Bilingual Education Policies Timeline

By Brit0819
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    Bilingual Education Policies Timeline

    *All dates beginning with January 1st are correct only in year. January 1st is used consistently for events where specfic dates were not located within sources.
    Brittany Sheldon
    EDU 6110

  • Civil Rights Act

    Title VI of this law prohibits discrimination, “on the basis of race, sex, or national origin by recipients of government (National, 2014).” The benefit of this law is that it included public schools, meaning that schools needed to provide education for all learners, regardless of background or language (National, 2014). In Lau v. Nichols decision, Title VI was the legal basis that led to the decision made for the case (National, 2014). While this act led to many benefits, its drawback is that i

  • Bilingual Education Act

    This law recognized bilingual education is the best means in providing learning opportunities for ELLs (National, 2014). This model was and is preferred over the “sink or swim” method of linguistic instruction (National, 2014). It lasted for thirty-four years and several reauthorizations (National, 2014). The negative aspect of this act is that it was repealed and replace by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (National, 2014).

  • Lau V. Nichols 1974

    This decision defined the legal responsibilities that schools have in educating ELLs (U.S. Lau, 2014). It determined that while students were being provided with an equal education compared to their peers, it was not fair based on the instruction they received (U.S. Lau, 2014). They were not instructed in a manner that allowed them to learn and they were denied fair education because their language support needs were not met (U.S. Lau, 2014). This decision has not had an easy job in making sure

  • Lau Remedies 1975

    These remedies resulted from the Lau V. Nichols decision of 1974 (U.S. Lau, 2014). They included the expansion of Title VI enforcement through the provision of OCR guidelines (U.S. Lau, 2014). These guidelines laid out procedures for identifying language minority students and assessing their English language proficiency to help decipher instructional action (U.S. Lau, 2014). However, they were reworked in 1980 after being found too ambiguous in a court decision (U.S. Lau, 2014).

  • Proposed Lau Remedies, 1980

    These remedies were a revision of the original Lau Remedies of 1975 (U.S. Lau, 2014). They were reworked after a court decision questioned how they could effectively be enforced (U.S. Lau, 2014). The reworked remedies included specified identification and assessment procedures and proposed alternative methods of instruction for LEPs (U.S. Lau, 2014). The downside of these updated remedies is that they were considered to specific, whereas previously they were found too ambiguous, and they were wi

  • Castañeda V. Pickard, 1981

    In this decision, a school district in Texas was charged with violation of language minority students’ basic rights under the Equal Opportunities Act of 1974 (U.S. Guidance, 2014). The result of this decision resulted in a three part test to evaluate the programs serving ELLs (LEPs) (U.S. Guidance, 2014). These include 1) the school program must be based on “sound educational theory,” 2) the program must have adequate resources and personnel to run effectively, 3) the program must be deemed effe

  • Plyler V. Doe

    This decision resulted in the rights of undocumented immigrants to free public education through the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (U.S., 2011). This decision struck down California’s Proposition 187 which put provisions into place to slow down illegal immigration. It required school personnel to report to law enforcement if parents and/or their children could not prove their legal immigration or nationality status in the United States (U.S., 2011). Unfortunately, this court decision i

  • Bilingual Education Act, 1994

    The final reauthorization of the 1968 act (National, 2014). It was named Title VII and promoted educational excellence in school districts by directly awarding them with grants for serving ELLs (National, 2014). It also encouraged professional development at the undergraduate and graduate levels (National, 2014). Negatively, the reauthorization brought up questions of the validity of bilingual education versus “sink or swim” method of language acquisition and led to the English Only initiative (

  • Proposition 227 1998

    Ron Unz headed the English Only Initiative that this proposition was a part of (National, 2014). The idea behind the proposition was to benefit bilingual learners by not “confusing” them with acquiring two languages, but instead requiring English only (National, 2014). The initiative was adopted by several states. Unfortunately, the intended “benefit” of this initiative actually had a negative effect on bilingual learners (National, 2014). It mandated English only on almost all English Language

  • No Child Left Behind, 2002

    NCLB replaced the Bilingual Education Act of 1968 (National, 2014). The benefits of this act is that, impartially, it neither encourages nor prohibits bilingual education and includes bilingual students as a part of the accountability system to make schools pay attention to this students (National, 2014). Negatively, it strikes all references of bilingual education, bilingualism, and biliteracy from federal law and redistribution of funds is based on per capita instead of the program quality (Na

  • ESEA, 2011

    This was the reauthorization of NCLB that included measures to get relieve from the provisions that NCLB had required (National, 2014). NCLB left many schools struggling due to not making AYP (National, 2014). The reauthorization provides means for some relief but, “only if they are transitioning students, teachers, and schools to a system aligned with college- and career-ready standards for all students, developing differentiated accountability systems, and undertaking reforms to support effect

  • DREAM Act, Illinois 2011

    The biggest benefit of the DREAM Act, should it go into effect, would be that illegal immigrants could qualify for government aid for collegiate tuition (National, 2014). This is a huge step toward the realization that bilingual education and support is needed not only at the elementary level, but also in and throughout the entire education of a student (National, 2014). Unfortunately, the negative effect is that it has not yet been passed in all states (National, 2014).

  • Little DREAMers Amendment, proposed 2013

    This amendment to the DREAM Act would extend the 5-year path to citizenship to young (those under 16) students (National, 2014). This would result in students who are not currently covered in the DREAM Act to become contributing U.S. citizens and gain the benefits of U.S. citizenship, as well (National, 2014). An estimation of 630,000 children would benefit from it. This would help to ensure that more students could qualify for tuition grants and scholarships for higher education (National, 201

  • -Public Act 97-0915 Amendment, Illinois 2013

    This law makes the Illinois Advisory Council for Bilingual Education responsible for fostering “parent academies” and cultural programs for immigrants (Illinois, 2014). The purpose for these programs is to help parents learn about the U.S. and Illinois education system, strategies that can be used to help their students with homework, and provide workshops that cover a variety of topics from school safety to home life and nutrition (Latino, 2013). This is a big step toward addressing the social

  • Native American Language Act 1990

    This legislation required the federal government to support the preservation and revitalization of indigenous languages in the United States (National, 2014). This policy supports the ideals and purposes behind bilingual education (National, 2014). However, it failed to designate enough funds for this requirement to be met and therefore left program efforts lacking and under-funded (National, 2014).