1957: On October 4, 1957, the former Soviet Union launched Sputnik. This shook America's English only philosophy. America was falling behind! National Defense Education Act of 1958 pushed public schools toward foreign languages, mathematics, and science. In an effort to raise the proficiency of foreign language classrooms, promising foreign-language teachers were offered generous fellowships. However, America was still a mono-linguistic country. Foreign language classes were taught again but they were taught separately, outside the everyday class. Foreign language students had to learn english then take a class on their native language rather than having a bilingual classroom were everyone could benefit from learning both languages simultaneously.
1954: Despite the Civil War ending in 1865, it wasn't until 1954's Brown vs Board of Ed. that segregation of race was outlawed. 1960: The Office of Civil Rights was established in the 1960s. The mission of the Office for Civil Rights is to "ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence throughout the nation through vigorous enforcement of civil rights." This office would become prominent in the language issue. 1963: There was a large rise of Cuban immigrants in the early 1960s. Due to the demand to meet the needs of these students, the first large-scale, government-sanctioned, bilingual program was initiated in Dade County, Florida. This “2-way” program was very successful. It became an unofficial model for the nation. Educators from all over the country came to examine the curriculum in an effort to investigate the use of bilingual schooling. 1965: Before 1965, there were no federal policies protecting language minority students. If the individual states had no program to support them they were left to “sink or swim” in the English only curriculum. In 1963 ESEA The Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed. President Linden Johnson, a former teacher himself, believed that equal access to education was vital to a child’s ability to lead a productive life. His law allocated large resources to meet the needs of educationally deprived children, especially through compensatory programs for the poor. 1968: Bilingual Education Act (Title VII) was added to the ESEA. It provided resources for bilingual education. Originally written only for Spanish speaking students, it was changed overtime to include all students who speak a language other than English. This was the birth of the bilingual education movement. 1970: Schools around the country began passing laws encouraging instruction in languages other than English. Many minority parents began filing lawsuits challenging the schools failure to address their children’s language needs. Language minority children had been falling behind and dropping out of school. These lawsuits claimed a new kind of discrimination: unequal opportunities for limited English proficient children. 1974: a suit by Puerto Rican Legal and Educational Fund resulted in a Federal curt order requiring the development of “adequate bilingual programs” that included some instruction in Spanish. That same year Lau vs. Nichols ruled that Lau, and nealy 2000 other Chinese studnets in San Fansisci were being denied “equal educational opportunities” because they could not understand the language the instruction was given in. The court ruled "There is no equality of treatment merely by providing students with the same facilities, textbooks, teachers, and curriculum; for students who do not understand English are effectively foreclosed from any meaningful education. . . .We know that those who do not understand English are certain to find their classroom experiences wholly incomprehensible and in no way meaningful." (Lau v. Nichols, 1974) This effectively banned "sink or swim" type programs and the result was that San Francisco provided bilingual education for the city’s Chinese, Filipino, and Hispanic children. This lead to requirements for all states to offer bilingual classes for students who did not speak English. 1976: Keyes vs. School District no. 1 of Denver, Co. was a case that argued wheather or not bilingual education lead to another type of segregation. This case ruled that it did not. It pointed out that most bilingual programs were in predominately minority schools where if there was segregation, it was a result of economics, not bilingual programs. 1977: The National Clearing House for Bilingual Education was established to provide a national information center for bilingual education. After much research was conducted it was reviled that bilingual schools were successful. 1984: Most of the programs funded by the ESEA were reorganized onto two divisions, Title I and Title II. Title I provided funds for disadvantaged students and migrant education programs and Title II provides block grants under laws such as the Ethnic Heritage Act and Emergency School Aid Act. |