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Meyer v. Nebraska
A court ruling that gave states the power to decide what language is used in public schools. If the parents choose, they could have their children in classes to enhance and encourage bilingualism, but this right would be executed at their own accord. -
Farrington v. Tokushige
Similar to Meyer v. Nebraska, this court ruling further ensured state's power to choose what language is used for standard instruction in the public schools. Parents' and students' right to participate in native language classes aside from mandated school instruction was further protected. -
Brown v. The Board
This explicitly made it illegal to completely separate ELLs throughout education from standard classrooms under the false excuse that it was to benefit their learning. This ruling also mandates that all students must be given "equal education opportunities", regardless of race or ethnicity. -
Elementary and Secondary Education Act
This is the first federal policy that had specific funds, policies, and procedures that target low income families in regards to education. This was made as an initiative during the Civil Rights Movement and Johnson's War on Poverty. It was geared towards helping minority students and their families. -
Title VII Bilingual Education Act
This started as a bill to support bilingual education systems and turned into an act through the ESEA to provide grants to school districts and eligible entities. It was reauthorized six time and held until 2002. -
Equal Education Opportunities Act (EEOA)
This act specifically states that children can not be discriminated in educational endeavors due to their gender, race, color, sex, or national origin. It also demands that all states take appropriate measures to create a fair environment for all students despite language barriers. The Lau Remedies were taken into federal law through this act. It was later stated that this Act still did not mandate bilingual education, just that curriculum is made fair. -
Lau v. Nichols
This was the result of Chinese American students being immersed in classrooms without differentiated learning plans to assist in transition. This led to the Lau Remedies, which required districts to give bilingual education programs for ELLs. This helped distinguished that giving the same work to all is not fair due to language skills needed to have the same ability to complete work. -
Castaneda v. Pickard
Though the court did not rule in favor of Castaneda, this case did produce a three part test in order to check if schools are meeting the standards stipulated in the EEOA for ELL students. This brought attention and a form of accountability to whether schools are following EEOA policy. -
Plyler v. Doe
This case ruled that undocumented children have the right to public education. This changed the policy from the school having a choice to exclude undocumented kids, into the school being mandated to accept these children. This case made policy makers see the larger picture and greater good in educating all children. -
No Child Left Behind Act
This was Bush's reauthorization of the ESEA. This took away mention of bilingualism and replaced it with "language instruction education programs". Title III requires schools to teach according to state standards for English proficiency, without mention of specific differentiation for ELs. This took away previous recognition to the benefits that diverse cultural and bilingualism have to offer. This act tried to yet again achieve fairness through standardization rather than differentiation. -
Title I (NCLB)
Under the No Child Left Behind Act, Act I requires states to create standardized achievement tests. Though this was in effort to ensure children are receiving equal education, it does not take into account ELs, resulting in inaccurate test results. Schools with large populations of Els were failing test standards, though all states were supposed to implement tests, and have passing scores by 2014. -
Elementary and Secondary Education Act Flexibility
Schools were widely failing to meet testing standards. This act was created to allow schools with a large population of ELs to submit an alternative plan for accountability of EL achievement. This made matters worse at first by having schools then group ELs with at risk or learning disabled children, which led to further review from the U.S Department of Education. As a result, steps and guidelines for how to meet the educational needs of ELs were created by the American Institute for Research -
English Language Proficiency Assessment Consortia
World Class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) along with the Center for Applied Linguistics, created Assessing Comprehension and Communication from State to State (ACCESS), an assessment test to measure English proficiency, leading to a further revision test, ELPA21. -
Race to the Top (RTTT)
Obama gave 4$ billion to states in order to start education reforms, but the emphasis still rested on test scores. Emphasis on test scores still leaves ELs, and schools that are largely populated with ELs, at a disadvantage under this initiative. -
Common Core State Standards Initiative
This is a state led effort that is not to be considered a national curriculum, but one that is optional to meet standards for RTTT grants, or ESEA flexibility. It was created to be what collaborators considered as essential knowledge and skills. It does not have specific instruction in regards to ELLs, but does contain language standards to help grow "language skills of all students". However, California produces Common Core in Spanish. -
Seal of Bilaterally
California was the first state to recognize bilingual skills on high school diplomas, giving significance and attention to the significance of being bilingual. Their recognition of bilingualism shows their appreciation of it, rather than their rejection of it.