English Language Unity Act
by Robert M. Engstrom
05/06/2009

For millions of Americans, poor English language skills resulted in lost opportunities for higher education, better employment and higher wages, according to a study by the Lexington Institute. Enclaves of isolated non-English speakers live in poverty, while employers struggle to find qualified applicants capable of interacting with coworkers and customers, causing an estimated $65 billion reduction to the nation’s gross domestic product.

In answer to President Obama’s call for investing in a skilled workforce for the future, Rep. Steve King, (R-Iowa), is pressing legislation to declare English the official language of the United States and efforts to scrap multilingual education in favor of English immersion programs in schools and the workplace.

Don Soifer, the institute’s vice president and educational policy researcher, authored the Lexington study which concentrates primarily on the Latino population, He said that despite the multi-millions of dollars spent by the federal and state governments to teach English to non-English speakers, there has been a “broad economic failure by the educational system.â€