BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): There are early 600,000 kids in Florida's K through second grade, almost 100,000 of those are not proficient in English. Yet at least one state senator wants to introduce another language into the mix.

SEN. LESLEY MILLER (D), FLORIDA STATE HOUSE: At that formative age of children, now is the time to get them interested and open their minds to a foreign language. And Spanish being a heavily-spoken language in Florida, we felt that Spanish was the language. TUCKER: Critics decry the move as political correctness gone wild. They note that less than a quarter of the students are Hispanic, while 51 percent are considered minority.

MAURO MUJICA, U.S. ENGLISH: Why Spanish? You know, you have 134 languages spoken in Florida. What about the Russian parents and the Turkish parents and the French parents? Shouldn't it be up to the parents to select the second language for their children?

TUCKER: Local school board members in Charlotte County are left scratching their heads, wondering how they will fit the class into an already full day. And to pay for the program would mean other classes would have to be discontinued.

MIKE RILEY, CHARLOTTE COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT: The options would be the specials, the arts, the music, the PEs. But in Charlotte County those are valuable programs to us.

TUCKER: State education officials say the bill is out of line with their priorities.

JOHN WYNN, COMM., FLORIDA DEPT. OF EDUCATION: It's very important to make sure students whose English is not their native English learn to speak and read in English, because living in Florida and the United States, they're going to have to conduct business in English and throughout their school careers.

TUCKER: In the wake of the uproar over his proposal, Senator Miller says he is changing his bill to eliminate making it mandatory.

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TUCKER: And it is interesting to note that this controversy is happening in Florida, because this is the state, Lou, that passed a bill in 1988 making English the official language. And it passed the Senate and the legislature down there by a vote of 81 percent