Ohio?

In response to "Ohio Language Roadmap for 21st Century Unveiled" (http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,210059.shtml)

Ohio? Seriously? This is one of the three states the U.S. Goverenment picked to help structure the plan for language in America in the 21st century?
Surprisingly, yes.
Even though Ohio is land locked, unlike Oregon and Texas, the other two states selected for the study, they too chaare in a changing language landscape of America. Also results found effective in Ohio can serve as suggestions for othe inland states.
The primary reasons cited on the official website (http://chineseflagship.osu.edu/ohiolanguagesummit/) seem largely based on economic factors, for better trade in this ever globalizig world. Then only later do they move on to concepts of immigration and a changing U.S. demography.
But how much does the international trade reasoning really hold for a state wide language education? Does each member of an English-speaking factory line need to speak the Japanese of the company owning the factory? Do american investors look at percentage of English speakers before building a factory in China?
This is obviously not the case, and to view this as the reasoning behind mass multi-lingual education seems porrly concieved. According to their own statistics, it is quite apparaent that there is no single language they could teach to cover all their international trade. I do feel that it is important for those managing such companies to know or have hired at least one person to the management structure to assist communication in the foreign language, but this can be achieved through better language programs at colleges, or by putting more emphasis on recruiting the foreign nationals already in Ohio colleges. (http://chineseflagship.osu.edu/ohiolanguagesummit/research.html#q13)

Outside of this, the Ohio Language Roadmap had some strong suggestions, involving increasing education, creating cross cultural dialogue, and establishing a center for management of these goals. The better motivation for these recomendations is the growing immigrant population of Ohio, which can be seen as a large trend in the entire country.