian at Pitt. “They’re a totally unreliable measure of what a student has accomplished.”

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