Chapter 1: Proposition 227, Proposition 203, And Question 2 In the Context Of Legal Rights for English Language Learners

By the mid 1970s, legislation and court decisions had built a foundation of significant support for students who were English language learners (ELLs). The Bilingual Education Act (BEA, first enacted in 1968 then reauthorized in 1994 as part of the Improving America’s Schools Act), known as Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), was providing financial assistance for schools to develop dual language approaches to assist ELL students to transition to English fluency, with subject matter mastery and first language fluency along the way. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was requiring school districts to take affirmative steps to make its instructional programs accessible to ELL students. In Lau v. Nichols (1974), the Supreme Court upheld that requirement. Later that year, Congress further codified schools’ obligations to assist ELL students as part of the Equal Educational Opportunities Act (EEOA, 1974). Section 1703(f) required that states take “appropriate action to overcome language barriers that impede equal participation by its students.” Further, individual parents, as well as agencies of the federal government, could use the legal and administrative systems of government to require schools to assist ELLs in overcoming the language barriers that kept them from learning like their English-speaking peers. Perhaps this could have been the beginning of a golden age of bilingual education.