Almost a year ago, the Illinois General Assembly passed an education bill sponsored by the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus during the Lame Duck session that includes three new course requirements needed for graduation from Illinois high schools. The area of studies in House Bill 2170, Amendment 3, which was introduced by Sen. Kimberly Lightford, D-Maywood, includes two years of foreign language classes and two in laboratory science course work.
The new law gives schools until the 2024-2025 school year to offer the required science lab classes and gives districts until the 2028-2029 school year to begin their foreign language instructions. Both laboratory science and a foreign language will be required for high school graduation. There was some discussion that dates for the language requirement could be pushed forward as early as 2024.
The seemingly popular rationale for the change was the University of Illinois requires two years of a foreign language for admission. That's all well and good, but the bulk of in-state college-bound students won't be going to the U of I.
Checking around the state, students don't need a language class to get into other state schools.
Illinois State University gives applicants a choice of two years of one foreign language or two years of fine arts classes. High school foreign language is not a requirement for admissions at Western Illinois University. Students can have two years of art, film, music, speech, theatre, journalism, religion, philosophy, and vocational education on their transcript instead. Southern Illinois University mirrors WIU's requirements with art, music, or vocational education. If a foreign language is taken, both WIU and SIU say applicants must complete two semesters of the same language.
Some members of the Illinois State Board of Education pushed back against the new requirements, as they should have, particularly the one on foreign language.
If the law and policymakers really wanted more students to attend Illinois' flagship university, they should pass a bill abolishing it as an entrance requirement. The University's entrance requirement could simply match those of the other state-funded higher education institutions.
Then again, the lack of foreign language education could make most Illinois students undesirable in several career fields.
Instead, the ISBE and state lawmakers need to require language learning at a much earlier in the educational cycle where research shows when language acquisition is much easier.
"What's the best time to teach a foreign language? It is not high school," Board member Christine Benson told NPR. "What’s the second worst time to teach a foreign language? It’s junior high. [Lawmakers] did no research on this, they just added it on."
She is right: High school or junior high is not the best time to learn a foreign language. The only reason to require students to take two years of foreign language in high school is to inflict unnecessary academic torture. For many students around the state, their first exposure to another language other than English is in their first high school language class.
In Russia, Norway and Japan, learning a second language, usually English, is mandatory in the 5th grade. The same is true in Germany and Japan. In Switzerland, after starting German or French two years earlier in the 3rd grade, 5th grade students also start learning the English language.
The U.S. with Illinois leading the way should match the educational standards in other industrialized nations. Studying a second or third language earlier in their academic career will enable them as adults to meet the challenges in international business, national defense, and world politics to make America great again.
That the president’s judgement is suspect is not a debatable proposition. His "open-borders" policy is hugely unpopular and presumptively unconstitutional under Article IV, Section 4 that protects the states "against invasion." The administration has effectively ceded control of the southern border to the Mexican cartels.
The litany of disastrous policy decisions by this administration defies comprehension.
These include an ill-fated retreat from Afghanistan that left hundreds of Americans stranded and thirteen military service personnel dead, a proposal to eliminate cash bail to promote gender-equity, shutting down domestic pipelines while pleading with OPEC to increase oil supplies, propagating the highest inflation in almost four decades, and consideration of reparations payments of up to $450,000 per family member separated upon illegally crossing the southern border.
By comparison, the families of U.S. military service personnel killed in action receive only $100,000. The president ordered vaccine mandates that have effectively ended the careers of military personnel while placing the livelihoods of countless Americans in jeopardy. The courts may be the only hope for restoring rationality.
We have lost credibility on the world stage. Our allies no longer trust us and our adversaries no longer fear us. This is what an existential threat looks like.
The president can be removed from office upon impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate under Article I, Sections 2 and 3 of the Constitution. In Federalist 65, Alexander Hamilton admonished that the problem with impeachment is that it is more political than judicious. "[T]here will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt." Mr. Hamilton was prescient. History confirms that an act by the president may be impeachable when the other political party controls both houses of Congress, but not otherwise.
The problem is that while the Congress can remove a president, though it has never done so, it cannot remove the administration that a cognitively impaired president installed. An implicit assumption in the Constitution is that the president is sufficiently competent to choose a vice-president and cabinet secretaries capable of governing in his absence. If this is not the case, the removal of the president would fall short of restoring competent governance to the executive branch.
An alternative that merits serious consideration is a constitutional amendment (or supplement to the 25th amendment) that would collectively remove the president, the vice-president and the cabinet with a vote of no confidence. The process is similar to that in a parliamentary system except that it would be decided by the electorate rather than legislators. A stipulated percentage of eligible voters would sign a petition in support of the vote of no confidence. The threshold number of signatures would be set at a high level out of deference to the office and recognition that this option should be reserved for only the most egregious cases of administration ineptitude. Once the threshold is reached and the signatures authenticated a new election would be held.
Lest this proposal be dismissed as too extreme, that removing the president would suffice, we need only consider the country’s prospects over the next 3 years under the leadership of President Kamala Harris.
Quod Erat Demonstradum.
