Well, you guys could consider using http://ChinesePod.com. We have daily podcasts with manageable lessons in Mandarin, for all levels, so you might be able to participate next year at the bloggerCon in Chinese.
Mandarin is definitely here to stay, but there are a couple of huge obstacles with promoting it in US schools. First of all, it's a hard language to learn - much more challenging than Spanish, for example. Secondly, there are very few trained teachers who could teach it effectively in the US system - importing teachers from China won't do because they teach in a wholly different way.
We believe that the only solution is technology - that's why we set up www.chinesepod.com which uses podcasting and other web 2.0 tools to instruct Mandarin. Check it out if you have time.
How about over-promising AND over-delivering? Obviously this has to be within reason, but under-promising appears to me to be a recipe for setting the bar low. It's only when we really stretch ourselves that we reach our highest potential.