Most Americans believe children in the United States should learn a second language, yet fewer than half of the country’s public schools actually offer world language classes, according to a new Pew Research Center report released this week.
Broad support, uneven access
In a survey conducted this spring, Pew asked 3,507 Americans about their attitudes toward language learning, specifically whether it is important for children growing up in the U.S. to learn a language other than English, and which languages they think schools should offer.
The 3,507 adults were surveyed between March 23 and March 29, 2026. Every participant is a member of Pew’s American Trends Panel, designed to represent the full U.S. adult population.
The headline result: most Americans say it is at least somewhat important for U.S. children to learn a language besides English. Four-in-ten Americans, however, say it is extremely or very important. The infrastructure to support that learning remains thin.
More than four-in-ten K-12 public schools (43%) offer world language classes, according to a 2024 School Pulse Panel survey by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). That figure includes 20% of elementary schools and 82% of high schools.
Spanish leads, Mandarin a distant second
Spanish is the world language Americans consider most important for schools to offer, and it is also the most commonly taught, present as an independent class in four-in-ten K-12 public schools, including 79% of public high schools.
When asked which classes schools should prioritize, 53% of adults said it is extremely or very important for schools to offer Spanish, compared with 20% for Mandarin Chinese, 14% for Latin, 13% for French, 11% for Japanese, 10% for German, and 10% for Arabic.
The demand-supply gap is especially pronounced for Mandarin: one-in-five Americans rate it a high priority for schools, yet only 3% of K-12 public schools offer Mandarin or Cantonese as an independent class, according to the 2024 NCES survey.
The findings reflect a broader reality about American language education. European nations have national standards for language study, while the 50 U.S. states each have their own education standards and no uniform language-study requirement exists across the country.
A prior Pew analysis found that a median of 92% of children across Europe study a foreign language in their education, compared with only 20% across the U.S.
Who values language learning most
Support for second-language education is not uniform across the population. Women are slightly more likely than men to say language learning is extremely or very important (42% vs. 38%), and adults with bachelor’s degrees are more likely than those with less education to say this (45% vs. 37%).
Adults who live in urban areas are particularly likely to rate it important at 52%. Suburbanites (40%) are less likely to say this, and Americans who live in rural areas (28%) are the least likely.
Immigrants are also more likely than adults born in the U.S. to say it is important for U.S. children to learn a second language. The pattern suggests that lived multilingual experience shapes attitudes toward formal language instruction.
That finding has direct relevance to districts weighing whether to expand or cut world language programs.
The gap between public enthusiasm and classroom reality puts the debate over how Americans consume and process information in a broader cultural frame: the same adults who say they value communication skills for children are sending those children to schools where the opportunity to build them may not exist.
Researchers note that generational attitudes matter here too. Pew has separately documented how younger generations increasingly shape household decisions, including where and how children are educated.
Policy implications
The Pew analysis looks at Americans’ attitudes toward children in the United States learning a language other than English and the importance of offering different languages in U.S. schools. It expands on Pew’s existing research into views of domestic issues such as language learning in public schools and how they interact with views of foreign policy.
The data arrive as school districts across the country make budget decisions for the coming academic year. With elementary-school language access at just 20% nationally and rural adults showing the least enthusiasm for expanding it, the survey points to both a demand signal and a structural challenge.
Local education boards will need to reconcile that gap without any federal requirement to guide them.
