With the flap over FLAP funding, Beltway bickering is once again flushing our kids' futures down the proverbial plumbing to score political points today. Every American, especially every parent, who understands the importance of foreign languages and global-mindedness to our collective future needs to be calling their representatives in Congress...

Sam Dillon's front-page New York Times story on December 7 about students in Shanghai trouncing U.S. student scores on the global PISA exam has stirred quite a debate, as it was clearly intended to. Dillon quoted Reagen-era U.S. Department of Education official Chester Finn comparing the score gap...