1. Short title This Act may be cited as the World Language Advancement and Readiness Act of 2019 . 2. Findings Congress finds the following: (1) The national security of the United States continues to depend on language readiness, in particular among the 17 agencies of the intelligence community. (2) The levels of language proficiency required for national security necessitate long sequences of language training for personnel in the intelligence community and the Department of Defense. (3) The future national security and economic well-being of the United States will depend substantially on the ability of its citizens to communicate and compete by knowing the languages and cultures of other countries. (4) The Federal Government has an interest in ensuring that the employees of its departments and agencies with national security responsibilities are prepared to meet the challenges of this changing international environment. (5) The Federal Government also has an interest in taking actions to alleviate the problem of American students being inadequately prepared to meet the challenges posed by increasing global interaction among nations. (6) American elementary schools, secondary schools, colleges, and universities must place a new emphasis on improving the teaching of world languages, area studies, counterproliferation studies, and other international fields to help meet those challenges. (7) The United States needs more people to speak languages other than English in order to provide social and legal services for a changing population. (8) The study of a second language has been linked to improved learning outcomes in other subjects, enhanced cognitive ability, and the development of empathy and effective interpretive skills. The use of a second language has been linked to a delay in certain manifestations of aging. (9) The United States lags behind most nations of the world, including European nations and China, in the percentage of its citizens who have some knowledge of a second language. (10) Native American