Summary: emperical evidence shows that students who were taught Pinyin (romanized, phonetic Chinese writing) were far better off than students who learned with Hanzi characters (the pictograms you're familiar with). Despite this, Chinese written language reform is unlikely to happen due to political pressures from the elites, whose family's positions are secured by the higher barrier to entry to becoming an intellectual. It takes more work to learn Chinese than almost any other language because they want it to.
For this reason, even setting aside the other moral quandries presented by China, I'm against teaching Mandarin in schools. Though, as an optional class for high-school-level children, it makes more sense.
Edit: probably worth clarifying that I study Hanzi characters and I am fluent in Japanese.
http://pinyin.info/readings/defrancis/chinese_writing_reform...
Summary: emperical evidence shows that students who were taught Pinyin (romanized, phonetic Chinese writing) were far better off than students who learned with Hanzi characters (the pictograms you're familiar with). Despite this, Chinese written language reform is unlikely to happen due to political pressures from the elites, whose family's positions are secured by the higher barrier to entry to becoming an intellectual. It takes more work to learn Chinese than almost any other language because they want it to.
For this reason, even setting aside the other moral quandries presented by China, I'm against teaching Mandarin in schools. Though, as an optional class for high-school-level children, it makes more sense.
Edit: probably worth clarifying that I study Hanzi characters and I am fluent in Japanese.