A kid takes a French class. Can he speak French afterwards? Can he read/write in French? I guess that's how you'd know if he learned it. Is that a test? I guess so but I'd like to see grades take a backseat to actual learning. Maybe that's a bad position to take.
Language curricula are not any more effective (i.e. pretty terrible) at teaching language than they ever have been. So since these data-driven improvements haven't shown up yet, we shouldn't be worried about risking them.
