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Meyer v Nebraska
In the first U.S. Supreme Court case to address foreign-language programs in America, the court took back a law that forbade public and private schools from offering educational instruction in any language other than English. This ruling to overturn the previous law was the door to any and all bilingual educational programs. -
Civil Rights Act: Title VI
The Civil Rights Act Title VI protects people from discrimination based upon race, nation of origin, or skin color. It meant that no one could be denied the benefits of federal funding due to one of their aforementioned traits. In schools, it meant that students couldn’t be discriminated upon in admission, academic programs, grading, athletics, discipline, et cetera. -
Bilingual Education Act
The Bilingual Education act established a federal policy for bilingual education. The court recognized the unique educational needs for English language learners. In it, the government promised to provide financial assistance to bilingual programs. The funding was to go towards the development of these programs, training for teachers, and long term maintenance of the programs. -
United States v Texas
In the case of the United States v Texas, the court ruled that all school districts in Texas are required to create a plan and implement language programs to help Mexican American students learn English and acclimate to the culture of America. It also stated that there needs to be programs for native English speakers to learn Spanish. -
San Antonio Independent School District v Rodriguez
The San Antonio Independent School District v Rodriguez speculated upon the school district’s financing. It was pointed out that due to their system of gaining school funding by local tax, schools with more minority students were funded less than schools which contained mostly European students. In the end, the court ruled that the school district was not breaking any constitutional rights. -
Lau v. Nichols
The Lau family, a family of native Chinese speakers, claimed that identical instruction is not the same as equal education. If a non-native English speaker received the exact same instruction as a native English speaker, the ESL student was automatically set at a disadvantage and denied a meaningful education. The Lau family won the case and the Supreme Court mandated that all schools must provide additional instruction for their English language learners. -
Aspira v New York
In the Aspira v New York court case, a Puerto Rican family argued that school districts should provide transitional language programs for students who are more proficient in Spanish than they are in English. The court agreed and the Aspira Consent Decree was enacted and is still used to this day. -
Rios v Reed
Puerto Rican parents brought forward the issue of the inefficiency and lack of proper bilingual education classes. They argued that the curriculum was focused on English as a second language, rather than bilingual practice. The federal court called for a restructure of the bilingual program by creating clear criterium, requiring teachers to receive the necessary training, and set firm guidelines for school districts to follow. -
United States v State of Texas et al.
School districts in Texas are instructed to phase in mandatory bilingual education programs from kindergarten to 12th grade. They set specific requirements that all schools must meet: three year monitoring cycles, identification of students with limited English proficiency, a language survey for students who enroll, and specifically defined criteria for deciding when a student was ready to leave the program. -
Castaneda v Pichard
In 1981, Mr. Castaneda argued that there was no decisive way to evaluate how efficient a school was at providing English Second Language educational programs. He believed that his children were not being provided the support they needed to overcome their language barriers. From this case came the Castaneda standard, which states that a program must be based in sound theory, implemented with adequate resources and instructors, and should be evaluated often and improved accordingly. -
Plyer v. Doe
There was no law protecting the rights of undocumented students and nothing to stop the schools from denying them enrollment. Some school districts were trying to force undocumented families to pay an additional one thousand dollars in tuition for the “loss of state funding”. In the Plyer v Doe case, the court ruled that denying students of access to education due to immigration status was a direct violation of the 14th amendment. This gave undocumented children the right to education. -
Keyes v School District No. 1
In Keyes v. School District No. 1 the court rejected a Cardenas-like plan on the basis that Lau did not mandate bilingual education and that according to the decision in Rodriguez there is no constitutional right to education. There was speculation that school districts were creating programs for ESL students but not examining their effectiveness. -
Proposition 227
In this case, bilingual education is more or less ended in California. Instead, students are expected to learn in English exclusive classrooms and students are forced into a strictly one year immersion program. Teachers are threatened with fines if they break the English only policy. It has been found to be highly ineffective. -
Y.S. v School District of Philadelphia
In Philadelphia, there was inadequacy in the programs and the training of instructors for Asian American students. The structure was not adapting to the growing Asian culture. ELL Asian American students who didn’t make progress in standard English courses were deemed “mentally retarded” and put into Special Education programs unnecessarily. This case ended that practice and reestablished the importance of annual program reviews. -
No Child Left Behind Act
The No Child Left Behind Act ended the Bilingual Education Act and made it the responsibility of the state to enforce proper ESL education. During this act, the main focus of in the classroom was to acquire English proficiency. One of the biggest criticisms it received was the unrealistic expectancy for ELLs to function at 100% English proficiency.