At a time when many policymakers and business leaders are clamoring for American children to take up the languages of Asia and the Middle East to help buttress the United States' international competitiveness and national security, the policies and resources are as much of a mismatch as the languages that are being taught. More than 90 percent of the nation's secondary schools offer Spanish courses, serving nearly 5 million students, based on a 2000 survey. That may not be so surprising a statistic, given the country's rapidly growing population of Spanish-speakers and the demand in the public and private sectors for professionals who can communicate in that language. Far fewer schools offer French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Russian, in descending order. Only 1 percent give students the option of learning Chinese--20,000 students, more or less--and far fewer have Arabic classes. At this point, few public schools are up to the task of teaching those languages, or any language to the level of proficiency experts say is needed. The languages considered most critical to the nation's economic and security interests are also among the hardest to learn and the least commonly taught, largely because they are "tone" languages, which require learning different pitches for similar words. And few models, materials, or teachers on which to build new offerings are available. This article highlights budding legislative initiatives and the shrinking cohorts, among other factors in describing the pros and cons of the political push for expanded language offerings in schools.