One of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs was an initiative to make education accessible to all students. To accomplish this, he passed the Bilingual Education Act of 1968 through Congress. This bill and its subsequent amendments advanced the goal of providing access to bilingual programs for children of limited means.
The Bilingual Education Act of 1968 was Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1968, and it stipulated that the federal government would provide financial assistance to innovative bilingual programs. Federal funds would be provided for the purposes of developing, implementing, maintaining, and training staff for such programs that served low-income students with limited English-speaking ability (LESA). While this act did not set standards for or require bilingual programs (as all participation was voluntary), it was a starting point for achieving equal educational opportunity.
The first amendment to the act came in 1974. This amendment specified the definition of a bilingual education program as a program that taught both English and another language to allow students to progress effectively through the educational program. Additionally, while the goal of the program was defined to be primarily preparing students to participate in the regular classroom as quickly as possible, there was also some focus on maintaining the native language. Furthermore, the low-income criterion included in the 1968 act was removed so that the programs covered all LESA students. The amendment also mandated the establishment of regional support centers and a national clearinghouse to provide guidance and information to schools, and it stipulated capacity-building efforts aimed at eventually eliminating districts’ needs for federal funding once their programs were established.
The next amendment was in 1978. This amendment expanded the group of eligible students to not just LESA students, but all limited English proficiency (LEP) students. It also excluded native language maintenance efforts from the scope of federal funding, focusing the goals of transitional bilingual education on getting students into the regular English classroom as soon as possible.
The next amendment, presented in 1984, gave more flexibility to states and school districts. Breaking with the 1974 definition of bilingual programs, it allowed up to 4% of funding to go to English as a second language (ESL) programs that did not use the native language. The amendment allowed grants for both transitional bilingual programs, whose goal was to get students off their native languages as fast as possible, and developmental bilingual education programs, whose goal was to develop both languages.
In 1988, the grants for different types of programs were reallocated yet again. Instead of 4%, up to 25% of funds could now go to alternative instructional programs that did not employ the native language, giving schools slightly more flexibility to practice alternatives to transitional bilingual education. The 1988 amendment also allocated 25% of appropriations to teacher training, mandated that Title VII information be distributable in languages that parents could understand, established family English literacy programs, and placed a three-year limit on participation in bilingual tracks.
The last reauthorization of the act happened in 1994. Some changes to the act included new grant categories and priority given to bilingualism programs (as opposed to transitional programs). In 2001, the Bilingual Education Act was renamed the English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement, and Academic Achievement Act under the No Child Left Behind Act. Under NCLB, the focus of bilingual education returned again to English acquisition rather than bilingualism, and three-year caps on program participation were reinstated.
Sources:
https://education.uslegal.com/bilingualism/landmark-legislation/bilingual-education-act-1968/
https://ncela.ed.gov/files/rcd/BE021037/Fall88_6.pdf
http://www.k12academics.com/Federal%20Education%20Legislation/Bilingual%20Education%20Act/amendments-bilingual-education-act#.WsFhztMbNhE
Karina, I thought this post was informative and clear. It seems like a small topic, yet it is quite important in the history of bringing equality of opportunity to Americans, as it starts with education. While researching a bit more, I found that there was a case, Lau v. Nichols, where Chinese students sued the San Francisco Unified School District for not providing adequate materials for non-English speaking students. The schools argued that they provided equal materials to all students and therefore were not in the wrong, but the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, citing the Civil Rights Act in their opinion. It was one of the most important cases for bilingual legislation and education in the US. It did not establish a bilingual program, however, and individual school districts were responsible for taking action on their own.
ReplyDeletehttp://education.findlaw.com/discrimination-harassment-at-school/bilingual-education-cases-and-laws.html
Karina, this was a very well written and informative post. This post, coupled with your speech from English, really opened my eyes to the importance of multiple languages in the classroom. While reading this post and all of the amendments that have been made to the original act I was curious about your opinion regarding the amendments. Do you think that an ESL program is more beneficial and effective for integrating non-english speakers into the schools or do you think that a bilingual/trilingual program does a better job. I really enjoyed your post and hope that either through ESL or a bilingual program people in the United States will all be able to communicate effectively in the classroom. Thanks for such an interesting post!
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