This paper uses a sociohistorical lens to examine complex issues surrounding language-in-education policy in Micronesia. It is motivated by the realization that language policy and practice in this region, like many other parts of the world significantly impacted by outside contact, rarely align. This is especially evident in contexts where demands for English have already established themselves and an increasingly global agenda of schools as a primary support to the process of modernization and marketing of the nation-state is firmly in place. Drawing on an example of language policy review from the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), we consider community expectations through various perspectives of local stakeholders as shared in public discussion of language issues in Pacific education. The review raises difficult questions brought into play when persuasive globalizing forces that stress the need to learn English come in contact with a more context-oriented language agenda at home.