SAN FRANCISCO — In more and more classrooms across the nation, students — from kindergarten on — are learning Mandarin Chinese, in some cases instead of Spanish, French or other languages that have long been more popular in U.S. schools.

It's partly a reflection of how parents increasingly see China's emergence as an economic power as something for which they should prepare their children.

The number of elementary and secondary school students studying Chinese could be as much as 10 times higher than it was seven years ago, says Marty Abbott, a spokeswoman for the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.

When the council surveyed K-12 enrollment in foreign language classes in 2000, there were about 5,000 students of Chinese, Abbott says. The council is collecting new data now, but Abbott says early figures suggest the number of students now studying Chinese has "got to be somewhere around 30,000 to 50,000."

Nationwide, there are Chinese language programs in more than 550 elementary and high schools, a 100 percent increase in two years, according to The Asia Society, an educational group. In May, when the College Board offered Mandarin Advanced Placement exams for the first time, 3,261 high school students took the test.

The Foreign Language Assistance Program of the U.S. Department of Education allocated $6.7 million toward Chinese instruction last year and another $2.4 million in 2007. There also were grants from the Defense Department, State Department and various state government and philanthropic groups.

At the college level, enrollment in Chinese-language classes has increased 51 percent since 2002, according to the Modern Language Association, a language and literature education organization.

Spanish remains far and away the most popular foreign language for U.S. students: It's the choice of 80 percent of those who study a foreign language in America's grade and high schools, Abbott says. French is a distant second, with Latin and German vying for third.

"But I think what's going to surprise everyone in this next survey we do is how close Mandarin is going to come to Latin and German," she says.

"Chinese isn't the new French — it's the new English," says Robert Davis, director of the Chinese-language program in Chicago's public school system, which has 8,000 students studying Mandarin.

"It's not romantic. It's not because you're going to have a great time in Paris," Davis says. "It's very pragmatic."

Mandarin is also something the Defense Department is eager for more Americans to know. The department classifies Mandarin as a "critical foreign language" and in 2007-2008 will put about $10 million into Chinese-language programs. Such funding, which has usually been directed to colleges, is now moving into grade schools.

The rising popularity of Mandarin Chinese has been "incredible" says Cynthia Ning, director of the Chinese Language Teachers Association. She attributes the interest to communist China's economic boom as it emerges from decades of isolation, as well as the U.S. economy's increasing trade with China. China is now the United States' No. 2 trading partner, behind Canada and ahead of Mexico.

"I have a feeling the China focus is not going to go away," Ning says.

The Mandarin trend has spread quickly, Abbott says.

"You might think it's mostly in the high socioeconomic areas, but it's everywhere," she says. "We get calls from urban schools, from New Hampshire, Maine, Iowa. It's really everywhere."

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