History/Politics of ELL

Minori Koga
 17 Century
th

• In addition to many Native-American

languages, at least 18 languages were spoken
in the U.S. in the 17th century.

• Bilingualism was common among the working

classes as well as the educated, especially in
the middle colonies of New York,
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.
 18 Century
th

• Benjamin Franklin organized a project to

assimilate German children under the guise of
religious instructions; parents refused to
cooperate (1754)

• U.S. Constitution is ratified, with no official

language provisions (1787)
 Early 19 Century
th

• 1803 Louisiana Purchase

• 1828 Treaty recognized Cherokee language
rights
• 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends the
Mexican-American War, with implicit
guarantee of Spanish language rights in
territory in ceded to U.S.
 1839
Early 19 th Century

• 1839 An Ohio law of 1839 authorized

instruction in English, German, or both in areas
where parents required it.
• 1847 Louisiana adopted the statute, except that
it substituted French for German.
• Altogether more than a dozen states passed
laws that provided for schooling in languages
other than English, either as a subject or a s a
medium of instruction.
 Late 19 Century
th

• The American Protective Association (APA), a

secret society dedicated to anti-Catholic
agitation, led a resurgence of nativism, which
marked the beginning of a gradual decline for
bilingual education.
• 1889 Wisconsin and Illinois adopt English-only
instruction laws aimed at parochial schools
• “new immigrants”
 Early 20 Century
th

• 1906 Congress passed first language legislation

at the federal level, an English-speaking
requirement for naturalization
• 1915 English First project in Detroit requires
foreign-born workers to attend English and
citizenship classes as condition of employment
• An ideological link was forged between
speaking good English and being a “good
American”
 The Rise of Language Restrictionism
• 1917
• U.S. entered WW1
• Campaign to “Americanize” immigrants received
federal support
• States adopted emergency measurement to
restrict German usage
• In the year following the war, 15 states legislated
English as the basic language of instruction
 1930s
• As the cultural deprivation hypothesis gained
hegemony, it naturally fostered assimilationist
models of education. English as a second
language, a methodology developed in the
1930s to meet the needs of foreign diplomats
and university students, was now prescribed
for language-minority children.
• Still, its availability was not widespread.
 Bilingual Education Reborn
• 1963 Two-way bilingual education program
established for Spanish and English speaking
children at Coral Way Elementary School in
Miami
 1960s
• 1964 Civil Rights Act passes Congress; Title 6
prohibits race, sex, and national origin
discrimination in government-funded programs
• 1965 the Elementary and Secondary education
Act (ESEA), which addressed the academic
needs of poor children
• 1968 Bilingual Education Act (Title 7 of ESEA)
became law
 Lau Decision
• The major court decision on the rights of
language-minority students. (1974)
• San Francisco officials signed a consent
agreement to provide bilingual education for the
city’s Chinese, Filipino, and Hispanic children.
• Lau Remedies (1975); required that where
children’s rights had been violated, districts must
provide bilingual education for elementary-
school students who spoke little or no English.
 Contradictions of Title 7
• Title 7 budget $45 million in 1973-74 sponsored
211 school projects in 26 languages
• Transition to English and maintenance of the
native language?
• The American Institutes for Research (AIR)
conclusion on their research on bilingual
education; researchers could find no evidence for
the overall effectiveness of bilingual approaches,
as compared with sink-or-swim instruction.
 English Only
• Official English legislation (23 states)
• 1987 English Plus Information Clearinghouse
(EPIC) was founded
• Congress reauthorized Title 7, diverting up to
25 percent of funding for all-English programs
 Proposition 227
• 1998 California voters adopted Proposition
227, replacing most bilingual programs with
all-English immersion for LEP students
• 2000, 2002 Arizona and Massachusetts
followed
 21 Century
st

• 2002 Bilingual Education Act was repealed and

replaced by No Child Left Behind Act

• No Child Behind Act (NCLB) created a complex new

structure of goals, incentives, and penalties. Each state
is required to develop accountability plans to move all
students to “proficient” levels of achievement in
language arts, mathematics, and science by 2013-14.
• https://youtu.be/WOoA08tUO0A
 2015 〜
• The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)
-requires states to create a uniform process for identifying
English learners, assigning them services and later moving
them out of EL classes and into general education.
-Districts can use growth as a measure of academic
progress for accountability purposes for students’ first
two years in the country.
-A school cannot get a high rating if one of its subgroups
is failing across the board.
• Proposition 58 (2016) repealed bilingual
education restrictions enacted by Proposition
227 in 1998.