The House Appropriations Subcommittee is poised to consider funding levels for key language education programs, particularly the six-year old World Language Advancement and Readiness (WLARA) grants, when it marks-up its version of FY27 Defense Appropriations on June 11th. The full Committee is slated to vote on this measure on June 24th.Since 2021, WLARA has provided multi-year grants to military-connected school districts (those with at least one JROTC program) and DODEA schools to establish, improve, or expand innovative programs in world language learning. To date, DoDEA has awarded more than $78.8 million in grants to 33 public school districts, spread across 19 states. Languages represented by the awards include American Sign Language (ASL), French, German, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish.
With the House being so supportive of WLARA in years past, including last year when it restored $5 million in funding cuts, this bill represents an excellent opportunity to obtain a funding increase for this critical program. Help us secure the largest WLARA funding level ever by writing to Congress today and extolling the important work that WLARA has done over its first five years of operation. Not only does WLARA support the study of languages critical to national security, research has shown demonstrable academic improvement for students participating in WLARA-funded programs.
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