Education World – Staff Writer
“A superintendent’s initiative to start a world language program beginning in elementary school has helped students consistently score higher than the district and state test averages. Superintendent Debbi C. Burdick began the world language program in 2008 and integrated learning Spanish and Chinese languages into the elementary school level in her district of Cave Creek USD in Arizona. Years later, students “in the various world language programs have excelled above and beyond district and state averages, pushing the district up in rankings to fifth out of 227 districts in Arizona,” according to an article on DistrictAdministration.com. Burdick says she began brainstorming a world language program in 2006, when the governing board she was working with “wanted every child to have access to learning other languages.” A Spanish immersion program pilot thus began in 2006.”(more)