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Committee for Economic DevelopmentAn influential group of seventy-five leaders from business and higher education have officially endorsed an effort by the Committee for Economic Development (CED) to improve and expand foreign language education in the United States. They have endorsed the recommendations (below) of the 2006 CED statement, Education for Global Leadership: The Importance of International Studies and Foreign Language Education for U. S. Economic and National Security. The report urges the country to confront the twenty-first century challenges to our economy, our national security, and our education system by increasing the foreign language skills and cultural awareness of our students. It has been disseminated to CED’s broad, national constituency of over 5,000 business leaders, academicians, and community leaders, as well as key public officials within the Administration, the Congress, and State and local governments. Among the recommendations in Education for Global Leadership, CED calls for:
CED has long been a business voice on education reform and globalization. CED Trustees are concerned that the recent trends in these two policy areas may be pulling us in opposite directions – while the education reform movement urges a greater focus on subjects such as reading, science, and mathematics, the globalization of the world’s economies has created a host of new and different demands on our workforce, our citizens, and our students. America’s continued global leadership will depend on students’ abilities to interact with the world community. The Committee for Economic Development is an independent research and policy organization of over 200 business leaders and educators. CED is non-profit, non-partisan, and non-political. Its purpose is to propose policies that bring about steady economic growth at high employment and reasonably stable prices, increased productivity and living standards, greater and more equal opportunity for every citizen, and an improved quality of life for all.
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