Nine months after Gov. Sonny Perdue killed the state's model elementary school foreign language program, the idea of teaching Spanish, Chinese and French to 5- and 6-year-olds is being revived by a new, powerful champion.

Senate Majority Leader Tommie Williams, a South Georgia pine straw entrepreneur who speaks Italian, Hebrew and Spanish, is hoping that the state can come up with $20 million to fund foreign language classes in every kindergarten in Georgia.

Williams would like the state to put in another $20 million every year to add another grade to the foreign language program. Eventually, every elementary school grade would include some foreign language instruction.

"The rest of the world teaches a foreign language in the early grades," said Williams, a Republican from Lyons. "It's expensive, but I think it's necessary when we operate in a global environment.

"The Chinese are about to control the world's economy. We had better be prepared to speak their language."

Georgia had a highly touted state-supported foreign language program for more than a decade before this school year. But funding was minimal, and it served just a few dozen elementary schools.

Looking for ways to trim the budget, Perdue proposed wiping out the program several times, only to have lawmakers put the money back into the budget. After lawmakers allocated $1.6 million last spring, Perdue finally killed the program.

The governor noted that the model foreign language program was begun in the 1990s as a pilot, which the state does to see if something officials try in limited test cases should be expanded.

Neither governors nor lawmakers over more than a decade put money into the budget to take the program statewide.

Some lawmakers called doing so too expensive.

So Perdue argued that it was unfair for fewer than 30 elementary schools to have state-funded foreign language when hundreds of other schools went without. He ordered the money allocated for the program to be used to send all schools foreign language materials rather than providing foreign language teachers and full programs to a few dozen schools.

However, neither Perdue nor lawmakers have questioned the need for some foreign language classes in schools.

One of the longtime backers of the old program was House Appropriations Committee Chairman Ben Harbin (R-Evans), who had a school that offered foreign language as part of the state-funded effort.

"We're in a global market. In the past, people grew up in Georgia and never left Georgia," Harbin said. "We are cheating our students of a better education by not helping them learn a foreign language."

Lawmakers who back the teaching of a foreign language in elementary school often repeat facts drilled into them by a persistent group of supporters, including mothers with children in Japanese and French programs who have lobbied them at the Capitol.

Experts say that children pick up other languages much easier in the early grades and that foreign language classes help them in other subjects. Even in high school, students who take foreign language classes generally score much higher than average on the college-entrance SAT.

Corinne Barnes, a curriculum coordinator and French teacher in Douglas County schools, said kindergarten is an optimal time to begin foreign language instruction.

Children are learning some of the basics, and they could be learning them in English as well as in another language. Among other things, it would help them build vocabulary in both languages, she said.

"In kindergarten, you talk about the weather, numbers, geometric shapes, the community," Barnes said. "Every topic that is part of the regular curriculum in kindergarten can be reinforced with the foreign language program.

"With language learning, you teach them to pay attention and grasp the meaning of what they're hearing."

Williams took language classes in school but became fluent in Italian when he moved in with a family in Italy as part of an immersion program.

He has traveled extensively in serving with the Southern Baptist International Mission Board as a missionary to China, Israel and Belize.

Williams said foreign language instruction is vital to the future of Georgia children growing up in an increasingly interconnected world that does business in many tongues.

"It's expensive, but I think it's necessary when we operate in a global environment," Williams said.

Money is, and always has been, the problem in getting a major state-sponsored foreign language program going. When fully funded, the kind of program Williams wants might cost more than $100 million a year.

Senate and House members are battling now whether they will fill holes in the budget for more basic school programs, such as those that fund teachers in English and math.

For instance, the House already has pledged to provide an extra $140 million in next year's budget to make up for "austerity" spending cuts Perdue recommended in the basic allocation for schools.

Harbin said he supports Williams' idea, but "before we fund new programs, we have to make sure we are [fully] funding the education budget," he said. "I am just glad to hear they [in the Senate] are for education."

Barnes said it would be "wonderful" for Georgia elementary schools to be able to offer what schools around the world provide their children: instruction in more than one language.

"In Georgia, sometimes we pay attention to what we can learn from the educational successes in the rest of the world," she said.

"And sometimes we ignore them."